Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Firey has never been good at talking to other people.

Numbers? Sure, he can handle those just fine. Give him the required calculations for what it’d take to build an exciting structure, and he’d immediately start drawing the necessary blueprints. Building stuff is an undiscussed hobby of his. He often creates sketches of buildings so massive and elaborate that he has to pause, take a good look at what he’s drawn, and then toss the paper into himself. After all, he is the perfect trash can. People toss unwanted stuff into him all the time with the expectation that he’ll gladly destroy it, so.. it’s normal to do that, right?

Anyways, Firey usually daydreams about being an architect making buildings that are hundreds of feet tall. It’s too bad, really, that his fear of heights would never let that happen. He’s pretty sure that Another Name still remembers when he froze up on the bridge and started screaming. Oops. At least Golf Ball and Tennis Ball look like they’ve forgiven him for that. Probably. Hopefully.

See, that’s the problem. Even if you mess up the calculations of your mechanical ideas, you can always pick up the pieces and try again with a revised plan. That’s what Firey did. Seeing his own failure to overcome heights, which would absolutely get in the way of working on tall buildings, he switched to engineering instead. Making a sentient replica of the alien speaker boxes? Priceless. FSB being emotionally attached to him also worked in his favor, as he was far more likely to be biased towards him. Everywhere he would go, the alien box would be trailing right behind, making sure that he was alright or feeling well. It was nice. Firey would never be a hotshot inventor- GB or TB can handle that job, no thanks!- But when he decided that he would win Dream Island at the start of the show, there was the idealistic fantasy in his mind of using the place to build everyone a small home, ones short enough to keep his possibly existing heart from racing with fear. Sure, a 5 star hotel was nice- GREAT, even- but that’s not a home. None of the contestants had anywhere else to go after the show ended, so.. even if he didn’t let them onto Dream Island, the least he could do is push aside his silly fear of heights to help the other contestants.

Hell, he could even make some more mechanical stuff as well! Later today, he’s gonna show Leafy his prototype ferris wheel for Dream Island. He.. didn’t build it with them in mind, but it should be fine! He’s run a test run of the ferris wheel, and it worked perfectly well! Even if Leafy dies, no problem. He can just make sure that they get recovered and apologize for the trouble he caused them.

Imagine his surprise when he learned- after frantically giving all of his hard earned life savings to Announcer- that Leafy was never dead to begin with. They had deliberately faked their death in order to escape the ferris wheel, something critically overlooked by everyone else. It had been treated like a joke, as if Leafy never dying didn’t matter. Firey felt hurt. He was used to being treated terribly. Match, Tennis Ball, Coiny- They had all thrown him to the side the moment they got the opportunity to. Even Pencil, who he had thought he had ended on good terms with after he was open about his real self, was often rather cold and mean to him. He wasn’t wanted by anyone, was never anyone’s “first choice” as a friend. It’s not like he was Leafy’s “first choice,” either. They had befriended Ice Cube and Bubble first, but when both members of the easily killed objects duo got sick of them, they were discarded as well. Only then was Firey suddenly a “friendship option.”

It would’ve been easier to ignore the betrayal if they were just allies. For example, he can handle his mechanical creations being treated like garbage by anyone else. Flower intentionally copied his speaker box blueprint to make a ripoff, and he had barely even reacted, because he didn’t mind someone he didn’t care about making a mockery of his hard work, but Leafy wasn’t someone he had held at an arm’s length. They.. had said that their time together and the dynamic formed from it wasn’t an alliance. The two were supposed to be real friends, and friends don’t fake their deaths and run away when you let them test your ferris wheel, right? Firey wasn’t sure. It’s not like he’s ever had a genuine companion.

And so, casting his fondness of Leafy off to the side, Firey had looked them in the eyes and said that they didn’t deserve to be on Dream Island. He had worked hard to earn the prize, and so, it would be fine to keep the traitor who had hurt his feelings off of it. Everybody else might disagree, but he didn’t care. If it really was so unforgivable, he could just build Leafy a house later. Right now, all he wanted to do is forget about them and try to move on from what they did to him. Even if it meant giving into peer pressure from the likes of those who just as equally disregarded him. Coiny’s persuasive speech was a bunch of nonsense, but.. Firey had let him onto Dream Island regardless, because it distracted him from the horrible thing that Leafy did. He could fix things later, just.. not right now.

Well, that turned out to be a big mistake. Almost as soon as he slammed the gate shut and spun around to see the reward he spent so many months chipping away at in order to get, Firey was met with nothing. Not a single tree or blade of grass remained as proof of his effort. It was all gone. He tried not to show his reaction. The flame had been far more concerned about Flower destroying any chance at object recovery, pleading and begging with the others to try to convince her to stop the maddening acts she was doing. That also didn’t work, but at least Coiny seemed to soften up his perspective on him. Nothing he ever seemed to do worked. Flower soon died after being crushed by a UFO. When he learned that Leafy was going to be publicly executed by the other objects, he immediately felt an anxious pang stab his nonexistent heart. No way. They may have stolen his island and made a mockery of his ferris wheel, but none of that was worth permanently dying for!

He had to stop this before it was too late. Only one problem: There was nothing in sight that could stop the crusher machine, but.. there was something that he would be able to use to rescue Leafy from the machine. Firey is an exceptionally fast runner, but he often has to deliberately slow himself down to match the pace of others, especially in the teamwork challenges. Now was finally the opportunity to actually utilize what he had intentionally been holding back. Taking a deep breath, he got into position and used all of his energy to sprint over to the distant mountains. That was the easy part. Climbing up the side wasn't so bad either, though he had to swallow his nerves and avoid looking down below him in order to actually accomplish this goal. After several tense seconds that felt as if a century had passed, he had finally secured Snowball’s green hang glider, which had long been abandoned and left lodged into the mountain. It was still in good condition though, so Firey had no issues with pulling it out of the ground and spinning to face the mountain edge, hands gripped on the glider’s handle.

The hard part for the flame was having to face the daunting jump that lay below him. It was so high up. Firey felt the familiar tensing of his limbs as they began to freeze from fear, and the only real reason he didn’t start screaming and frantically flailing his arms is because he knew that letting go of the hang glider to panic would be a horrible idea. A few pebbles that the flame accidentally kicked when he had screeched to a halt slowly bounced down the side of the mountain, and Firey knew that the same could happen to the hang glider if he wasn’t careful. Funny, the one time he stops to be mindful is the one time where nobody’s around to see it.

Eugh, enough of this. I need to take the leap right now, or else I won’t be able to save Leafy!

I can’t do this. I’m too cowardly.

They’re going to permanently die if I don’t interfere with this execution! We’re already no longer able to recover Bubble or Flower, and that’s bad enough. What point is there to letting more of this mindless slaughter happen?

I can’t accomplish this. It’s too much.

