The Black Infectious Thingy | Inanimate Insanity AU |

(CH.45) A very comforting coin

\\\CW: SWEARING, MENTIONS OF PANIC ATTACKS\\\
///NICKEL POV///
Man.. this week has been hella weird.
Specially for all of these idiots, I mean.. Shoot, for starters, the fact that every time at lunch or dinner Fan, Mic, OJ, Trophy, Test Tube and even Balloon are nowhere to be seen is so weird..
Theres nothing for them to do anymore, so where the fuck are they?
Ugh. And since now Balloon is such good friends with Test Tube, well, she doesn't let me see him anymore!
All of my fun is completely gone.
I miss being with Balloon..
Don't get me wrong, he's incredibly annoying and all.. but.. even with his annoying voice, he still is funny enough to be kept around.
Which is- pfft.. Ironic coming from me.
I get how he can improve, I understand that he is a new person now, and I know he can be a good one too, and maybe he can be a good friend too...
But I just don't want to be friends with him.
After all, he was a jerk to all of us in season one and got me eliminated in season two, when all I did was try to protect my alliance from him after he hurt us!
So, even if I don't completely dislike him, I think I still have my reasons to not like him either.
He has to prove to me and everyone else that he's really worthy of being forgiven.
And I guess a simple letter made everyone else forgive him, but that's never gonna work on me, haha!
Uh- Anyways.. Test Tube is definitely manipulating him, and not letting him socialize at all.
Heck, he's even further away from becoming friends with me than before any of this started.
Hm.. I wonder how he's doing..
And I wonder how everyone else is doing too!
Specially all of those whom have been kidnapped..
I.. I dont like telling this to anyone but umh.. Agh. What the hell.
I'm not worried. Not at all, okay? I'm just... confused.
Everything is happening all of a sudden, that I can't think clearly anymore..
My thoughts and beliefs are getting so mixed up with all of these new issues.
I don't know what I'm feeling nor thinking at this point.
Gosh..
And.. I think I might want people to like me, but I don't need it.
Nono- Scratch that. I need it but don't want it!
And why do I need it? Because I need to talk with Balloon.
Why??? I need to know what Test Tube is telling him because she is absolutely messing with his stupid head, he is so very gullible and everyone knows this.
Specially stupid scientists such as Test Tube.
And I'm sure that she is gonna play with him and make him be evil or something, it's so suspicious that she was gone for god knows how long and then came back injured, yet apparently, nobody questioned it.
Not only that, but she is avoiding everyone at the hotel and everybody should know how that's suspicious as hell, but it really seems as if I'm the only one who actually notices it.
And no, I'm not jealous of her.
I couldn't care less about her, but it's just so.. weird?
And when exactly did she even start caring for Balloon? She never even knew him.
And then, after that stupid party, she suddenly started caring about him? And now he's what... His friend? Lab partner? Whatever other weird nerd thing he now is?
Ugh.
I should go check up on him, and probably the rest of locked-in their own room weirdos too.
I wonder what the hell is wrong with Trophy, he's the one object I haven't seen for the longest, which i'd usually cherish but given the circumstances, well.. y'know.
I've only seen him twice after the party incident, once getting out of the party, and twice when Cheesy got kidnapped.
Right after that, he just started interrogating everyone in the hotel, and soon enough he got told by OJ to cut it out so he got pissed off at everyone and I haven't seen him since.
Which is sad, he was extremely fun to annoy, haha.
Nah, I'm kidding. Probably.
Anyways.
What was I saying?
Oh right, Balloon.
Hm.. Ah, fuck it. I'm just going to go over and ask to have a private chat with him, why should Test Tube care.
I stood up and out of my bed, going over to the door and giving it a small kick to open it.
If Test Tube tries to stop me from talking to him I will be mad.
I looked at the dark corridors.
Gosh- What time is it? It's so.. dark.
If I had a clock I'd know, but for some reason this hotel doesn't provide us with any.
Talk about helpful.
I guess I know what I'll ask for as a birthday gift then... A clock, or watch.
Or I guess, whatever other thing that can be used to tell the time.
Fuck, I'm getting distracted.
I'm going to go check out how Balloon's doing before anybody, or myself, stops me.
I continued walking throughout the corridors.
I think Test Tube's room was somewhere near the FFF studio? Yeah, probably.
I went past the studio, and through the opposite side of the building, where most of the other rooms are located.
Was it here? I think it was.
Last time I checked she wasn't isolated or anything, not like me at least, lol.
I entered the corridor and started looking to each individual door, but in the distance...
Wh- What the hell.
I could hear the sounds of softly sobbing.
Oh.. I'd recognize those anywhere.
