"Bro."
There are many different types of "bro"s that could be shared between the Bukowski twins. There's the Annoyed Sibling "bro", the Heartfelt "bro", the We Just Did Some Cool Mission Shit "bro", and of course-most commonly-the Check This Out "bro".
That last one in particular often led to a lot of the pranks the pair would pull off from time to time.
Nothing too extreme; they were in the military after all. Though, when you're bored on base with no one to bitch to but your twin, some real dumb shit is always bound to go down. Case in point, the following:
"Bro." Konrad elbowed Calvin in the ribs, as one does to get attention.
"What?" Calvin quickly looked to where Konrad was staring off to. A bit into the distance was a couple engineers and pilots. He only really recognized Charles. The engineers would keep to their work division, and no other pilot made as much of an effort to get to know the other soldiers like Charles did.
"You should totally date Charles."
See, it was a wintery day on the base they temporarily set up in Canada. They were still wrapping things up from last week's mission where Charles apparently got the help of two thieves to bring down the entire Toppat Clan. It takes a while to coordinate with foreign establishments to document certain arrests, especially with the ever reclusive and, frankly shady Russian faculty here. Why they sent the rocket to the Wall, he'll never know.
But one thing he DID know was that most of the army went to the local pubs during their breaks, and that a warming pint of cider costed roughly twenty bucks.
He spit out about five bucks at Konrad.
"What?" Calvin coughed, roughly wiping his mouth. Konrad didn't even flinch, likely used to bearing the brunt of Calvin's projectiles. "Why?"
He shrugged. "Cause if you guys ever got married your name'll be Calvin Calvin and that's pretty funny."
Calvin blinked a few times.
Then, it was like the cosmic nebulas opened the fuck up in his eyes, funny bone tickled beyond the plummeting depths of hell, and if you tried really, really hard, you just might hear from the waters of Calvin's subconscious, a little whispering voice saying, "That's fucking rad bro."
"That's fucking rad bro." Never let it be known for Calvin to NOT share whatever spontaneously pops up in his head with no filter whatsoever.
And they shared this Look, which, wasn't necessarily telepathy. But when you have an average relationship with your twin, and you so happen to spend your every waking hour and sleeping bunk with them BEYOND childhood, some cues are guaranteed to be engraved in stone. The current Look they gave each other communicated two things.
One. They weren't REALLY serious about this. About any of their pranks really. It was just a funny thought to them, and Calvin didn't mean to actually date or marry Charles-even if the guy was kinda cute-so really, it was all in aimless moronic fun.
Two. They loved scheming together, and they were going to have a BLAST scheming different strategies for this one.
For instance, they'd have to plan out the build up (build up makes the finale all the more worthwhile of course), figure out which ingenious puns to use, and most importantly, they'd have to get the timing just right...
Charles-no, Henry-no, the entire base wished to know what the fuck was going on.
Because it took everyone within a twenty feet hearing vicinity a minute to gather what the hell just happened before their very eyes.
It had been a normal, balmy day. The entire faction was in a jolly mood, weather being a nice change from the blizzardy parts of Canada they just got back from. A majority of them were in the cafeteria, cause, y'know, lunch.
Charles was just about to reach the table he usually ate at, Henry, Ellie, and a couple other soldiers waving him down, when the double doors to the cafeteria bust open, dramatically revealing the Bukowski bros.
He quirked a brow, raising it higher and higher the more he realized that, hey. Calvin was walking. To him. With intent.
This set off his fight or flight response, but he steeled his will and planted his feet right where they were, because he knew from unfortunate secondhand experience that their shenanigans wouldn't ever end till they were satisfied. And while Henry and Ellie weren't too familiar with the bullcrap the twins would pull off now and again, everybody else was. The whole army was. Hell, probably some civilians too, considering that they'd occasionally upload videos to UTube.
"Hey Calvin?" Wary. Very, very wary was he. Charles spotted Konrad poking his head out from behind a pillar, not at all far off or well concealed, and he internally grimaced. This was going to be a thing, wasn't it.
Calvin reached him and gave what he thought must've been a very subtle wink, what with his overflowing confidence. A fingergun made its way to Charles' chest. By now, they had the entire cafeteria's attention, at which Konrad was- he was recording, oh boy here we go.
A deep breath. "Charles Calvin, I believe you just committed a crime."
About half the audience already connected the dots (Konrad was not even trying to conceal his shit eating grin) and returned to their meals. The rest, were bored.
Charles looked to the ceiling, then back down. "And what may that be Bukowski."