This stupid fear needs to stop getting in the way. I’ve lost challenges because I was too scared. I’ve made everyone annoyed at how afraid I was. I’ve had to give up my dream because of it. This is easily the final push that can help me overcome this fear.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I CAN’T, I CAN’T-

Fine, then. I’ll let Leafy die. I’ll rid of the only person on this show who cared about me for longer than 5 seconds. I’d love to see what happens-

Without even realizing it, Firey had jumped off the top of the mountain, biting down on his tongue to avoid screaming. How the hell did Snowball control this thing?! Even the slightest tilts seemed to steer the hang glider in a completely different direction. Maybe Firey should’ve given the snow object more credit than he had initially offered, usually looking at the other with a disposition of indifference. Any other armed object would surely struggle with steering this device! Oh well.

His eyes darted over to where the execution was taking place, and a slight tilt down was all the flame needed to be able to glide over to the leaf. Firey sees a few people look up at the sky with disbelieving expressions, as if the idea of him saving Leafy is the stupidest idea he had ever conceived. Maybe it was. Holding out his arm, he swung it out and grabbed onto Leafy’s hand as tightly as possible, successfully saving them from their horrible execution just in the nick of time. The banter that occurred shortly afterwards is a familiar exchange, one so widely recited that it is unnecessary to put it down onto words. What matters is that the flame and the leaf had finally reconciled, the drama discarded as Firey vocally declared that he valued Leafy more than any stupid Dream Island prize. Everything was going to be ok.

And then the hang glider crashed.

Look, in Firey’s defense, he still hadn’t figured out how to steer the damn thing. You try to learn how to master riding it through the air when you have no teacher or lessons explaining the right way to control a hang glider! It doesn’t end well. His fear of heights also doesn’t serve to aid the situation. Honestly, the only real reason that Firey DIDN'T break into a full force panic attack is because he was anchoring himself onto Leafy’s words. Even in the middle of soaring through the air, they could still ramble about the positives of love and friendship. Maybe Firey will be raised 3 ranks higher on one of their silly niceness charts for this. Just kidding, he doesn’t care about that at all, but he was always happy to listen to Leafy’s excited rambles. They were a comforting presence in his life, and this was only further proven by them being able to calm him down as the duo were gliding through the air.

Eventually, however, the leaf’s words slowly trailed off into nothing. It’s clear that they still have something on their mind, and Firey feels his mouth go dry as he tries to think of a way to address what they’re both thinking about. He can’t find the will to say it. His grip on the hang glider slowly begins to loosen, and he isn’t even concentrating on where he’s steering. Ever the observant one, Leafy was quick to notice this, but by the time that Firey had snapped back into reality and paid attention to their confused statements, it was too late. The hang glider had unceremoniously slammed into the grass down on the ground and crashed.

Leafy landed more gracefully, their thin and light nature body being able to slow the fall down by the tiniest of milliseconds. Firey, on the other hand, had unceremoniously collapsed onto the ground, grass immediately being scorched to ash underneath him as he faced the sky. It was a good thing that his body wasn’t tangibly solid, because if he had been as normal as any other object, he probably would’ve ended up with a concussion. The flame was still dazed, though, vision swimming with blurriness. Just because his body couldn’t feel the impact didn’t mean that his limbs didn’t, and the pain from that quickly transferred to his mind.

Out of the corner of his left eye, he saw a crowd of people charging at the duo with angry expressions. So much red and blue and orange in that collectively enraged group. Having a much quicker processing speed, Leafy had already stood up on their feet and started sprinting away from everyone else at the sound of Golf Ball shouting something, leaving Firey behind. By the time the flame had gotten up and felt his vision refocus, the crowd had already.. ran right past him?! No way. He could only watch with a blank expression as they completely disregarded what he had done. Firey had just helped someone who was supposed to be executed escape, yet all they cared about was retrieving Leafy.

Maybe they didn’t mind that. As he watched them all run farther and farther away, his neutral expression turned into a frown as he took a few steps forward. He should stop them from capturing Leafy. If they do obtain the leaf, they’ll surely bring them back to the execution site and get ready to crush them. That would defeat the whole purpose of Firey rescuing Leafy, but.. Leafy is more than capable of taking care of themself. In fact, they’re outspeeding the angry mob right now with only slight difficulty. The flame is sure that the leaf will be able to escape from the group eventually. Sure, he could catch up to everyone, but what would the point be? They probably wouldn’t listen to a “dumb idiot” like him who can’t do anything right. Or he could grab Leafy by the hand and use his faster speed to get them further away from the crowd, but what good would that be? He might accidentally burn Leafy, or worse, kill them himself. No benefits to that in sight.

He can’t do anything to help Leafy now. Not like the leaf would care, though, they’d probably think that his efforts weren’t good enough. Firey begins to walk away, but his eyes nervously flick over to where everyone ran off to one last time. Leafy will be able to handle the situation on their own, a fact that Firey repeats several times in their mind. Even if they somehow can’t escape, then Leafy will surely use their persuasive people skills to talk their way out of the situation. Yeah, and besides, Leafy never apologized to him anyway! The flame had said he was sorry for what he had done, but nothing from Leafy. No ”I’m sorry for faking my death in order to get off your stupid ferris wheel, I know that wasn’t very nice of me!” or ”I should’ve thought twice before taking the prize you spent two years working for, please forgive me!” from them. Instead, they chose not to address the subject, even when Firey had gone out of his way to save their life. How ungrateful.

If Leafy won’t appreciate any of the stuff he’s done for them, then.. what’s the point in trying to help them? There is no purpose to it! Giving one last look back at where Leafy went, Firey faced away from the distant mob for the last time and slowly walked away with an upset expression.

..So, yeah, Firey wasn’t good at communicating to others. People skills weren’t exactly his thing and it showed in every little action he did. No matter how hard he tried, nobody seemed to want to stay around him. The one time he had gotten close to a friend, was literally inches away from solving all the conflict and turmoil, he blew it. Leafy was gone because he hadn’t acted when it really mattered. Could he ever forgive himself?.. Yes. If Firey could just.. distance his mind from all of the horrible feelings swirling inside of him, and run away from the sight of his friend being chased, then everything would be fine. Dream Island may be gone, but Firey can still work on trying to build homes for everyone left. Bubble and Flower (and Woody) permanently dying, plus Leafy disappearing from the grasslands, would actually make the task easier, in a horribly morbid sense. Does.. David even need to sleep? He’ll have to ask. Pencil seems to be the closest to the strange creature, so maybe she can figure that out for him. Plus, if Pencil is distracted with trying to talk to David, maybe Firey can finally talk to Match again. It’s been ages since the two have talked, and he often wishes they could resume the good ol’ days of Firey babbling about a bunch of nonsense as the matchstick fills out a puzzle book and responds to his statements with oddly reasonable advice. Or, now that the competition is finally over, he can continue his budding friendship with Coiny. It doesn’t seem like the coin has anyone else to talk to, which is rather strange, given that he was stuck with almost everyone else in the TLC for months on end. You’d think you’d make some friends when you have nothing else to do, but apparently not. Firey is lucky to have never been sent to that horrible metal box. He can’t even begin to imagine what it’d feel like to live in that piece of garbage.

