Room 43// An Inanimate Insanity College AU

37- Can We Stop Making Stupid Choices For Five Minutes

It was honestly harder than Paintbrush would've thought to say goodbye to everyone.

They'd see most of their friends over the holidays, but their dormmates weren't a similar case. The longest they'd gone without seeing any of them was two weeks, and this was going to be three and a half months. Safe to say, packing their things away was a little harder than usual, knowing that what was coming up was not just a short vacation from schoolwork.

They didn't clean their dorm up entirely; they knew that the assigned rooms and groups would stay the same, and so they kept things just a little bit unruly. Their hairbrush was still on their work bench, which was practically littered with art project blueprints and sketches that they'd never gotten past the production stage of.

While everyone said goodbye and started dragging away their things, Paintbrush felt disconnected. Lightbulb kissed them on the cheek before merrily going on her way, joking about jumping out the window- "It'd be a blast to the past!" She exclaimed, before Paintbrush quickly shut down the idea with a concerned sequence of every word they knew to mean no- and swinging her three neon backpacks (that she still kept around, because of course she did) over her shoulder.

And then Paintbrush was alone, in a dorm that felt less lived-in. Their bags were packed and they really should get going, lest they miss the train back to their hometown, but they stayed. They stared at the fairy lights that they'd set up with Test Tube, the beanbag that they don't remember having until Fan pointed it out one day, the little parts of everything that made this little dormitory feel a little more like home.

They picked up their matte black rolling bag, the wheels squeaking as the weight of most of their belongings were held against them. They had another home to get back to, and their train was leaving in 20 minutes.

As they were out in the hallway, they felt something grab their hand. Or, in other words, someone. And that person was, of course, Lightbulb. It always was.

"Wh- I thought you left," Paintbrush said, dragging along their feet as Lightbulb dragged them further up the corridor with a wide smile on her face.

"You seemed all spacey when I said bye-bye, so I stuck around for a while," Lightbulb said, shrugging. "What's up?"

Paintbrush internally sighed, fond as always. Of course she'd have picked up on that. "It's nothing, really," Paintbrush said, itching the back of their neck nervously. "Just... it's gonna be a while until we're all back, right? Gonna miss it."

"Ohh," Lightbulb said, nodding a few times. "Yeah, I get that. You'll... call and stuff, right?"

Paintbrush sighed, a smile on their face. "Like we always do, yeah."

Lightbulb breathed a sigh of relief, something completely fake because she knew that Paintbrush was better at being a comforter than being comforted. "Good. Yeah, that's- that's good."

It only took a moment for Paintbrush to realize that the sigh of relief wasn't completely fake. They cocked their head in concern, eyebrows knitting together. "You didn't think we were?"

"No! No it's not that," Lightbulb said in a rush, waving her hands in front of her. "It's- well, what I'm about to say is kinda silly. Promise not to judge."

Paintbrush nodded, silently giving her the go-ahead.

"I didn't know if you'd, uh. Cause y'know, we've got this... and... well, it's... hey, hey! Stop laughing, you promised not to judge!"

Paintbrush stopped their snickering immediately, coughing into their fist. "Sorry," They said, holding back another laugh. "But you never said I couldn't laugh, just not to judge, so..."