Chapter Text
How can you be stuck,
But lost at the same time?
How can you be told to stay,
When stay isn’t where I belong?
How can I say
When belong doesn’t exist.
… yep. Balloon and nickels relationship is officially over. Balloon beat the words ‘nickel’ and ‘relationship’ together into his head so badly the only thing there is a numb spot filled with a sticky tar that he once pretended was a genuine part of his brain.
but bot being eliminated washed away the rose tinted water that filled his head, replacing it with his own sickeningly salty
tears, making him choke on the truth. he really doesn’t have any true friends in this fire that he was responsible for starting, one that he was tired of everyone that surrounded him throwing their personal tinder into. Never giving him anything to suffocate the mess he created, the fire too loud for anyone to truly hear him scream that he’s sorry.
…helium, he can hear his poetry book screaming “WOAH, slow down there edge lord.”
Every thing he writes, PB (he nick named his poetry book) responds. Well, it’s more like he’s responding to himself, but he likes to think of it as his little friend, telling him what they think.
It truly feels like they’re communicating, everything he writes is in his in their own language: poetry.
Even if someone found PB, and decided to look through them, they could never tell exactly what he’s feeling. Because he’s the only one who understands the feelings behind the words he scribbles out. And he’s the only one who can hear PB talk back to him.
It’s…comforting to him.
Although… sometimes… PB tells him things he doesn’t want to hear.
Thats something he did learn, being friends with nickel, no matter how many hours he spends convincing himself he’s better off alone…
He loves people.
He loves being around people, joking around with people, talking to people,
being friends with people…
He can’t exist properly without other people.
Which is unfortunate, considering “other people” wasn’t really an option right now. Maybe even ever if he let his thoughts swim around the salty water in his head long enough, but he doesn’t like to do that too much. PB starts to feel heavy and gross if he does.
There was one thing though. One thing that, out of all the angst and sorrow that took the form of black ink, poked its head between the words. A plan, that, while very ( extremely ) vague, offered him just enough hope to cling onto.
There was a theme this season. Not anything that anyone has said out loud, but one that everyone was painfully aware of. Leaving. Wanting to leave.
Fan immediately going back to hotel OJ, paint brushes elimination, heck, even bot wanting to take their own path fit into everything. Everyone from the previous seasons just seemed like they were tired of everything.
If balloon could find a way to leave the island, then (at least he hoped) that would thread into that theme seamlessly and add more…drama? Or something? The thinks that if he left, then the show would lean into that and move forward, without him.
It was a lot easier thought about then done though, considering there wasn’t really a way to leave.
he could get eliminated, but then he’d have to be with the other eliminated contestants which is the exact thing he’s trying to get away from. Plus, he’s a fan favorite. He’s seen the outrage from many fans about him and nickel. He wouldn’t be surprised if mephone made him re join for ‘plot purposes.”
If he somehow found a way to leave without anyone knowing how, he could start over. He could pretend that season one never happened. Maybe he could build a cabin somewhere far away from the fire, where he could finally be the one who can’t hear anyone- but instead of screeching fire, it’s calm silence. He can’t hear anyone over distance, over freedom, over his own comfort and happiness.
Another thing he learned from nickels friendship was time. Between recording episodes and editing them He had way too much of it, and not enough things to fill it with. He took a walk way beyond the point of it being calming. As he got to what he thinks is the middle point of the island, his feet began to throb.
He found a large rock in the middle of a field, kind of a weird place for a rock but he’s not gonna judge nature, and plops himself down in front of it to have another let-my-thoughts-take-over-my-brain session. He leans back onto the rock,
Only for it to give away, and drop him into the first solution to his problems.
/
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/
“TROPHYYYYY”
Cheesy covered his face with his hands, sinking deeper into the couch as he groaned. “How do you watch thiiiiiiissssaaaaa.” There was a soccer match dragging on and on playing on the tv.
“Go tell someone else your shitty puns if you’re so bored.”
“I can’t. I’ve told them to every single person in this hotel! And the taken ones!” He drapes a hand over his forehead wistfully, “everyone is too used to my expertise trophy, everyone! ”
Trophy remains unphased, his eyes still on the tv, “Then go find another hotel to annoy.”
…
Cheesy springs up off the couch, startling trophy, “YEAH! Why didn’t I think of that!” he grins ear to ear as he swirls around the couch and bolts up the stairs.
Trophy sits there, wondering what he just released.
/
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/
“So. why did you need to borrow my camera so badly?”
“Simple!” Cheesy whips out a letter, along with the generous amount of glitter that fell off of it, “I’m gonna find a pen pal! Could you hold this for a sec?” He holds out the letter to trophy, who raises an eyebrow at him as he takes it.
Cheesy grabs the bottle he stuck in the sand, shaking it clean and popping the cork off. He gasps when he sees trophy reading his letter.