A weak smile on his face from this thought, the flame continues to travel through the grasslands, retracing where everyone else came from through the flattened patches of grass in front of him. Would be easier with footprints, but he can’t complain. Firey can actually start to see everyone else in the distance now, everyone casually talking to each other with neutral expressions. It doesn’t appear to be the best atmosphere, but it’d be really hard for everything to go back to normal after the events of the “Battle For Dream Island” finale. Maybe things will never be the same again. No, that’s ridiculous. Firey needs to distract himself from strange thoughts like that, before they swallow him whole and send him flying into a pit of despair.

Somehow, it looks like the angry mob managed to get back to the field before he did. Geez, how much time did it take for him to follow the trail of squashed grass back here? Of course someone as stupid as him can’t even follow a neat little trail fast enough. Luckily, however, nobody seemed to notice as he silently slipped back into the group of ex-contestants. It’s time for Firey to distract himself. His inner turmoil was slowly repressed, forced behind a blank expression that did not suit him as he started chatting with everyone around him. Nobody mentioned Leafy or where they went to the flame, although it seemed to be more because they all suddenly despised Leafy and not because they didn’t want to see him uncomfortable. Figures.

He’s honestly been getting off easy for the hang glider stunt, only a few objects have given him lingering glares that he can feel even when they’re not facing him. Coiny almost seems impressed by what he did, the usual banter between the two much friendlier than usual. A few objects are still complaining about the TLC, while others whine about the Announcer just suddenly disappearing. That was incredibly confusing. Did all of those speaker boxes take FSB as well? Hopefully no, but Firey is too busy conversing with everyone to go seek out the location. At some point, all of the strange “recommended characters” had reappeared, somehow free. They must’ve been released right before the Announcer left. Strange. Firey, however, had chosen to disregard them.

Suddenly, Pen ran over to everyone and exclaimed with a pointed finger: “Hey guys, look!”

Everyone’s eyes cautiously flicked over to the direction he was aiming at. There, TV was standing- or more accurately, sitting, since he retracted his legs- displaying something on his screen. Firey was never the best at reading, so he didn’t pay attention to words, but based on the loading bar, something was about to pop up. The flame’s suspicions were confirmed correct, as a list of names and numbers slowly scrolled across the screen. A lot of the names were in the color red, which is usually a bad sign. Good thing Firey’s name had landed in the green! What’s the great news? After a moment of careful concentration, he finally processed what was next to his name on TV’s wide screen.

3rd - FIREY - 724 Votes

..Eh?! What are these votes for?

His confusion was soon wiped away, as after TV had sorted him into the “correct” green group, an object named Book had picked up a piece of paper that read: “BFDI GAME RULES.” Eraser, always eager to know what the next predicament was, began reading out the rules. Contestants present may not compete- Wait, huh?! If everyone’s considered contestants again.. combined with the strange vote results board from TV.. that means that there’s a new continuation of the show that had just ended minutes ago. Firey doesn’t know how to feel about that, lost in thought. He had just lost his prize, yet another season was already being hosted? How did voting immediately happen right as the cameras stopped rolling? None of this made any sense. Something wasn’t adding up, and as he watched Book and Fries bicker with each other for literally no reason, he couldn’t help but wonder what he did to deserve this nightmare. His gaze shifted back up to the voting board. More specifically the top of it, because there was something strange at the very top. Two names stood out like sore thumbs. This is a strange metaphor, considering objects rarely need to show their finger appendages, but that’s beside the point. Firey is very confused by what he manages to read on TV’s nearby screen.

GOLF BALL
CHOSEN BY: “INTERNPONY707”

GELATIN
CHOSEN BY: “DEGRASSIFAN”

Now, of course Firey knows who Golf Ball is, but.. who the hell is Gelatin?

Chapter Text

As it turns out, Gelatin was, without a doubt, the strangest object that Firey had ever met. Since objects are usually named after.. well, their object body, it was easy to quickly scout him out amongst the group of “qualified” contestants. His appearance was that of green and simply sculpted jello, with matching green eyes that seemed to be observing everything in sight, but his personality was anything except simple. Everything he did or said seemed to be calculated and planned out in advance, as if he was reading off a written line in a script to the group.

For example, once Book and Fries had started attacking each other after Eraser had read the first “BFDI Game Rule,” Gelatin decided to speak for the first time, asking: “So, who’s the host gonna be?” with an unexpectedly serious tone.

That was.. actually a good question. With Announcer gone, and FSB mysteriously missing, who would be in charge of hosting the new season? Hm.. that was hard. No normal object would be capable of undertaking the hard task of hosting a show. Even if they were able to successfully create challenges and host eliminations, the stress would definitely make them crack eventually. If it really was so easy to be the host of “Battle For Dream Island,” Firey can name at least 5 of his object pals that would’ve crushed Announcer and taken over his role with a conqueror style ages ago! Who can take on the daunting task of managing the entire show? Certainly not him, but he can at least nominate someone for the position.

Hmm.. gotta think.. gotta think- Oh, he’s got a great idea! The flame opens his mouth to speak.. only to get interrupted by Puffball, who says the exact same variation of: “Yeah who? I wanna know!” not once, not twice, but around 15 seperate times. As he gets lost in the sound of the pink ball of fluff’s strangely musical voice, he distantly wonders if whoever is recording this new season is gonna edit that out of the final cut. Despite all the objects constantly being filmed for several hours at a time, they’ve never gotten to see what the completed episodes look like after the wrap-up, which is totally unfair. It’d be like if bakers weren’t allowed to consume the treats they prepared, or if authors were banned from reading their own books. It’s some sort of strange and made-up nonsense that makes Firey feel agitated. Nobody else has complained about it though, so maybe- Oh, wait, Puffball has stopped chanting that stupid statement. Now he can finally share his idea.

Shaking away his thoughts, Firey suggested with a smile: “I think TV should be the host! After all, he was the closest to Announcer.”

This was actually.. a rather stupid reason as to why TV should be selected as the host for the 2nd season of BFDI. Announcer and TV were not close in any way, shape, or form, with TV having been sent to the TLC with every other rejected recommended character quite easily. Not even a hint from the speaker box had been shown. Perhaps Firey meant that TV and Announcer were mechanically close? That would be more reasonable, but with Announcer gone, there was no way to prove that their internal structures were engineered to be similar. The strange logic that the flame had concocted was, nevertheless, accepted, and everybody seemed pleased by the idea. Wow, that’s rare, usually people hate every plan for the future that Firey comes up with!

Things continued on like normal, with Eraser randomly hallucinating what the next rule said, but as Firey tried to pay attention to him, all he could focus on instead was.. the confused look on Gelatin’s face. The flame could tell that the jello was staring at him, because even when everybody else was glancing at Eraser, all Gelatin did was look at Firey for several seconds with an eyebrow raised, as if Firey responding to his question with a suggestion was the strangest idea ever in the history of objectkind. The flame was about to open his mouth to ask what Gelatin’s problem was, but out of nowhere, the other suddenly.. smiled at him. It felt a bit cold, but there was a laid back yet intrigued energy to Gelatin’s grin that made Firey feel a bit strange. Yep, just strange. Definitely no other feeling. The jello then finally looked away from Firey, just in time to hear Golf Ball and Tennis Ball discussing what the teams should be. There were a lot of people missing now. Wow. Was Firey really so distracted by Gelatin that.. he didn’t even pay attention to all the disqualified contestants being flung into the TLC? How embarrassing. At least it won’t happen again.

