To The End

2

"We can't just leave!... Can we?"

      Fan had only just come back to Hotel OJ, Test Tube at his side. The two of them were taken by the portal into the hallway, where Paintbrush and a couple others waited. Trophy was tapping his foot, obviously still pissed off about Fan knocking over and destroying his herbal tea and cacao nibs so late at night. As soon as Fan stepped through the portal, Trophy ran right up to him and grabbed him harshly, yanking him up to eye level. "You stupid little.. you're gonna clean up the mess you made and replenish my tea and nibs!" He looked him dead in the eye with a cold stare as Fan cowered slightly. Test Tube yanked Fan out of Trophy's grip and gave him a glare. "Watch it, nerds. I don't want you in my way again." Like that, Trophy stomped off back into his room. The chatter in the hallway drifted into nothingness as Paintbrush stepped forward. "Fan! Why did you just up and leave like that? Do you KNOW the trouble you could've gotten into?!" "A-Actually, Paintbrush, I got abducted by aliens and uh.. Test Tube saved me!" The look on Paintbrush's face twisted into a look of shock as they stared at Fan. "You got abducted by aliens?" "Yeah! They were called 🎶The Prime Shimmer🎶-" He quietly chuckled. "Turns out that egg I was keeping was some alien life form kid of theirs. I HAD to admit, it was-" He noticed the phone TestTube had for him and immediately sprinted off. "I HAVE TO ADD THIS TO MY BLOG! BYE!"

Fan was gone as quickly as he got there.

Paintbrush stared at the way Fan went, baffled as their eye twitched. "Guh- he's not even going to begin tO EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED?!" TestTube coughed slightly, alerting Paintbrush she was still there. "It wasn't just him that was up there. I had to go up and rescue him, and then they just decided to eliminate me! Ugh- whatever. It's just a stupid game.." She looked at Paintbrush. "But- yeah. He got abducted and- actually just- let me explain it to you!" She dragged Paintbrush off to somewhere in the hotel to chat with them and explain everything that happened.

    Paintbrush seemed shocked at what TestTube had described. The getting abducted by aliens, MePhone disappearing screaming Cobs was coming for him, MePad suddenly going missing.. Toilet too. As TestTube spoke about what Microphone had done she got super annoyed, clenching her fists slightly raising them in the direction of Microphone, who sat on the couch talking to Pickle, regret gleaming in her eyes as he listened to her talk. She seemed to regret something, but it didn't seem like TestTube would accept that fact anytime soon. "Well, it sounds like you had an interesting run." They shrugged, leaning back. "Wh- that's all you have to say about that?" "I mean- what else would you say in a situation like that?" TestTube sighed. "I guess you're right.." The both of them went quiet. After a little bit of silence, Paintbrush got up. "Well, welcome back, TestTube. Nice to see we have..most of our team back." They chuckled, waving goodbye to her then walked away, back to their room. TestTube waved back, then quietly sunk into the couch with a soft sigh.

The doorknob jiggled quietly as Paintbrush opened it, walking into the room they shared with Fan. Fan was on his bed, still texting his thumbs off, probably still writing that blog of his. They quietly laughed, and then went to their bed, flopping down onto it with a poof emitting as they did. They turned onto their side so they were facing Fan, but most importantly their desk. The non-binary flag stuck out the back of the picture frame they were staring at, which caused them to crack a tiny smile. It was a picture of them, Marshmallow and Lightbulb. Quietly reaching out, they grabbed the picture frame and held it close to them.

"Fan."
At his name being called, he shot straight up into the air and shrieked a tiny bit. "W-Woah! Paintbrush, when did you get here?" "A couple minutes ag- Nevermind. Fan, when you.. just left.. what happened?" He looked confused. "What do you mean?" "Well.. did- did anyone get angry at all?"
"I-I mean TestTube did, but that's because she er- didn't want to see me at the time. But then she was fine when she had to rescue me, MePhone didn't exactly care because he was too busy freaking out and congratulating Mic and stuff, so I kinda just got to stay there on my own y'know? And I had to rescue the egg, but watching them leave was-"
"So you didn't get in trouble for leaving?"
"No. MePhone didn't yell at me, and MePad and Toilet weren't around to say anything. He just sent me through the portal with TestTube."
"..Huh."
Paintbrush went quiet after that, gently hugging the picture to their chest. They felt Baxter crawl up them and sit next to Paintbrush, looking at them confused. "Oh! Hi Baxter, what're you doing here?" He blinked at them, then hopped up onto their pillow. Paintbrush shrugged, removing the picture frame from their chest. Fan was back on his phone, so they didn't exactly care if he saw anything or not. They stared deep into the picture frame, thinking of the two. Marshmallow had taken Apple and went to live with Bow in the Purgatory Mansion, and nobody really saw any of them since they left. Lightbulb on the other hand..was still in the game. They lingered over Lightbulb's face for a bit, sighing. It wouldn't hurt.. if they went to go to the grounds like Fan did? He made it back in one piece, so..
Maybe they could too.
"Goodnight, Fa-" they looked over to Fan, who was already asleep that quickly. Oh well.
They clicked the light off.