Case 34

What are we?

It's been an hour since Test Tube's arrival in the lab, and an hour since Microphone's heavy panic attack. The four objects were frantic and noisy inside the room, yelling and cursing echoing through the walls.

"What the hell do we do?! She's back a-and I just-"

"Will you calm down, Baseball? We don't know what her intentions are this time. Maybe she'll give this bullshit a rest."

"Jail doesn't change someone like that, Taco. Besides, she wasn't in there for a long time, so I doubt she would change."

"And even if she did, she has to get tired of us at some point right? Because honestly Knife, after going through jail, no one in their right mind would even try to get their hands dirty again like this. It's stupid, and she's smart isn't she? She should be sensible enough to know continuing this experiment or whatever would be stupid."

"You're right, but if she releases us, isn't that more stupid?"

"I don't know! I just wanna get out of here already!"

Microphone gets fed up with the noise, and crumples herself into a ball and lays on her side. She brings her knees to her face and tucks her arms over them. As quietly as she can, she sobs. She sobs hard, the feeling of letting out emotions so silently making her head hurt. But she barely feels it, all she can feel is fear and panic. The amount of thoughts and emotion that coursed through her body overshadows the physical pain, and suddenly, she couldn't stop herself. Her voice breaks into a loud shriek. She cries hard, and she shifts to the corner of the room as quickly as possible. Taco was the first to notice, then Knife, then Baseball. All three look at each other and stop talking. All of them had no idea how to approach Microphone, but Taco took the first step. She got closer and closer to Microphone slowly. Until she spoke. "I am so fricking tired of all of you fighting! And I am especially tired of her! Could we just not overanalyze everything she does? It's stressing me out, o-okay?! And I just fucking wish she was gone! I wanted to be free, or at least be treated nicely! We were getting that until she came back! So could we please put this argument to a stop and just try to stay alive while we're still in this shithole???"

Knife looks at her, and he fiddles his thumbs. "She's... Uh, right. Maybe we should give this a rest. I'm pretty sure the more we argue, the more we entertain her. Let's try to maybe sleep it off?" Baseball tiredly nods, slowly stomps towards his usual spot in the corner. He's always stayed in the same spot for months now that it has an imprint of his body on it. Knife and Taco both sit beside Microphone who was still curled up against the wall and corner. Knife didn't do much but just stare, while Taco gently caressed one of Microphone's exposed arms. They sat in peaceful silence for a few seconds, and Baseball starts to snore softly in the background. Once Microphone was able to calm down and catch her breath, Taco helped her wipe her face and leaned against her body again, helping the taller one fall asleep. After some time, Knife also fell asleep.

Some time passes more, but Microphone and Taco were still awake. The room was silent, but it was comforting. They were holding hands, their breathing was steady, Microphone's sniffles every now and then, and Taco leaning her small body against Microphone's. It wasn't the same silence in the elevator a few days ago, it was peaceful, and it gave Microphone a feeling of relief. Taco on the other hand had other thoughts in her mind, thought's she's been keeping from Mic for a while. She doesn't want to ruin the mood between her and Microphone at the moment, but she also doesn't know how else to explain it in the future. She looks down at their interlocked fingers, and uses them as a perfect conversation starter. "Microphone? You awake?" Microphone moves her head to look at Taco directly at her. "Yeah, I am. What's wrong?" Taco rubs her eyes softly, sitting up to get a better look at Microphone. "We really need to figure out this relationship between us. I don't know what's going on with us and I really want to know." Taco covers her face with her free hand, and she softly sighs. Microphone looks at their hands, and looks back at Taco.