But, of course, it did happen again, because Gelatin didn’t stop talking altogether after his first bizarre question. At first, the suggestion for how the teams should be split was “Veterans” versus “Newbies,” and so Firey sort of mindlessly shuffled away from Gelatin into a familar group of friends and acquaintances. However, like the Donut guy from the other team quickly commented on, the team of past contestants outnumbered the new objects competing on the show. What happened next was another completely unnecessary conflict. Donut and Pencil began beating each other up because Pencil was annoyed by Donut’s complaining, Firey somehow got dragged into it when he recommended that they both calm down, and then he was forced to set the writing utensil on fire. She didn’t seem all that bothered by being burned alive, and was more concerned by the idea of Match being forced onto the opposite team. It was rather strange that Match was the one being pressured into switching to the other team when Firey had already been talking to Donut, but whatever. He was only asking that because it logically made no sense. Totally not because he could see Gelatin watching him from the other team. That would be weird.

This silly team conflict was suddenly solved by a strange abomination named Yellow Face picking up the abandoned rules paper that Eraser had dropped after being flung into the TLC. “Rule 3: Spin the wheel to choose the next contest!” He said.

Before anyone could even move, Gelatin seemed to have already been standing on something that resembled a large stool. It was next to a colorful wheel with so many long statements that Firey knew this was the contest wheel. How did Gelatin already get to the wheel before anyone else? Nobody else seemed to have noticed it before, including the flame himself. As Fries began to walk over to Gelatin so that he could impatiently hiss at him for not spinning the wheel yet, Firey suddenly felt.. incredibly anxious. If he lets this first contest just unfold without any interruptions, then Gelatin will totally be put up for elimination! I mean, come on, everyone else on the other team looks or acts so strange, and if the jello potentially gets eliminated, he won’t be able to finally talk to him for the first time. He has to do something fast, and all of a sudden the flame suddenly feels the same burst of adrenaline that he felt when he was trying to rescue Leafy. How strange. Nobody has any reason to execute the weird jello guy that just suddenly appeared, he’s not in any danger, and the worst case scenario is just him getting sent to the TLC in a month. Firey can’t tolerate that idea, though, and he immediately walks over to Yellow Face for an item he needs. Nobody seems to notice him sneaking away from his team, which is great. If he can get the paper from the strange abomination, he can see if there’s any last rules that can solve this issue.

“Hey, you, give me the rule paper!” He whispered to the other, quiet enough that the cameras wouldn’t be able to record the bizarre interaction.

Yellow Face, barely moving, eerily smiled at him. “Hmm? Why should I?”

“Well, uh, do you.. have anything I can buy?” Firey asked, for now he was starting to vaguely recognize where he knew Yellow Face from: a series of strange product advertisements.

“Oh? It looks like I have a new customer!” Yellow Face replied. “Tell you what. I don’t have it with me right now, but I’m in possession of a spiked gauntlet glove that you can use to punch or slap anyone that you’d like? How’s that sound?”

Despite having no idea who he’d used that on, Firey frantically agreed: “Sure, it’s a deal!”

“Okie dokie! Take this paper then!” Yellow Face cheered as he threw the rule paper at the other.

A quick inspection revealed that.. there was one more rule, and it looked like it could benefit Firey.

The flame caught the parchment just in the nick of time, for if he had obtained it earlier, Gelatin would’ve spun the contest wheel. After quickly bolting back over to his team, Firey desperately shouted “W-Wait, wait, one more rule!” Inhaling sharply to catch his breath, he began to slowly read the last rule out to everyone. “Players may.. switch teams if they want to?” He resisted the urge to let out a sigh of relief, glad that the last rule had come in handy.

As everyone else gasped, Match immediately ran back to the “Veterans” team, shouting “OMG, I’m, like, going back then!” as she did so.

Gelatin, after a few brief moments of contemplation, hopped off the stool and decided to trail after the matchstick, but this was when he said the next particularly strange thing. “I’m following Match, I’d rather be on the stronger team.”

Now, this does sound incredibly reasonable and logical, but in the last season.. nobody really cared about how teams were created. The process to it had been rather simple and hardly required any thought whatsoever. Sure, there were a few strategic picks, like when the Squashy Grapes selected Flower because they’d rather have her as an ally instead of an enemy, but for the most part, it wasn’t about trying to be on the more powerful team. The Squishy Cherries may have lost a bunch of times, but the only one who seemed to actually take that seriously was Pin, and look what happened to her. Eliminated for being a bossy leader. No wonder why Firey hasn’t seen her say anything so far, she’s probably trying to avoid being rude in front of the future viewers.

He almost feels sorry for her.. the keyword being “almost.” Firey’s too busy feeling confident for that kind of sympathy. He successfully managed to get Gelatin onto his team (even if it meant that literally almost everyone else followed him in response) AND he has a new slapping weapon! Why, if he had it right now, he’d use it on Coiny to give it a test run! Which is exactly what he does after the cinematic screen montage, just.. with his hand instead of the glove. Coiny easily sidesteps the slap, but he’s so annoyed that he walks away to the other team and switches to it, making it so that Donut is no longer alone. So much for beginning a new friendship. After everyone successfully manages to bully Pin into joining Coiny and Donut on the other side, Gelatin scrambles back up onto the large stool and spins it rather lazily, causing it to land on.. a tug of war contest?! Everyone loudly gasps, because such a challenge is very worrisome with the imbalance of teams, especially since the challenge will take place over an ominous pit. It’s pretty obvious how this went. The larger team easily wins, with Firey barely putting any effort into the rope as his team tugs it away from Coiny, Pin, and Donut. With one last hard yank, the rope goes flying into the air, and everyone watches as the outcast trio fall into the abyss below. That’s definitely terrifying, but it sucks to be them. They’re the ones that chose to be on such a crummy, unnamed team.

Figuring that the three contestants will climb their way back up to the top of the pit later, everybody on the large team begins to split up, trailing off from one another in vastly differing directions. Firey sees Match walking away with Pencil and sighs. This is the perfect opportunity for him to talk to her, but.. he can’t. He knows that he should, repeating over and over in his mind that trying to avoid talking to Match has been a terrible idea. Objects are not biologically related, as no form of reproduction exists between these strangely sentient creatures, but many often view each other as close family because they seek companionship. Firey doesn’t totally understand what family labels are, so he can’t decide if Match is like a sister or a cousin to him. Match never seemed to know the answer either, but that was fine. All they cared about was having someone that they both could rely on, for since “parents” do not exist in Goiky, objects sort of just.. spawn into existence? It’s very confusing, and nobody knows how to explain it. Of the original 20 contestants, Firey had been the first to spawn into the world, dazed and disoriented. Then Teardrop and Woody appeared shortly afterwards, but neither of them were exactly talkers, so there was nobody that he could really communicate with until Match appeared. Since objects do not need to go through the steps of early childhood to develop, they often start out being around 10 years old in terms of mental brain structure. By the time that BFDI had first started, Firey was 12, and close to the season’s finale he had turned 14. That’s depressing. He’s 14 now and still struggling with the same dumb issues that he’s been procrastinating on since he was 12. Just talk to Match, it’s that simple. Right, he can do this. Firey opens his mouth and takes a few steps forward.. only to realize that Match is nowhere in sight. That’s what happens when you take too long trying to motivate yourself to do something. Whatever. He’s done, like, two brave things today, which is far more than usual. He deserves a break for once.