It was too late. He already made it clear from day one that he was gonna be that guy in the military. The friendly superior any of the soldiers could go confide in, crack a beer with, or maybe even befriend. There was no way the twins would shy away from punking him now, and he knew it.
"Theft. See, you just stole my heart." Another wink, and everyone collectively dropped their jaws at the sheer amount of bulging balls this man just displayed.
Did.. did they (because everyone knew the two were joined both at hip and mind) have a death wish? Did they want to go out and flutter away to the afterlife together, and figured the best way to do so was to try and incur Stickmin's wrath? THE Stickmin's wrath? Who, by the way, had front row tickets to this absolute sham of a theatric play.
The guy had only joined the government (bizarrely enough) a couple weeks ago, but he's already very clearly, CLEARLY, staked his claim. It could be assumed that it somehow just wasn't clear enough, but that's hard to believe even for the Bukowski brothers, considering how the last time someone tried to flirt with Charles, somebody ended up with an anvil on their head.
To be fair though, that was a different sort of flirting. Rogers had trapped Charles into a corner, cooing and touching like he were just some stray puppy to be persuaded.
This on the other hand.. this was... well, it was certainly something else.
"Don't." Ellie shook her head out of her own disbelief, restraining Henry's arm from loading up his pistol as he watched the ginger fool obnoxiously waver a bouquet of roses that came out of bloody nowhere in Charles' face.
"We may have gotten pardoned, but I doubt the General's gonna excuse manslaughter of one of his own soldiers."
It took a gargantuan amount of willpower to sheath back the gun.
"That." Henry could not believe this mockery of his life. "That, was my fucking line."
"I know Henry."
"Let me jus-"
"No."
He rubbed his face furiously. Ellie finally let go of his arm, trusting him not to murder.
"You know, this wouldn't be an issue if you asked the dolt out already."
Henry gave her a long, long look. "Dr. Vin-"
"Okay! Jeez. Point is, you gotta go collect your mans out there."
He cemented his face down to the table they were seated at. As much as he wanted to ask him out, he still was hesitant to because.. well, they were co-workers technically. The Triple Threat and all. It was a small, close knit unit. If Charles said no, things were probably going to stay awkward and sad for a while.
"I.. I can't just tell him to back off when we aren't even dating. He's not mine to defend."
Ellie sighed with a roll of her eyes. Henry stuck his tongue out. Like she could talk, refusing to ask a certain recently recruited doctor out for some coffee. "Look, at least help him out okay? I think he's about to die."
Henry nodded reluctantly and made his way over, hoping his twitching fingers wouldn't automatically latch onto the offender's neck like some rabid alien creature. Sure, he wanted to STRANGLE Calvin a bit now, but he was pretty sure killing someone flirting with your crush would make it a little too obvious. So instead, he quickly grabbed Charles' arm and dragged him away, shooting Calvin the meanest stink eye he could manage without Charles noticing. Hoped that maybe, that'd be enough for him to get a hint.
Hope that, as he'll soon find out, would be all in vain.
Konrad was having a blast looking through all the newly added recordings to their "Bukowski Collection", where they add any and all mementos of their practical jokes. Calvin, on the other hand, was having a little less fun.
"Uhh, bro?" He waved a hand in front of Konrad's face. He ignored him.
"What is it?"
"As funny as all this is, I'm.. kinda starting to fear for my life?"
"What do you mean?"
Calvin vaguely gestured to his burnt uniform. "I think, Henry might be a little mad at me..."
Konrad set his phone away, finally a little alarmed from the sudden smoky smell that was his brother's near death escape.
"Whoa, he did that to you?"
"Dunno where he got the flamethrower from but, yeah."
"Why's he so upset with you?"
"I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's because of our prank."
"What, you mean you flirting with Charles?"
"Yep. Don't you think we should, I dunno, lay off by now?"
"Aw man, but we haven't delivered the finale yet! Don't worry, it's coming up soon."
Calvin took out his phone (which was only mildly singed) and checked the date. "Oh yea! It's in a week. Alright cool. But just in case, I'm gonna lighten up on the lines till then. Sorta wanna keep my head."
"Fine, just make sure you're prepared day of."
Henry tried to find out why his near assassination attempts weren't working in fully warding off Calvin's attempts at "flirting" (can he really call it that, when he literally heard the words "Are those space pants? Cause that ass is out of this world!" come out of his mouth?).