“TROPY! What if there was something personal in there!”
Trophy looks annoyingly disappointed, “it’s just a bunch of jokes you’ve already said a million times. And a gay ass introduction of yourself.” (Cheesy would say that’s rude but like, another tablespoon of glitter falls off the paper as he takes it back)
He rolls it up, being careful when he gets to the Polaroid stuck to it, and stuffs it into the bottle. “And this is where you come in!” He puts the message into trophy’s hands.
“…seriously? This isn’t gonna work.”
Cheesy ignores that last comment, “Waht? You are the big strong sporty guy!” He flexes his nerd arms to prove his point.
“Why cant you just mail it like a normal person. You’re so f*cking extra.”
“Thank you!” He nudges trophy playfully. “Tell you what? I’ll let you heckle me at my shows for two weeks?”
“…fine.”
Cheesy hops up and down excitedly as trophy reels back, and just absolutely YEETS that bottle into the ocean. I mean absolutely YOTED.
“THANK YOUUU!”
“I’m not doing that every time you know.” Trophy’s already halfway off the beach. Cheesy runs up beside him.
“So you do think that they’ll be a next time!”
Trophy sighs, walking faster.
/
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/
Balloon lays down the the grainy sand, letting the heat it absorbed take over him. He sighed comfortably. He could sleep for days on this beach, it was probably his favorite thing about this island. He rested his eyes-
Dink!
He sat up abruptly, was that…glass? Since when did anyone make glass sounds? He looked around, maybe mephone? His screen was glass. His eyes came up short, there was no one around but himself and PB. As he looked though, his eyes fell onto a rock that was halfway in the water and the sand.
A bottle was bobbing in the water, floating backwards for a moment before being washed into a wave, clinking against the rock again. Balloon curiously stood up and walked over to it, not taking his eyes off it for a moment. He rolled up his sleeve and scooped it up out of the water. He turned the bottle over in his hands, noting a shine that was reflected from the inside.
He sat back down where he was, popping the bottle open. He was a bit giddy, he’d never found a message in a bottle before! He didn’t even know people did that anymore! His face flushed slightly, this feeling reminded him of when he found out he was a fan favorite. He felt special.
He tipped it upside down, making the paper (and a surprising amount of glitter) fall out onto the sand. He carefully picked up the paper, rolling it out flat. It’s a message! Cool! He begins reading it, expecting something from a story book, maybe a quest or something?
But no. It was something that balloon never would have even dreamed of.
It was someone asking him to be his friend.
Ok well maybe to didn’t ask him directly, but…hey! They were asking for a friend! Close enough!
“Heya! My names cheesy, and I’m looking for a joke buddy! A pun pal! A comedy comrade! The works!” The introduction was sounded by marker drawn hearts, stars, and laughing emotes (and a lot of glitter. So much glitter ) there was also a Polaroid photo of cheesy making a :P face stuck on with stickers of varying shapes (and trophy in the background? He’s kinda cut off).
There were some jokes written underneath the intro. Balloon snorted at a couple, and peeked at the last one:
What do you call a fish with no eye?
A fsh!!!
Balloon snorted again, before falling back into the sand, clutching his stomach laughing. Hadn’t he heard that one before? why was that so funny? He doesn’t have an answer but that doesn’t stop him from rolling on the ground giddily. Helium, he hasn’t a laugh like this in awhile.
He composes himself after a bit, holding the letter above him as he lays on the sand, smiling.
“What if…”
He doesn’t have to finish that thought. He knows what he’s thinking and a part of him desperately wants to shake the thought out of his mind and throw the bottle back into the ocean for someone else to find.
But he doesn’t.
He grabs PB and flips to an empty page. He grabs his fountain pen and…
Draws a blank.
What would he even write? Thankfully he doesn’t have to write an apology for season one or anything because cheesys new, but that didn’t narrow it down any.
He wracks his brain for something to say, they didn’t really talk at all, he doesn’t really know much about him besides the fact that he’s a comedian (and apparently really likes glitter). He glances over at cheesys letter again, and pauses.
His jokes looked familiar…kind of like…
Poetry.
He flips the pages backwards, skipping all the angsty and depressing recent stuff, and finds an old funny poem. It wasn’t his best work by any means…but…
He tears out an empty page, it tears so cleanly it sounds like PB encouraging him, grabbing the pen again. He begins re writing the poem, changing a few things here and there, trying to make it look pretty and fancy.
He moves the pen to the top of the page, hesitating, before sighing and committing.
“Hey!!! Your bottle washed up on the iii beach! This is balloon!
We didn’t really talk much in season two, but I would love to hear (or read) more of your jokes! They were great! (Especially the fsh one hehe!)
Can I share my poems with you? We can trade!”
He puts a heart next to the last sentence, regretting it for a moment before realizing that scratching out a heart would probably send the wrong message, leaving it there.
