Don't be Salty (A SaltTube fic)

Salty Salt

The time machine was beyond repair. It was an unfortunate realization on TestTube's end. She could re-build it of course, but she'd need time. Luckily she had it, sort of anyways, this place ran on a "schedule" that consisted of whatever Salt and Pepper felt in the moment. Which resulted in inconsistent spaces between what the girls loosely labeled "contests". For the time being TestTube resigned herself to attempting to blend in, just until her machine was fully rebuilt.

She'd gotten better at predicting the condiments habits after being here for a week, and she predicted the next challenge wouldn't be for awhile-

Then the challenge bell rang.

Not every theory was right of course, and when someone behaves with emotion and not logic it's hard for her to read them.

Today's challenge was, predictably so, a fashion show.

TestTube didn't care for fashion, so during these shows she visualized what she still needed to do for the time machine, and how to do it. She needed to get out of here as soon as possible. The usual background noise shifted into shouting, which dragged TestTube from her thoughts. Before her, Salt and Pepper were arguing. It was clear some tensions had finally bubbled over. TestTube knew it was inevitable, but she'd hoped to get out of here before it'd happen; it added an unnecessary unpredictability to the mix. It's difficult to predict things when people are acting on emotion and not logic, which the girls usually did anyways, but even less so when angered like this. The sound of glass shattering rang out as Pepper landed a hard punch.

Everyone watched in a sort of stunned silence as the girls fought. TestTube realized quickly no one was going to stop this, it was the best entertainment any of them had had in months, and TestTube certainly wasn't involving herself, the last thing she wanted to do was draw unnecessary attention.

The drawn out fight ended with a discarded Pepper shaker on the ground. Pepper had a good lead for a bit there, but Salt must have had more endurance. If it had ended sooner, Pepper probably would've won.

Everyone was mildly horrified, then quickly got over it and moved on.

TestTube weighed it in her head, and came to the conclusion this was possibly a good thing, there'd likely be a long break between this and the next contest after something like this went down.

Yet she felt a dread that lingered within her, as a doorway to new, uncertain possibilities had just opened.

The other contestants were ecstatic after witnessing everything, she supposed they'd gotten used to witnessing horrific events by now. Lightbulb seemed far less comfortable with it all. TestTube debated it for a moment, before ultimately deciding to approach her.

"I don't want to be here anymore- this isn't fun"

TestTube got the idea that it wasn't purely because of a fun deficit that she wanted to leave.

"We'll get out of here, then we can see them again" TestTube promised, giving her a weak smile.

"I'd like that"

—-

TestTube decided to actually pay attention to this challenge; she wanted to observe how everyone was adapting to Pepper's... absence. They'd had a long break, but she figured the challenges would come back eventually.

TestTube hadn't even seen Salt in awhile, and now Salt was worse for wear. She still had cracks all over herself from the fight, and her eyes showed her exhaustion. She wore a practiced smile "Is that like, everyone?"

"Pepper isn't here?" Shell chimes in, blissfully unaware. Apparently he'd forgotten about the murder he'd witnessed.

"Don't say her name!" Salt scorned, the sudden aggression disappeared as fast as it came.

Everyone stared in stunned silence, Salt faltered for but a moment "Honestly, I'd planned to kick she-who-will-not-be-named out soon anyways, so like, I'm unbothered by the whole thing"

Her lie was completely believable if you were an idiot. Which everyone here was. So they immediately moved on.

"Today's challenge will, like, be a game, to see if any of you are worthy of co-hosting! Probably not, because like, you're all freaks, but like, so was the prior co-host, so maybe one of you will be good enough!"

"We actually get to participate!" Kumquat beamed at Bandana who returned the grin, the contestants began chattering among themselves excitedly.

This was the last thing TestTube wanted, as actually competing meant she risked drawing attention to herself.

Chives brought out some canvases, as well as assorted paints, as Salt made an over-the-top pose on the stage.

"Whoever's painting captures my, like, essence, wins, and will get to be my co-host, if they all suck, which they might, I will probably like, eliminate all of you"

TestTube was put on edge by the casual threat to their lives, Salt was nothing if not blunt.

TestTube figured avoiding elimination should be her main priority, so she decided to put a decent effort into the painting.

Salt was pretty easy to draw, so she did a rather simple drawing of the girl. Nothing that would win a contest, but nothing that would get her eliminated either.

After she'd finished she looked at her competitors, most of the paintings were messy or unflattering.

TestTube paused when she saw Lightbulb's canvas.

The painting had herself, Paintbrush, Lightbulb, and... Fan. They were playing some sort of board game together.

She felt a pang of longing, she missed everyone. 

Especially Fan.

She thought how nice it'd be to talk to him again, just once, she longed for it more than she'd care to admit.

It was nice to speak and have someone listen, and respond like they care, TestTube barely interacted with anyone here, but on the rare occasion she did speak she often got spoken over.

"Time's up!" Salt called out, pulling TestTube from her thoughts.

"There was a time limit?" Someone called out.

"The time limit was until I got, like, tired of posing, which I am"

TestTube supposed she could appreciate the girl's bluntness.

Salt circled around like a shark, glancing at and quick-fire critiquing each drawing.

"Yours is unflattering, yours is messy- and you didn't even draw me- this is like, why I, in my genius, don't let you guys compete-"

When she got to TestTube's painting she paused and observed it "Yours is passable, I guess you win, but like, not because yours is good, but because everyone else's was bad, congrats"

It was probably the least enthusiastic "congrats" she'd ever heard.

She felt a panic rise- winning was not her goal- she thought making something bad would draw attention to her- but in this case making something passable ended up being far worse- the fact that bad was the norm here completely slipped her mind.

"Congrats to my new co-host- I guess- try not to be a disappointment" Salt grabbed TestTube's hand and raised it up, like she was showing her off.

"Thank you for the lovely words of encouragement." TestTube whispered, honestly annoyed, both at herself and her fellow competitors for ruining her perfect plan to fit in.