Dopamine || Inanimate Insanity AU - 14+ [SFW]

"A Favor"

⠀ ⠀"Stir up some chaos for me."

⠀Test Tube spoke lightly as her hand dropped to her side to turn and look toward Fan, closing her eyes as they both walked into the glowing circular portal with colors of a fading sunset. Once she was through the portal she glanced over to her left to see Balloon, Pickle, and even Bomb playing games together. They all paused their game to look at them, as one was about to speak up Orange Juice came walking in and crossed his arms, smiling.
⠀"You're out huh, Test Tube?" She recoiled at his oh so humorous joke, grabbing Fan's hand and pulling him toward OJ. "Fan's here too. Where do I...sleep exactly?" She asked, questioning him while a stern look was creeping on her face. OJ also shot her a stern look but smiled. "Don't have to be so serious now! You get to room with Microphone."
⠀She bit her tongue and took a deep breath. "Got it." Adjusting her glasses she let go of Fan's hand and walked with OJ to the room. Fan noticed his hand feeling bare as he followed close behind, seeing how the direction they were going was right next to where he and Paintbrush slept.

⠀OJ knocked on the door and watched as it opened, a tall microphone nervously gulped and let them in. "Soooo...hey━" Test Tube held up her hand to stop her from speaking and walked inside to check her sheets, fluffing up her pillow, turning around to nod to OJ. "Thank you, this will suffice..." As much as she wasn't pleased to book a room with Microphone she would have to deal with it on her own. "Whatever you need, just come down and ask. We don't have bells or phone service just yet but we're working on it. Everyone can call each other with their designated number but you cannot call the service downstairs, maybe you'd like to help us out with that soon?"
⠀Test Tube smiled and relaxed her shoulders, she seemed a bit tense and told herself to refrain from causing an outburst of tears, anger... whatever emotion was going to happen as soon as the door was closed. "Sure. I'll see what I can do, please give me some time to speak with my roommate, talk to Fan, and I will be down to help you. Tell Paintbrush I am here as well, I bet they'll be pretty excited to see me." OJ nodded and walked to the door, Fan followed while OJ turned to pull the door shut.

⠀"You think Test Tube is doing alright?" OJ asked in a concerning tone to Fan once they were out from the hallway. "I bet she'll be fine...she really wanted to win for me and Egg but whatever happened to have them vote for her...well I will talk to her later about that one." He tapped a few more times on his phone before bumping into Paintbrush, they caught him right in time by his hand.
⠀"Woah! Fan, you need to watch what's happening in front of you and away from that phone- wait was it completely wiped? What happened to it? No, actually, WHERE WERE YOU!?" They shook their head, ignoring OJ as he silently walked away from the tall one. "Oh well- I went to go see Test Tube and I guess one thing led to another and I ended up dropping my phone and abducted by aliens- i-its a long story." Paintbrush crossed their arms in complete confusion, sighing. "Fine but just- please watch where you are going...is she doing alright?" 

⠀"Again with the same question...I don't know why everyone is so concerned for her I know she'll be just fine, we're best friends and I know her well enough that she'll be just fine." He frowned, holding his phone close and pressing the power button to look at the front screen with Test Tube and Fan holding their little Egg that they loved so much. "I'm going to go downstairs and get a bite to eat, for now, she's booking with Microphone so if you want to speak to them it may be a while, considering how mad Test Tube looked at her it'll be a doozy━ oooh I should write that down actually..."
⠀He spoke to himself, walking off downstairs as Paintbrush turned their heels and opened the door to their own room with Baxter and the small picture frame in the middle with Lightbulb, Marshmallow, and Paintbrush. They smiled and walked over to Baxter. "Well, I hope she wins, Baxter. We have to wait...only a little longer and we'll get to see her don't worry." Paintbrush flopped onto their bed and closed their eyes, moving their arms up and under their head and yawning. "Let's try and go back to bed for a bit more before breakfast, think we should?" They turned to Baxter who was on Fan's bed now and noticed the other blink a couple of times.
⠀"Good idea."

  ⠀Back to where Test Tube had watched the boys shut the door, she turned to Microphone and glared. "We have a lot to talk about now, don't we Microphone." Microphone was looking out the window while sitting on her bed, sighing. "Test Tube, I know what you think I did but it wasn't me. I think I need to tell you something." Test Tube sat on her own bed, crossing her legs and resting her hands on her knees. "I'm listening. I want to hear what your excuse is for what you did to him, for what you did to me." Her glasses seemed to glisten at the rising sun that peaked above the hills from outside. If Microphone could only tell how much Test Tube wanted to get up and punch the ever-living crap of this tall figure she'd known to run. 
  ⠀As Microphone started to explain to Test Tube about Taco and what manipulation she was going through it made it clear to her that it wasn't really her fault. "It's why I eliminated myself, it's why I wanted to leave so badly...the way Knife knew and let us have those moments, he was being a real jerk letting her do that to me." She stopped and shook her head. "No...I was the jerk to myself, I didn't realize what Taco was really doing, I never listened to Knife and he knew that it was going to end this way didn't he."