He shakes the paper dry, feeling a little self conscious that he doesn’t have anything to decorate his letter with, about to put the letter into the bottle before being hit with an idea.
He darts into the grass, hiding behind a bush when he sees silver and nickel talking about something (silver looks very appalled, nickel is unfazed), and runs to the middle of the island, finding the rock in the middle of the field.
He shoves the rock, not realizing he used way more force than necessary until he slips and falls into the tube underneath, smacking into a counter as he slides out of the bottom.
“Dang it…that’s gonna bruise.” He rubs his arm as he hears the rock slide back into place. He hoists himself up with the counter, looking around the lab.
(He really shouldn’t be surprised that test tube made another lab, but he can’t help it. Where did she even get all this stuff???)
He immediately noticed what he was looking for, and darted over to it.
It was a camera, a pretty technical one too, it was bluetooth compatible with her printer. he fumbled around with it for a minute before somehow turning it on. He snapped a photo of himself and went to go to the printer…
He glanced at the table next to him. a small, square device with a green square accent in the middle, along with a big red button.
…He shook away all the thoughts that came to mind and went to the printer.
/
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/
Cheesy stared up at the picture above him.
He held it up to his face and squinted, as if the picture was gonna answer all his questions. (Almost) Everyone in the hotel despised this face, even most of the newer contestants! And cheesy was trying to figure out why .
Yeah, sure, he was a jerk the first season, but wasn’t everyone???
Cheesy saw the first season, he saw how balloon acted, He tried to follow everyone into disliking him…but he just… couldn’t. It hurt watching him try to be friends with people and them just shoo him away.
He was suddenly brought back to last season, when balloon tripped and dropped the bucket into the lake. Cheesy felt so bad when that happened, and even worse when he saw how his team reacted. His eyes turned sad, before filling with nothing but pure motivation.
Cheesy bolted up, staring intently at the photo. it was of balloon in test tubes lab (he mentioned that in his letter, he also asked him not to tell anyone. Cheesy ain’t no snitch.), he’s smiling, cheesy doesn’t think he’s seen balloon genuinely smile before. Is this one of those?
Well, no time to think about that! Cheesy hopped off his bed and went directly to his craft drawer, pulling out a nice sheet of paper dotted with a confetti pattern.
He needs to send this letter ASAP.
/
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/
This is it. This is how balloon dies. Not even mephone would be able to resurrect him after this.
After he sent the letter (or threw it into the ocean) he decided he wanted to just wait patiently for a response.
He did not do that.
He’s been pacing the part of the beach where he threw the letter, constantly checking the same rock he found it on, biting his nails down to stubs. He had bandaids on some of them (thank you tea kettle).
“This is the WORST WAY to communicate EVER.” Balloon tried to mutter to himself, but it came out as more of a frustrated Shriek.
Dink!
Balloon snapped his head to the rock, a familiar bottle clinking against it.
“I love This communication method so much you don’t even know it’s amazing!!” He snatches the bottle out of the water,
He’s about to pop open the bottle when he hesitates. His hand starts to tremble right above the cork, he can’t help the wave of familiar thoughts that crash down onto his excitement.
“Sorry! Wrong person! I meant to send this to someone who’s actually a decent person!”
“Sorry but I just can’t send letters to some asshole who can’t keep a friend for more than a few months.”
“Sorry, no. Put it back.”
He smacked himself in the head, clearing his thoughts for just long enough to convince himself to open the thing he’s been waiting for for hours.
He slides the letter out (along with about the same amount of glitter as last time), it’s a lot heavier this time, Nice quality paper. He slowly un curls it, wincing in anticipation for-
“Hey there balloon!!! Woah, it really landed on the iii island? THATS SO SWAG I DIDNT KNOW IT WAS THAT CLOSE!!!
Of course I wrote some jokes for you (I see you liked the fsh joke and a raise you one about salmon >:]) buuutt I wanted to say that I think you’re very cool and awesome!!! And anyone who doesn’t think so is totally not dank and unbased!!!
Ok but real talk I can see how much you’re trying!!! You deserve someone who can put in just as much effort as you are! And I wanna be that friend!!!
Also I absolutely loved that poem you wrote it was FANTASTICALL and I would LOVE NOTHING MORE than to trade material with you <3 (also what pen do you use? It’s so pretty???? Hello????)
See you(r letters) soon! - the jokester, Cheesy! :D”
…
A drop falls onto the side of the letter,
balloon wipes his eyes with his sleeve as more tears drip out of them and onto his lap, a wobbly smile on his face. He lays down into the sand, holding the letter to his heart.
The tears he shed were made of pure joy, dampening some of the fire that surrounded him, giving him a way to finally start to making his way into quiet bliss.
And maybe not be so alone when he gets there.