He really tried to, but most of the responses he got in return were just nonchalant grunts or an eyeroll. What, were they truly THAT oblivious? Did they genuinely want to look Death in the eye and laugh? Everyday?
Thankfully, it lessened as of late, but he still got tense whenever he spotted either of the twins (it was nigh impossible to tell them apart. Only thing he could pinpoint was that Konrad had a slightly deeper voice, that's it). He's practically developed a reflex against them by now. Making sure to stick with Charles whenever they left their government provided dorms, he'd automatically brandish whatever weapon he had on sight and stare down the twins when possible.
But Henry obviously couldn't be with Charles 24/7. Sometimes he'd be brought on for missions that didn't involve the Triple Threat, no matter how much Charles tried to sway the General to keep them together. It was during one of these away missions that Henry laid forlorn on the couch as Ellie raided his fridge.
"I'm surprised you haven't grown a tail with how much you've been guard dogging Charles the past few weeks."
Henry gave a muffled curse into the cushions. Ellie came round with some snacks, hopping onto the couch.
"Can't believe the flamethrower I snagged you didn't work."
Another groan into the couch, sounding rather suspiciously like "I ran out of fuel".
Ellie nudged Henry's leg with a foot. "Way I see it, there's only two things that can stop em. First, Charles actually hard shutting them down. Which, I don't see happening anytime soon."
Henry looked up at that, misery clear. "I asked him why he doesn't."
"And?"
"Said that he's humoring them. This is apparently a normal thing for them."
"What, flirting with higher up officials?"
"Pranking. He's just..." Henry flopped over, staring at the bumpy white ceiling. He tried not to let it get to him, but doubt tightened his hold whenever he thought about Charles actually reciprocating the efforts. Which, he knew was impossible-Charles told him that he didn't see them that way-but what, fucking, if?
The other day, he saw Charles blush, actually blush, at one of the cheesy lines Calvin used on him! (that may or may not have been the day he used the flamethrower)
Ellie noticed his sudden downtrodden state and kicked at him to get his mind elsewhere. "The SECOND way to stop them.. only way to stop them at this point really, is to go up to them and say that he. Is. Taken. Preferably by you."
"On that day, maybe another agent will finally do the same for this blonde Russian she's obsessed with."
"Don't test me Stickmin." Ellie waved her yogurt spoon threateningly, which worked honestly, because if anyone can murder a man with a yogurt spoon, it'd be her. "If anything, YOU'RE the one who's obsessed here, not me."
And really, Henry couldn't refute that. Especially since the second he got a text from Charles saying that he was done with his mission and back on base, he leapt from the couch to the helicopter drop off spot faster than he's ever sprinted in his goddamn life (and that's coming from somebody who's dodged bullets before).
Despite his best efforts though, he must've somehow been slower than the Bukowski brothers because lo and behold, they were already there at the front of the helicopter Charles hopped out of. A sort of crowd was forming around them, and the closer he got, the more he wished he had just killed the motherfuckers already.
Charles massaged his temples, looking pleadingly onto the onlooking soldiers. Most of them just shrugged, sympathetic, but also fairly amused. He groaned.
The poor pilot just wanted a hot shower, maybe take a load off at the telly, but noo. Guess he was doing this now. Calvin down before him on one knee with the most glee he's seen on his face ever. Konrad, near to tears already, was recording dutifully off to the side.
Calvin took out a small box. Charles wanted to go back in the helicopter and plunge it directly into the ocean.
Meanwhile, Ellie had just managed to reach Henry after he left her in the dust, barely stopping him from combusting then and there. "Henry! Hold it." She panted.
Henry tried to wrest out of her grip, but she could beat him in an arm wrestle in the worst of times, so he gave up and merely glared at her.
"Just wait, okay? Look at what day it is-"
Henry was about to do no such thing. Not when Calvin was literally about to propose to Charles. Which, what? What the actual tits? Did he miss something?!
"Charles!" Calvin's loud announcement rang across the entire base, and Charles had to fight to keep his red face down. "Will you marry me?"
The box opened. A ring pop. At Charles tired expression, Calvin intentionally whispered as loud as someone who's trying to get kicked out of the library, "Ask why!"
Charles closed his eyes, probably in prayer, and then heaved. "Why."
"Because it was always my greatest dream, to be finally known as Mr. Calvin Calvin!"
Some immediate groans and snickers rose up from the crowd, Charles taking a couple seconds before huffing and shaking his head disapprovingly at the twins with a smile. Henry, with the words "I OBJECT" dying on his tongue, felt his entire soul fucking twitch. That. Was the reason? THAT was the reason for all the flirting and near heart attacks he's had for the past several weeks?!