  ⠀Test Tube hated listening to her rant and was still fed up about the situation but she eased up and jumped down from the bed. "Alright...I get it. You were under a lot of stress and you panicked I can gather that but you still could have done something beforehand to stop Taco from her manipulation...did you learn from your mistake?" 
  ⠀Microphone held onto her shoulders and tightly hugged herself, stifling a few weeping cries that emit from her mouth. "Y-Yeah." Test Tube noticed this and pulled out a handkerchief from Microphone's drawer. "Here, better use this to dry up those tears. We should head down and get something to eat it's been a long day after all. We gotta fix our sleep schedule eventually but for now, we should get something to fill us up and take a nap. Hope they have some sort of coffee downstairs." They both laughed at Test Tube's joke about caffeinated drinks, walking out and waiting for Microphone to calm down, her smile immediately vanishing as she pushed her glasses back and head for downstairs.

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  ⠀As Test Tube walked downstairs to truly see everyone laughing and having a good time she couldn't help but smile back. She's missed them all, but mainly Fan. She walked over to Fan and sat right next to him, Trophy and Cheesy sat on the other side of the table and were talking about Trophy's photography of butterflies. "Test Tube you absolutely missed it! Trophy was taking some photos and got a perfect picture of a Butterfly taking lift off from a flower, it was absolutely amazing!" 
  ⠀"I bet it was, Fan." Test Tube reached below to squeeze at Fan's hand, leaning against him with tired and droopy eyes. She closed them and yawned, drifting off slowly to sleep as she awaited them to keep talking. Fan tensed up, heat rushing to his cheeks as he tried to act casual in front of Trophy and Cheesy, almost immediately they caught on. Cheesy was the first to speak about it.
  ⠀"Woah now! Didn't realize we'd noticed something between you two now. I always thought you two were on paper-thin ice!" He slapped his knee, Trophy grabbing him by the back of his head and slamming him into his bowl of cereal. Test Tube sparked up and blinked rapidly, coughing on her own saliva for a moment before letting go of Fan's hand, her own flushed face caused her to sit up and walk toward the kitchen. "I-I'm going to go get some coffee..."
  ⠀"Eugh...Trophy why would you do that? I think I got some cheerios in my holes..." He fumbled with his milk-dripping face and jumped down from his seat to use the restroom to clean up. "I guess they both weren't a fan of that joke, huh?" He spoke from the hallway, Soap could be heard groaning in a sigh of disgust, a knee slap heard along with a slap from Soap. "Ow!"

⠀Fan and Trophy ended up sharing the rest of the morning with their own stories and forgot about Test Tube and Cheesy entirely. "Woo! Man, the time has passed! You're alright, you know that, Fan?" Fan smiled and stuttered under his breath, his hand moving to his cheek and looking away. "N-No no not really. You know I have always been known to cause a lot of ruckuses. Are you feeling any better from Tissues' sneeze?"
⠀"Yeah, I'm feeling much better don't worry. Do me a favor though and check up on Test Tube, it's been a couple of hours and she went to go get some coffee as she said but she ran away and went upstairs." Fan frowned and turned to the stairs. "A-Alright. I'll go see what she's up to, I bet she's perfectly fine." Trophy watched the other get up and walk away. He turned to look at everyone else. "You all think there's something going on between those two?" Most everyone was playing a big multiplayer game with Pickle, the only person who spoke up was OJ. "Well, I have no idea." He was cleaning up all the plates everyone ate from in the sink, scrubbing away.
⠀"Personally I always thought those two were best of friends, maybe they're more than that?" Trophy only laughed at the mere thought, but it was a nervous one. "That won't be too good, wonder how everyone else would react, now that's a picture I would love to take."

⠀It was close to noon the time Fan had walked upstairs toward Microphone and Test Tube's room, he knocked on the door and heard small snores from the left side of the room. The door slowly creaked open to Test Tube without her glasses on, she was very tired from the long ordeal of fighting that happened barely twelve hours ago and was trying to get some rest. She pulled him into the room and put a finger to her mouth. The room was lit nicely from the sun and peered toward Test Tube's bed, darkness creeping among Microphone's bed that had her sleeping like a baby...mostly. Snores continued to emit from the other room as Test Tube laid down on her bed, a cork was placed directly above her head to stop any liquid from getting on the bed.
⠀"I'm sorry Test Tube, was it a bad time?" He whispered, setting his phone down on the drawer and pulling a hand up to rest on his elbow, pulling his arm close. "No." The single word had piqued his interest, noticing that Test Tube was slowly getting back up. He walked over and let her talk. "Fan, out of everything...as much as I am upset by not winning, I have you here and that's what really matters to me." Fan could feel the same amount of flush reaching his cheeks again, about to speak up but his words wouldn't come out. "T-T-Test Tube...I-I don't. I wish I could. That..." Test Tube leaned over to pull him into a tight hug, chuckling. "Shh...Fan. I-" She stopped herself, reconsidering her words for a moment before relaxing her shoulders once more, leaning away to kiss his forehead. "I love you. Whatever we do now...I want it to be with you."
⠀Fan could not return a single thought, spoken word, or physical movement. He's never felt so stiffened up in his life but after almost a solid moment he finally moved his arms to wrap around Test Tube and hold her close. She hugged him back, sighing. "Please...do me one favor Fan...remind me every day that you love me and I will always be by your side." Fan was a bit taken back but only nodded. All he wanted was to be in her arms, to feel her lips against his face again, all he wanted was her and Test Tube only.


⠀⠀"Favor g-granted, Test Tube..."