I followed the sound till I found myself looking directly at Balloon.
He was crying, curled up in a ball right outside Test Tube's room.
I kept starring down at him.
Oh fuck- I need to say something- Something funny, to lighten up the mood.
"Woah.. Looks like someone's doing alright" I said, letting out an awkward chuckle.
Too sarcastic, shoot.
"N-Nickle..?" Balloon said, as he lifted his head, his face covered in tears, jeez.
"Dude- What the hell happened to you?" I said, slightly shocked.
"I- Test Tube.. S-She- Uhhh... They-"
"Hey, calm down, jeez." I said, sitting down next to him.
"I- I can't! L-Look I just- I can't- you don't-"
"Balloon. Take a hold on yourself, first take a deep breath and chill out, then you can tell me."
....
I let him sob for a while and patted him on the side with my boot, in a buddy-bump kind of way.
"You better?" I asked him after a while, he nodded.
"Okay, try again."
"A-Alright.. Gosh... How do I even start-"
"What happened that made you be here right now? What did Test Tube do to you?"
"N-Nothing!- At least.. I just- I-I accidentally found out something.. A-And I.."
"Breath in. And tell me about what you found out."
"Test Tube.. She- I j-just.."
"Huh? Balloon, chill. Dont pressure yourself or we'll be here for ages."
"N-Nickel I- I'm. I'm I- I did- I."
"Take your time, calm down."
"S-Sorry I-Im just- I. Im-"
"Ugh.. This is going nowhere Balloon, you're stuttering too much. Take a deep breath, stop talking, and just calm yourself down again."
Balloon nodded for the second time.
"Hey, try this, inhale for 3 seconds and then exhale por another 3, it might help you to at least get yourself to stop hyperventilating."
He did as I said, calmly trying to breath and slowly becoming less and less frantic.
He was getting calmer but then...
"What's going on here?"
Both me and Balloon jumped scared, well, Balloon did it more than me.
Some fucker decided to sneak up on us and scare the hell out of us, ugh. Perfect timing.
"DUDE. WHAT THE FUCK." I said, 'calmly'.
Gosh, Balloon was so close to calming down and this idiot just had to ruin it.
I looked at who it was and realised it was OJ. What a pain.
I looked over to Balloon to see if he felt any better.
He looked over to OJ and immediately turned away, covering himself.
"Oh jeez, Balloon.. what happened?"
Balloon ignored OJ's question and turned to me.
"I-I can't calm down with him here-" He said, whispering to me.
Well, of course he can't. Why can't OJ just mind his own damn business.
Okay, I'll try handling this myself then.
"Can't you see that Balloon doesn't want YOU to be here right now?" I said, standing up and making direct eye contact with OJ.
"Wait- But what happened?" He asked, again.
Is he an actual idiot?
What kind of question is that.
"Oh right, let me just explain to you exactly what happened right after I told you to fucking leave"
"What"
"It's sarcasm, you idiot. Just leave already."
"Oh. Yeah sure, sorry" He said and left.
Balloon took a deep breath.
"Thank you.."
"Yeah well, we will never talk about what happened. Alright?" I said as I looked over to him.
He nodded and stood up.
"Can we uh.. Maybe go somewhere more private? I dont want anyone else to interrupt us.."
"More private? Dude, it's literally super late right now, OJ was the only one that dared to go out for a walk"
"Yeah, but uh... Test Tube is right across this door a-and, umh... y'know?"
"Ugh, fine. My room then, let's go."
He nodded and held onto me as we went through half the hotel to go to my room, because of course it just had to be so far away.
"Hey, Nickel?"
Balloon started talking mid walk, he always enjoys talking for some reason. Even if nobody enjoys his annoying voice.
"What do you want now?"
"..Why is your room so far away from everyone elses?"
"Because they just love me too much to have me close to them, obviously."
"Oh.. right. I think it's the same for me-" He sighed and then inmediately continued talking.
"Gee.. I wonder why they still dislike me that much.."
"Wh- You're joking, right? Are you an idiot? They don't. They treat you better than ever, but you lock yourself with Test Tube and don't ever realize!"
"They do?"
"Of course???? Holy shit, don't tell me that you really are both blind and dumb enough to not notice."
"I guess I just.. ignored it?"
"Probably."
The conversation ended as we kept on silently walking past all of the rooms till we reached mine, which I successfully kicked open.
"Come on in"
"Oh golly.. Do you always open doors like that?"
"No, I use my hands. And stop saying 'golly' and 'gee', it sounds like Test Tube and it's freaking me the hell out."
"Oh. I say that?"
"Yes. Now, get in. I need to know what they did to you, now that you're calmer."
"Oh.. right... I am." He said as he entered my room.