He finally turned to Ellie, who had been holding up her phone with a deadpan face the entire time, and he froze again.
April 1.
April. The. Fucking. First.
That's it.
He burst through the crowd, at which Calvin dropped the ring pop he'd been victoriously sucking on. "Woah- hold on hold on! Don't kill me, it was-it was just a prank bro!"
"Henry!" Charles startled, then quickly hugged him with a grin. "How're ya!"
This was pretty much the only thing stopping Henry from wringing Calvin's neck silly, so he lessened the murder in his eyes a scotch.
Konrad jogged over, pocketing the camera away. "That, was the BEST! God, we got so many awesome clips from that. Charles, thanks for bein such a good spor-"
Now Henry normally hated confronting or talking to anyone he wasn't super close to.
Normally.
"I ought to staple you both to a burning chopper." Henry growled to the twins. "You think that was funny?"
"Wasn't my idea." Calvin waved.
"Hey!"
"Hen, don't worry about it okay? It's fine, I know they only meant it in good fun." Charles tried to placate. Konrad huffed.
"Exactly! Whatever man. Besides, it was funn-" Ohhh fuck it.
"I don't think flirting nonstop with someone who already HAS a boyfriend is funny!" Henry snapped.
..Why... why the fuck was it so silent all of a sudden? Save for Ellie's distant "ho-lee shit", it seemed like everything and everyone went stock still that very second.
Konrad's eyes widened, looking at Charles briefly. Henry dared a glance too. His mouth was slightly ajar, eyes blown wide open, staring at Henry with such an intensity that he was forced to look away.
"I uh, I-I didn't know?" Konrad gulped. "Uhh.. this is kinda awkward."
"If it helps, I'm not actually planning on marrying him." Calvin piped up. Henry narrowed his eyes. "Alright! Alright, sorry, we promise not to do it again."
In a dash, the two did an awkward salute sign-off to Charles then busted their asses on outta there. The crowd, thoroughly entertained now with a week's worth of gossip, began to disperse. And Ellie was-she was fucking recording this too now, god damn everyone.
Now that everything was finally done and over with, Henry was left resolutely staring at the spot the Bukowskis were just at, refusing to look back to Charles.
Ellie, always helpful, chucked a rock at Henry's head.
He shook himself out of it, rubbed the bruise on his head now, and slowly raised his head towards Charles...
...who was blushing.
Like, a lot.
A LOT a lot. Way more than he had ever blushed at one of Calvin's stupid jokes, which maybe Henry shouldn't be focusing on right now or taking pride in, but he did anyway because suck it.
Charles finally cleared his throat. "I, uh.." Another cough. "I don't think I have a boyfriend, right now."
Henry covered his eyes.
He done goofed up now. Now Charles knew and was gonna call him out on lying and prematurely claiming him as his boyfriend and-
"Do you wanna.. um, help me fix that?"
Henry immediately dropped his hands, eyes locked in on Charles' with an indiscernible look.
Charles scratched his head, "I mean, position's open and all." At Henry's ongoing silence (and Ellie searching the ground for another hefty rock) his sheepish smile abruptly dropped. "Oh fuck, uh- unless you were just saying that to make em leave? Then, er, shit-maybe just forget I said an-"
Before Ellie could stone the bloody fuck out of him, Henry snapped out of it, clasping Charles by the wrists because he had no idea where else to hold. "Yes! I mean, no! I-" Henry mentally smacked himself in the head. "I mean... I want to be your boyfriend. Yeah. That. Please."
Charles blew a huge sigh of relief. "Oh man, thank goodness. Got scared I assumed wrong there for a second." He shifted to hold Henry's hands. "So uh.. wanna go get some burgers or something?"
Not trusting himself to say anything else, Henry only nodded. "Cool!" Charles happily led Henry by one hand, greeting Ellie with a cheery "Hiya Ellie!" on the way.
She considered throwing the rock she just found, but figured the poor boy had been through enough and gave him a break. She instead highfived Henry's hand as he stumbled behind Charles like a drunken lamb.
Ellie sometimes doesn't know her own strength, so Henry was pretty sure each individual finger got a bruise now or broke or something. He probably should've been in pain from that, but Henry found that he couldn't care much for his destroyed hand at the moment. Cause right now, his other hand was in Charles', they were dating, and they were about to go get burgers.
Maybe he wouldn't set fire to the twins' hair after all.