A voice suddenly piped up from behind the flame. “What are you doing?”

Firey turned around to see that Gelatin of all objects had been following him. “N-Nothing interesting! I was just.. thinking. That’s all.”

“Right. Thinking about me, I presume?” The jello jokes. “Maybe not, but I.. saw what you did back there. You bribed that weird yellow guy into giving you that list of rules. Why’d you do that?”

“Well, I was just.. curious about if there were any other rules left for this second season.”

Yep. That’s the reason. There is no way that Firey is gonna explain that he intentionally checked because he wanted to be on the same team as a stranger that he had just met. That would be weird.

“Second season..?”

“Yeah! You.. didn’t know that this is just a sequel season?” Firey asked.

Gelatin shook his “head,” which is basically just his body, to show that he didn’t have this information before. “Nope. I was just told to come here. Didn’t have anything better to do, so here I am.”

“That’s.. a little strange, but it does explain why you’re taking this all so seriously.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? The first thing I noticed when I got here was all of the cameras. It’d be strange to act dumb in front of so many viewers.”

Firey chuckled, but not with the intent to make fun of the other. “We’re not pretending to be dumb, most of us just naturally behave that way. Not me, though, of course. Everybody knows that I have an IQ of about 10,000.”

“Really? Spell out the word IQ for me.”

“Tch, that’s easy! I-C-U-E, there, I did it!.. Or, wait, is it E-Y-E-Q? It’s gotta be one of those two.”

“The answer is, in fact, neither of those. What a pity. Someone with an enormous IQ wouldn’t even need the second guess you took.”

“So what?! Are you gonna laugh at me now and call me stupid? I don’t have to deal with that kind of attitude at all!”

“You need to calm down.” Gelatin replied with a neutral tone. “I never said you were dumb, just that you don’t have such a high IQ. If you really were incapable of basic thought, you wouldn’t even know what that word means.. hmm.. I didn’t expect you to be so insecure. One possible implication, and you’re immediately scrambling for declarations.”

“That’s not true at all! I have a lot of security around me. Being literal fire tends to get the job done of scaring away any totally aggressive intruders!”

“You certainly have a strange way of interpreting the word ”insecurity,” but fair enough. I just thought you were more confident in your actions than you actually are. Sorry about that.”

Firey raised an eyebrow. “You’re.. apologizing for having an assumption about me? That’s dumb.”

“I’m more sorry for trying to learn about how you think through the act of provoking you. I shouldn’t have done that, but.. I can’t help it. It’s always interesting to learn how differently objects react to similar prompts. I tried a similar thing back at home once. Ended up getting my goggles cracked, so now I can’t wear them anymore.”

“At home? ..Where did you even come from? Certainly not from this part of Goiky.”

“You’d be correct. If I told you the name, you would have no idea where it is on a map. It was.. sort of like a village, but not quite. The objects that lived there were mostly- Hey, wait a minute. Were you.. trying to trick me into talking about myself instead? You become more interesting with each passing second, y’know!”

“If by claiming that I’m trying to “trick you,” you actually meant that I was just genuinely curious, then sure.”

“Nevermind me. I’m rather plain and boring.” Gelatin remarked. “I don’t have anywhere left to go now, so I’m curious. What do all of you do for fun around here?”

“..Nothing, really.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. How long does it take for the next episode to start production? A few days? A week, maybe?”

“Uh.. hm.. well, it’s usually a month later.”

“There’s no way that all you guys do for a month is just.. sitting around and talking, right?”

“You’re right! Sometimes, we stand when we talk instead.” Firey replied with a smile, completely missing the point of Gelatin’s question.

The jello glanced away, disbelief seeping into the neutral expression that he had mostly preserved since he first set foot onto the set for what would soon be titled “Battle For Dream Island Again,” or just BFDIA for short. “How ridiculous. Do you guys even eat to pass the time?”

While objects do need to eat every once in a while to restore their energy, most can actually go months without any substance if they have no other choice. Food objects like Gelatin don’t even need to eat at all, because their bodies are able to internally supply the energy needed for themselves to keep moving. In the case of Firey, however, he needs a bit more food than most, because as a pure being of fire, he is made out of energy. When he was younger, he tried going without food for a few months like everyone else did, just to see why he couldn’t last unlike the others. Big mistake. Smoke began to subtly rise out of him and he constantly felt “lightheaded” as his energy- his pure being slowly dwindled into nothing.. His flame probably would’ve completely extinguished if it weren’t for Match forcing berries down his mouth and screaming at him for being such a ”dumb bitch.” Just thinking about that memory hurts. If only he could forget about it. Ok, enough of that.

Firey shrugs off the painful reminder of the past with his response to Gelatin: “Nah. Our only food during episodes was the slices of cake we got for surviving Cake At Stake eliminations. Then, about two weeks later, we’d all get a ration of bread, just to make sure that the eliminated contestants and those who were on the winning team who didn’t get sent to Cake at Stake were fed. Oh, right, you don’t even know what that is, do you? I’d be happy to explain that to you.”

“Go ahead.”

Firey’s explanation of what exactly Cake at Stake was.. is not worth reciting here. The “song and dance” of the competition’s strange monthly ritual is another widely known fact that has been frequently broadcasted in now missing episode tapes. Even someone in Goiky who has never watched BFDI could give you an accurate guess on what the acronym “CAS” could possibly stand for, so there’s no need to repeat the obvious.

The intriguing part of this part of the exchange pertains to Gelatin’s response. “Hm.. I see. That Announcer guy had an interesting idea, trying to make you all starve in order to present food as a reward. It certainly worked, but.. that’s no way to live. Can you imagine if you had to wait two weeks to sleep because it’d be a ”reward” for hard work?”

“That’s completely different! We can live without food, but sleep is an entirely separate situation!”

“Is it?.. Well, either way, it doesn’t matter if you can live without it. What matters is your happiness. I can’t imagine myself being happy in such a boring place, especially if there’s hardly any food around. If I knew how to, I’d build some sort of place where food can be served?”

“You know how to cook?”

“Eh, sort of. Most of what I can prepare is just different kinds of meats and sauces. That kind of thing should be able to get the job done though. If I could provide extra food to the others.. that’d keep me busy enough to avoid getting annoyed with this strange competition.”

Firey’s eyes widened with interest as, for the first time in the conversation, he was now fully facing Gelatin instead of just glancing at him. “I dunno how you’d be able to get meat over to this area of Goiky, but.. if you’d let me, I’d be able to help build the place you’re thinking of.” He suggested.