I shut the door close behind me and went over to the bed, jumping on it, and sitting down.
"Okay Balloon, sit down." I said, as I patted the space in front of me on my bed.
"Seeing this space without two beds feels weird, it's so... big!" He said as he sat down right in front of me.
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Onto the point, what happened?"
He took a deep breath and began explaining.
"Well... I was cooking a meal for Fan and Test Tube, and curiosity got the best out of me when I found a bunch of plastic bags in her backpack. They all had different things, but the one I grabbed- oh. WAIT!" He said as he pulled out the plastic bag he had been hiding the whole time.
"Wh-" I tried saying, but he quickly cut me off.
"Okay, so.. This is the one I grabbed, the one that had many different flowers in it.. but they smelled so good, too good. It was very freaky and I decided to keep it, just in case. But then Fan came in and made me freak out, and he- He threatened me! And he said he was going to to tell Test Tube about what I did if I didn't leave them alone for dinner."
"So... you found a bunch of suspicious bags, couldve gotten a few, but instead of that, you got caught and.. left?"
"...Mhm, yeah."
"Dude. And because of Fan? The awkward one? For real? Come on."
"No no- here's the thing. He was actually scary! He wasn't at all how he usually is, he was so confident, jeez- Made me shiver and all.."
"Everything makes you shiver, dumbass."
"Ugh. Please take me seriously, Nickel! This is weird, specially now, think about it- Test Tube and Fan disappear one day, the next day Fan appears as If nothing had happened and assures us that Test Tube had gotten killed by Taco but he somehow managed to escape, then, Lightbulb appears and tells us about the virus weird thing because apparently Test Tube told her about it and sent her to tell everyone else about it too, she disappears along side with Paintbrush, everyone keeps going missing and then suddenly Test Tube appears out of nowhere, without an explanation, and nobody suspects anything? OJ starts locking himself in his office all day, he acts weird, and he also trusts Test Tube with very confidential stuff without even testing her right after she comes back? There must be something they aren't telling us! This is just- so many weird accurences!"
"I dont know about them, but there's something you forgot to mention."
"Me?"
"Mhm, does the machine to go get Suitcase to win sound familiar? The reason as to why you became so close with Test Tube in the first place?"
"What?! That's got nothing to do with any of this! And I was- I-I WAS NOT!"
"Then why'd you need it? Hm?"
"I wanted to see her again, okay? You wouldn't get it.. you haven't mentioned Baseball once since I've gotten here!"
"Well, that's a me issue."
"And that machine is also a me issue."
"Dude, you were gonna cheat, I think that's not much of a 'you issue', but more of an 'everyone issue', isn't it?"
"So you told Test Tube to shut the machine off?!"
"She actually did it? Damnn.."
"I-It was you! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?"
"Hey hey, dude, calm down. I didn't do anything nor said anything to Test Tube, I promise."
"Then why do you know about this? And why is the machine now shut off?"
"Okay, yeah. I did ask Test Tube to shut it off, you caught me. But did you consider if Fan was the one that it off?"
"You asshole. You're just making stuff up to make yourself seem less guilty of what you did, aren't you."
"No no, genuinely. Bro, let's be honest here. Nobody would ever do as I said, much less Test Tube. And she would wanna help you out, so.... The next smart enough person to shut it off in the hotel would absolutely be Fan!"
"The room has a recognition that is Test Tube activated, even if it wasn't because of you, how could it have been him?"
"Well, how did you get in?"
"Test Tube unlocked it for me"
"What if Test tube did the same for him then?"
"But... Why??? She literally had no reason to, plus, you said it yourself, she wanted to help me."
"They could've both done it to lock us all in here, to infect us all!"
"Well, the door is easily opened with OJ's key, so we're not exactly 'locked in', y'know. It doesn't make sense."
"But you said it yourself, OJ is acting super weird too."
"Are you suggesting that the three of them are infected?"
"No, worse... They're voluntarily helping her! Possibly so she doesn't infect them, so they get to stay as they are without getting the virus whilst they sell all their friends. Like how they did with Paintbrush and Lightbulb!!"
"WHAT. Nickel, this sounds like absolute paranoia!"
"Okay, explain it yourself then?"
"It can literally simply be a bunch of coincidences!"
"That many? I don't think so. And I know you trust everyone around you, but I do not."
"I- Uhh.."
"You know it too, none of them are trust worthy, at least not for now."
"And how can I trust you then..?"
"Who else do you have to trust? I don't think you've got Test Tube anymore, not after what happened."
"A-And what do we do??? There's nowhere to go.."
"Pfft- Says you. I know the perfect place to go, and you'll like it."
"Where?"
"The contestant grounds."