smoke off the roof - inanimate insanity baseball x nickel fanfic

part two (nickel pov)

a loud thud made nickel jolt up from his bed. could trophy chill out with his workout routine and maybe not have it this early in the morning? nickel grunted and pulled down the covers. he stumbled over to the bathroom, eyes still blurry from when he just woke up. he heard balloon sigh from behind him.
"trophy really doesn't take a break, huh?" balloon smiled at nickel, looking in the direction of the room next to theirs. nickel chuckled lightly and continued to walk to the bathroom.
nickel splashed a bit of cold water on his face to help him wake up a bit more. the iciness of the water sent chills down his spine. great, now i'm freezing. nickel rolled his eyes and crawled back into bed, his muscles relaxing a bit more as he became warmer. as much as him and balloon weren't on good terms, they could both agree that trophy was devoted to say the least.
nickel tried to close his eyes again, but the footsteps coming from down the hallway kept him from dosing off. he rolled over to check his phone. 8:45.
"ah, im kinda hungry. i might as well get up anyways." nickel whispered to himself as he put his phone back away.
"hey nickel, do you mind getting me a toaster waffle from downstairs? only if you want to that is..." balloon called out, trailing off his sentence at the end. nickel wasn't really keen on the idea, but he felt bad for him. since they both got eliminated at the same time,  oj decided to put them in the same room together, despite having no knowledge of what went down during the game.
"sure," nickel sighed, "as long as the cherries don't get to them before i do." balloon smiled in reply and waved nickel off.
-
nickel went around to the dining area downstairs and had a look around at the food options displayed along the sides. he grabbed a bowl of cornflakes and some water. from the corner of his eye, nickel saw pickle wave at him. he was sitting down on the couch where all the consoles were, beckoning nickel to come join him. nickel smirked and headed over in pickle's direction. he sat down on the comfy orange couch, slowly eating his cereal. pickle looked at him intently and leaned back.
"rough night? you look like you didn't sleep too well." pickel questioned, placing his arms behind his head. to be brutally honest, i don't want to think about last night... nickel tried to push away the memories of what happened on the roof after he left baseball, but it all just got a bit too hard to deal with and it ended up costing him hours of sleep.
"i guess you could say it was pretty rough." nickel said, speaking between mouthfuls.
"i heard baseball came in last night. i didn't see him in person but i could hear salt and pepper giggling about him from below." pickle looked over in the direction of the two girls. they were over in the corner of the room straddled across a large pile of beanbags. pickle looked back to face nickel.
"so what's up with you two? you're friends, sure, but of course because of the show parameters it's a little hard for you to go see him." pickle took a sip of his water, signalling nickel to give him details of what happened.
"he came up for a chat, just to see what i was up to but-" nickel looked away, feeling a little pensive.
"things got pretty heated. we argued a bit and he said some pretty uh. thought-provoking stuff i guess." nickel was completely lost in thought now, remembering those few words baseball said to him as he was leaving.
why did he have to say "i love you". god, he could have dumped me as a friend and i wouldn't have cared as much. i just-
"nickel, hey buddy, you still there? you seem really spaced out." pickle was waving his hands infront of nickel's face. he grunted and looked away, shaking his head.
"jesus, im fine. just-" nickel tried to stand up, but he spilt his cornflakes in the midst of it. nickel looked at the soggy cornflakes on the floor, the milk already seeping through the carpet. with no hesitation, nickel breathed in.
"i fucking HATE baseball!"
the whole room fell silent for a second. even salt seemed to wake up from his outburst. shit.
slowly but surely, the dining area started to liven up again as if the whole ordeal didn't happen. nickel scoffed and started cleaning up his mess. pickle looked down at him, frowning.
"here - let me help. it's the least i can do." pickle ran off to grab some towels. as he came back, pickle started talking again, this time completely avoiding the topic of baseball or 'last night'. eventually, the stains were no longer noticeable and the carpet looked somewhat clean. pickle picked up the empty bowl and put the used towels in it.
"hey, if you ever need to talk about anything, i'm here for you dude." pickle smiled, walking off. nickel was going to thank him for helping up with the cleaning, but figured it wasn't worth it. before walking back up to his room, he went to go grab a toaster waffle. as he was grabbing one, he heard a familiar squeaky voice behind him. nickel turned around and gave the waffle to balloon. he tried not to make eye contact - he didn't really want to be doing him any favors.
"oh nickel, you remembered..." balloon seemed very surprised. he took the plate from nickel and sheepishly laughed. nickel felt odd. he didn't want balloon to get any ideas that he was soft or anything.
"also, after you left, your phone started blowing up..." balloon continued after taking a bite from his waffle.
"i didn't want to be nosy, but i think baseball wants to talk to you." balloon started to look at his feet, avoiding nickel's face. wh- he can't just look at my phone like that!
"balloon, could you maybeee NOT look at my phone? i'd like to have some actual privacy thanks." nickel spat.
"i didn't mean to look! it's just- your phone kept ringing and ringing and i-" balloon's explanation was cut off as oj walked into the conversation.
"morning, you too. how are you settling in?" oj questioned. balloon and nickel gave each other a 'what the fuck' look and started trying to get oj to take a hint.
"love what you've done with the place, oj. we've been fine."
"it's been so nice catching up with everyone again!"
"i like the extremely thin walls of the hotel. it makes everything seem so much more connected."
"yeah everything's... fine."
balloon and nickel keep listing off random things about the hotel without seeing too interested in the conversation and eventually oj left them alone. as he walked off, nickel scrunched his face up at balloon.
"don't look through my shit, thanks." nickel walked off, giving balloon the cold shoulder. welp, whatever smidges of friendship we had before are definitely gone now. nickel sighed as he climbed the stairs. but now he had bigger things to worry about. there must've been an actual emergency if baseball really did call him over the phone. not to mention that according to balloon, he called continuously...
he speed-walked to his room and went directly over to his phone. seeing the multitude of notifications from baseball made nickel feel somewhat happy, considering that they hadn't really been texting since he got eliminated... but it was also quite worrying. what on earth does he want? he can't possibly want to talk after last night. nickel picked up the phone, redialing baseball's number. when the two of them were on idiotic island, they made each other memorize their phone numbers so they could stay in contact after they got sent back home. they've had eachother's contacts for a while now, so remembering the numbers was kinda useless. but, it made baseball happy, so nickel didn't really care too much.
the dial phone went silent.
"baseball?" nickel spoke. on the other side of the line, there were some weird scratching noises, as if someone was picking up the phone.
"nickel?" the voice on the other end wasn't baseball's. it was deeper and less clear.
"oh- hey knife." nickel's tone in voice dropped. he felt a little annoyed that it wasn't baseball that picked up.
"do you know where baseball is? he's been calling me." nickel questioned.
"no clue. his phone was on fan's desk." knife replied, also sounding pretty annoyed. nickel grunted. he hung up, knowing knife would be no help. why was baseball trying to call me? he only calls if he's in trouble or he has a really funny joke he has to tell me. for some reason, nickel didn't think he was calling to tell a joke this time.
of course, something had happened.