“Really? You don’t strike me as the kind of guy to be interested in building stuff, but.. ah, I said I’d stop making assumptions about you. Are you sure that you want to help me?”

“Of course I do! And here I thought I was the one acting silly. I did all that work just to make sure I could get the chance to talk to you, yet you think I’ll just suddenly decline the opportunity of a lifetime? No way, Gelatin!”

Gelatin paused for a few moments, then slightly smiled at him. “Hahah. Alright then, let’s work together.. uh.. Firey, was it?”

“Yep, that’s my name! Make sure not to wear it out, because.. well, I don’t have any ideas for what I’d change it to.”

“Let’s not worry about that right now. What really matters is starting our first alliance project!” Firey’s expression seemed to sour at that, causing Gelatin’s smile to fade back into a thin frown. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t.. wanna be part of an alliance. It’s too serious and logical for me.” Firey admitted. “Would it be alright if.. we were just friends instead?”

(Hey, isn’t that similar to what Leafy said to you back then?)

“..Of course. I’d like that a lot.” Gelatin replied.

Chapter Text

Firey liked being friends with Gelatin. There were so many positive things that the flame could say about the other that it drove him crazy. Whenever nighttime came and Firey had to curl up on the field’s grass to sleep, (As, of course, the contestants were not provided bedding to sleep on, and the house that Firey had received as a prize once was mysteriously destroyed almost as soon as he was given it.) all he could do was cover his flustered face as he thought about all of the jello’s positive traits. It wasn’t fair. How could anyone living in Goiky be so.. amazing? That wasn’t reasonable or understandable at all. No wonder why, according to Gelatin himself, he didn’t have to sign up or get voted onto the show. His “recommender,” who had used a fake alias that didn’t make any sense, had simply just invited him onto the show. Sure, Firey didn’t have to do anything to compete on BFDI, but there was no effort put into becoming a contestant. All he did was simply be in the right place at the right time, and the same could apply to the rest of the original 20, otherwise known as “veterans,” as the “newbies” would sometimes call them that in a mocking way whenever the subject of how they got onto the show was discussed. Well, whatever, Firey thought. They can make fun of me all they want for not having to try at all, but I hope none of them realize that a similar situation happened with Gelatin. Ugh, why does he always end up thinking about him? As the flame spends another night resting underneath the stars, he’s baffled by how much he can discern each miraculous thing about his friend, one by one.

Gelatin was so smart. All those clever questions, that genius idea of building a restaurant (It’s not done being built yet when Firey first thinks this, but Gelatin’s thinking about specifically making it a steakhouse and it’s a great idea.) to provide food to the other contestants, his constant analysis of the others- Hell, he had even somehow concocted numerous chemical creations, which he then stored in syringes and allowed the other contestants to use with no fee required. Making anti-poison medicine at the mental age of 14 is rather impressive, but the real star of the show was Gelatin’s freeze juice. One dose from a syringe was all it took for someone to enter “cyrogenic hibernation.” Firey didn’t understand what that term meant, but it sounded like a cool way of saying that any object exposed to it freezes into ice, which is totally badass. If Gelatin really wanted to, he could just freeze everyone on the enemy team (Which was apparently now named W.O.A.H. Bunch, wonder why?) during a contest and guarantee victory.. but when Firey suggested that idea to Gelatin once a few days after BFDIA 4, he seemed to get a bit upset and stubbornly refused the idea. When Firey asked the other why he was against this exciting concept, he had looked away, a syringe of freeze juice hiding underneath his closed hand.

“I don’t like.. having to deliberately attack people in order to get a team victory.” Gelatin confessed. “The idea of targeting the others and hurting them with a syringe.. it makes me feel uncomfortable. How about we stop talking about this and get back to working on the steakhouse instead?”

“I can’t just resume building after you say a statement like that! How could freeze juice possibly hurt people? They literally can’t feel anything if they’re frozen.”

“Yes, but they still briefly feel that sharp little jolt one would experience from having a syringe injected into them, and I do not wish to-“

“Oh, c’mon! Haven’t I told you to stop taking things so seriously?” Firey asked as he walked over to Gelatin and gently took the dose of freeze juice from his hand. “Look, I’ll try it on myself right now, and when I’m unthawed, I’ll tell you whether or not I felt any pain from that, ok?”

“What are you doing?” Gelatin asked, his voice uncharacteristically a little strained.

Firey ignored him and aimed the sharp part of the syringe at his arm. “It’ll only take a second.”

“Wait- No, no, no, you can’t do that! You’ll just- FIREY, STOP!-“

Too late. Firey had already injected the freeze juice into his arm as Gelatin was speaking, causing a thin layer of light blue ice to somehow spread over his flame and froze it, preventing it from flickering at all. It was strange how it was able to do that, but then again, freeze juice also somehow worked on metal, which usually can’t be frozen. It was a very strange chemical creation, but it wasn’t like Firey had time to ponder this, for he was definitely unconscious. When Firey next woke up, he found himself planted face first against the grass. After standing up and keeping his feet steady, he glanced to his right and saw that he was next to the newly made Hand-Powered Recovery Center. How convenient that this event was just days after Teardrop’s heroic decision to choose the creation of that over immunity to the final 15. He wonders if they regret that choice- Oh, huh. Usually it takes him a bit longer for his mind’s processing power to start working again after he dies and gets recovered. Is.. that a bad sign? He isn’t sure, but he died a lot during BFDI, so maybe his body just got used to it. Looking away from the HPRC, Firey spots Gelatin standing right in front of him. He looks so nervous, like the slightest misstep or stutter will cause the immediate end of their friendship. That’s no good, he’s got to fix that.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay! The ice may have melted and killed me, but that’s not painful at all! Really, water only hurts me when it’s raining-“

“What were you thinking?! You.. already knew what happens when someone uses freeze juice on you, yet you injected it anyways! Why?!”

“I was trying to help you feel better! You looked so stressed about hurting someone that I just had to demonstrate how little damage it did. I didn’t even feel it when I jabbed it into my arm, and the melting wasn’t painful at all.”

Gelatin looked at the ground, his arms crossed tightly against himself. “The ice didn’t melt. I briefly borrowed a hammer from Tennis Ball and smashed your frozen body into pieces because.. I thought it’d hurt less. I’m really sorry about that.”

“Stop saying that! You never need to apologize to me, because.. I could never find myself being mad at you. I just.. don’t want you to look so worried and serious all the time.” Firey confessed. “Try not to overthink stuff all the time. Alright?”

“..Sure, I promise.” Gelatin replied, but he had looked away with a distant expression after that.

It.. probably wasn’t an issue though, because Gelatin always kept his promises! That’s just one part of why the jello was so kind and understanding. This might sound unrelated at first, but.. a week or so after befriending Gelatin, Firey had suddenly started getting the strange urge to hold the other’s hand. At first, it had been easy to dismiss the strange thought, but then it slowly started to infect the flame’s mind more and more. The idea of bringing his arm close to the jello’s arm, squeezing his palm against his, interlocking their fingers together and making sure Gelatin doesn’t let go.. it all makes Firey feel warm. Warmer than usual. By the time that BFDIA 2 had ended production, he was constantly thinking about holding Gelatin’s hand. It was so embarrassing and made no sense at all. Due to burning most objects that he came into physical contact with, Firey wasn’t a very affectionate guy, and in fact strayed away from the usually sappy behaviors that others engaged in. It was common for most objects to participate (even platonically) in cozy activities like cuddling or hugging, but Firey did no such thing. Up until he had hugged Coiny during the BFDI finale, the closest he had gotten to being physically close with others was holding Leafy’s hand once or twice as they watched the night sky together and pointed out cool looking stars. Their favorites were always the pretty constellations that represented strength and intelligence.. but enough thinking about them. All Firey wants to think about is achieving the accomplishment of getting Gelatin’s hand. Luckily for him, the jello’s sharp observation skills come into play once again as they’re sitting in the grasslands together. He’s eagerly rambling about how he developed his antidote for poison, when all of a sudden, his words trail off as he glances over at Firey with his usual deadpan expression.

There’s something strange about him, which causes the jello to go: “Hmm..”

Firey tilts his “head” in response to Gelatin’s humming. “Huh? What’s up?” The flame asks him.

“Funny, I should be asking you that instead. You’ve been staring at my hand for the past 5 minutes, Firey. There’s also an additional 40 seconds to that time, if you really wanna be specific.”

“Of course I’ve been staring at it. You keep.. gesturing with your hand when talking, and it’s super distracting! Stop that!”

“I’d gladly refrain from doing so if that was actually true, but alas, it is not. Is there something wrong with my hand? I tried to avoid getting injuries during my last few experiments..”

“You’re not injured at all, it’s just that.. eugh. I dunno if I can say this out loud. You might find it really weird.”

“Hahah, good one. Me, of all objects, looking down on someone for saying something “weird?” That’s probably impossible.”

“I know, but it’s like.. a different kind of weird.”

“I don’t mind. I’d listen to anything that you want to talk to me about.” Gelatin boldly said to him.

Firey felt his face heat up even more than usual at that statement. “U-Uhm, ok. I don’t know if I’ve ever asked you this before, but.. can I.. hold your hand?” Silence. “It’s totally alright if you aren’t comfortable with that. Or, even better, we can forget this weird exchange ever happened-“

“Chill out!” Gelatin exclaimed. “You didn’t even let me say anything! How can I express how I feel about that question if you don’t even let me answer with my response?”

“..Oh. Yeah, that’s a good point.” The flame flatly admitted to him.

“To answer your question, though..”

Gelatin reached out to Firey and slowly took his hand, carefully connecting both of their palms together as he said: “You can hold my hand anytime. I don’t mind.”

“R-Really..?”

“Mhm. I like it, and if it makes you feel better, then that’s another good reason for why we should hold hands. Besides, it’s scientifically proven that holding hands with others reduces stress and makes you feel more connected to others. This would be great research for that subject!”

From then on, they were constantly holding hands while chatting with each other or finishing up construction for Gelatin’s genius steakhouse. The only exception was during challenges, which was completely understandable. See! Isn’t that just such a kind thing for a friend to do?- No, scratch that! Gelatin’s not just a friend! He’s Firey’s best friend now! Someone as sweet and honest and amazing as him can’t just be reduced to the normal title of “friend.” The flame can’t believe that nobody else seems to think of his closest companion in such a regard. They all constantly whisper about how strange he is, and it makes Firey feel upset. Too weird, smiles too little, way too annoying about his products- Those are all such dumb insults! None of them are even true! If the others would just talk to him for longer than a few minutes, they would see how great of a person he really is. In fact, this is exactly what he was telling Golf Ball, Tennis Ball, and Fries during BFDIA 6. Finding a place to sleep was hard, especially in a new city that they all had never explored before. Gelatin had randomly wandered away from the group with the headphones that were forcefully glued onto him by Needle, leaving the rest of the team to distantly trail behind him. Knowing that the cameras were off and facing away from No Name, (since no suggestion for the team name had ever really stuck,) Firey had thought that this was the perfect opportunity to start gushing about his wonderful best friend. Fries had rolled his eyes and stopped paying attention, making some unnecessary comment about how the only thing Gelatin is good at doing is stealing fries from him. Tennis Ball, on the other hand, had actually been paying attention, but he had a very bewildered expression as he stared at the flame.

“Uh.. Firey, have you seen how you look right now?” The sports ball had asked.

Firey awkwardly laughed. “No, but I bet I look as stunning as always! How come?”

“Your face is a completely different color! I didn’t even know that was logically possible!”

“Wh- No, it’s not! I’d definitely notice if I went way past my normal temperature, but guess what? I feel the same as I did during the start of us talking.”

“Hate to break the news-“ Golf Ball stated sarcastically. “-But what TB is saying is definitely true. Those sparks coming out of you as well are so.. ugh! I knew you were close to that guy, but I didn’t realize you two were that close.”

“What are you two even talking about?!” Firey asked, beginning to feel confused.

Tennis Ball comically pulled a mirror out of nowhere and held it close to Firey’s face with his leg. “Here, you’ll see what we’re talking about with this.”

Firey was definitely startled by what he was seeing in the reflection. If he had a heart, it’d be skipping numerous beats right about now. His usually orange and yellow flame was instead mostly blue, especially around his facial area. That’s always an indication of his temperature rising extremely high, usually due to being extremely flustered by praise or insults. Gray eyes that are the same color as always, but he could’ve sworn that they were brighter than usual and sparkling with excitement. The strangest part, however, were the sparks that Golf Ball was talking about. While Firey was usually able to control his body and make sure that he didn’t let out sparks that could send anything nearby on fire, he felt these embers uncontrollably shoot out of him. That was already bad enough, but the sparks flying away from him were.. heart shaped?! How?

He stumbled back from the mirror, eyes widening. “H-How am I supposed to fix this before the cameras go back to recording us?!”

Golf Ball raised an eyebrow with disbelief. “You really.. don’t know what’s causing that?”

“No..? How would I? I was just talking about Gelatin before this strange thing happened to me! There’s nothing about that topic that could suddenly make me look so strange and blue.”

“Should we just tell him?” Tennis Ball asked.

Golf Ball “shrugged” with one of her legs. “I dunno, it might be better if he figures it out on his own.”

“But Firey might not realize it in time! What if he only realizes after our team is being recorded again for the episode?”

“Then we’ll just give him some clues, and-“

“Oh my potato, STOP TALKING! Of course you two suck at trying to explain love to other objects!” Fries shouted. “Here, I’ll just rip off the bandage and say it myself so that I never have to hear this conversation ever again! Firey, you have an enormous crush on Gelatin! There, the problem was solved! Now we can all just shut up and find a place to sleep?!”

“Nuh uh! What you just said is totally untrue. There’s no way that I’m in love with Gelatin! He may be the coolest person I’ve ever met, but the idea of having feelings for him is.. is..!” Firey paused. “..Okay, it wouldn’t be bad at all, but still, I haven’t developed any feelings!”

“Wow, you really are as dense as I thought you were.” Golf Ball remarked.

Tennis Ball uncharacteristically rolled his eyes, although he was not as annoyed as one might expect from such a gesture. “You literally have hearts flying out of you, yet you still think that you don’t feel anything towards him?”

“That’s.. a good point.” Firey reluctantly said.

“Exactly!” Fries snapped. “You’re in love with Gelatin, whoop-dee-fucking-do. Congratulations, or sorry for your loss, or whatever phrase works that can make you stop yapping so much. Now can you please stop thinking about him and get back to focusing on the challenge?”

“Alright! I’ll stop thinking about him so much that you’ll be amazed with my ability to just instantly change my train of thought!”

“I’ll believe it when I see it!”

“FINE!”

Surprisingly, this actually didn’t take long at all. Thoughts about all the negative things that Firey didn’t want to think about- like Match getting eliminated and Leafy trying to talk to him again- were enough to make the sparks soaring out of him settle down into nothing. The blue infecting his flame also began to gradually fade out, leaving nothing left but a very faint blush around his “cheeks” that could easily be filtered out through basic screen editing. Taking a few deep breaths, he looked at the rest of the team to see their reactions. Golf Ball and Fries looked much less annoyed than before. Tennis Ball tossed the mirror vaguely into the distance, and a faint sound of glass shattering could be heard from the source. This finally caused the cameras to pay attention to No Name again, just in the nick of time. As Gelatin continued to aimlessly wander around Yoyle City, he suddenly stopped and turned back to face the rest of his team with a relaxed smile.

“Yo, team! I’ve been following these headphone spike balls, and they led me to the perfect sleeping place!” The jello exclaimed as he gestured to an upside down sign that read “EVIL HERE HOTEL.”

Firey, lacking the intelligence to realize that the sign was flipped, said “Wow, it’s called the ”Live Here Hotel?” It must be cozy if people literally LIVE in the building!”

Golf Ball happily smiled. “Smart choice, Gelatin!” Hah! GB had no choice but to compliment him for that.

“Eh. I don’t know, guys..” Tennis Ball hesitantly stated as the others began filing into the hotel.

“No wimping out, TB!” Fries shouted. “I know you were born 30 seconds ago, but you gotta go in.”

“Okay..”

As Gelatin started looking around the lobby of the hotel, Firey couldn’t stop looking at him. It took all of his mental willpower to not start blushing and giggling like an idiot again as the other exclaimed: “Woah! This hotel looks so fancy!”

“I already feel at home here!” Firey responded, trying to agree with his best friend.

Suddenly, they both noticed the chandelier hanging at the top of the lobby ceiling. It was golden, and looked so clean and sparkly compared to the drab walls of the presumably old building. How tempting. As the duo briefly felt their gazes connect with each other, they collectively realized that they both had come up with the same absolutely brilliant idea. Jumping up, Firey and Gelatin both held onto separate sides of the chandelier, swaying it back and forward. It made a loud, creaky sound each time this happened. Looks like the chandelier is older than initially suspected. Firey didn’t care about that, though. It could have been the most broken thing in the hotel and he still wouldn’t care as long as he got to swing on it with Gelatin. Anything would be great as long as he got to do it with his bestest friend in the whole wide world. As he used all of his willpower to control his rising temperature and look into Gelatin’s excited face, Firey had realized something that was already painfully obvious to everyone else: Wow, I really AM in love with Gelatin, but.. what should I do about it? I can’t just tell him right now. The cameras are still recording us, but.. maybe when they cut back to another team, I can? Yeah. I’ll definitely do that! I’m so excited to tell him after the cameras stop recording us!

As it turns out, that is NOT how it went down. After Firey and Gelatin got off the chandelier, the whole No Name team had begun walking around the hotel and investigating the rooms, with Fries giving his scathingly critical rating of each one. The most interesting part of the place, however, was the strangely shaped mirror at the end of the hallway, which they all proceeded to excessively stare at. Yeah, big mistake. This caused a ridiculously long chase scene to play out, as No Name had to run to and hide in every single room in a desperate attempt to escape Evil Leafy, who would surely kill them if they weren’t fast enough. All attempts proved to be fruitless, with the red leaf surely preparing to destroy them all as they inched closer and closer to the cornered group. Firey huddled close to Gelatin out of fear, and was fully prepared to meet his demise with him, only for Evil Leafy to suddenly just.. teleport away? How strange. Oh well, no time to complain! No Name shuffled back into the fancy room and curled up on the floor and seats to sleep. As FSB declares the team safe from being put up for elimination, the flame peacefully slumbers, unaware that he forgot to tell Gelatin how he really felt about him.

So it’s no surprise that Firey awakens a few hours later in a cold sweat. As droplets of sweat painfully seep into him from one of his usual harrowing nightmares, (ones that he’d had long before joining the show, for reasons even he isn’t sure of,) all Firey can think is: Damnit, I didn’t get to tell Gelatin! This has to be fixed immediately. Sitting up from his spot by the rug, the flame looks over at where Gelatin was sitting before and discovers that he isn't present. In fact, a quick glance all around the room indicates that while the rest of the team is still present and resting, Gelatin is completely missing. Ah, seriously? (Joke not intended.) Where’d he go? Firey quietly scrambles to his feet, shaking his hands in front of the motion sensor door to get it “unlocked.” As it slowly slides open, he gently steps out of the room and begins to start searching. A quick check for the other rooms proves that the jello isn’t any of them. No sign that he’s in the lobby, either. He must have gone outside. Firey leaves the shady hotel and begins wandering around the sidewalk, his bright flame making sure that he isn’t stumbling around in the pitch black darkness. That would suck. He eventually hits the jackpot, however, when he discovers Gelatin peacefully sitting by the side of one of the many roads of the city.

Sitting down beside him, Firey awkwardly starts up the conversation by asking him: “What brings you here, Gelatin?”

It takes the other a second to hear him, probably because of the headphones. “I couldn’t sleep.” Gelatin reluctantly admits.

“..Me neither.” Firey responded. “I usually wake up in the middle of the night from some troubling dream of mine.”

“You never told me that before.”

“W-Well, I thought you already figured that out, considering how smart you are!”

“..Smart, huh? I’m starting to wonder if that’s really true. I messed up a lot during today’s challenge..”

“So what?! You’re still the reason why we won in the first place! It’s not your fault that Needle glued those headphones to you!”

“..Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Gelatin glanced over at Firey. “Enough about me worrying, what’s with you? You look like you have something to tell me.”

Firey began to visibly sweat with nervousness again, thoughts racing faster than the speed of sound in his mind. This is it! I can finally tell him how I really feel!- Oh, but what if he hates me? We’ve only known each other for like a year. Oh, but that’s plenty of time to get to know someone!- Should I really tell him right after he opened up about how he felt about the challenge, though? That’s not right at all. I should just reassure him some more about how smart and kind and totally awesome he is- But wait, I’d say that in my confession to him anyways! And if I don’t tell him, this crush will just keep building up until it’s too much for me to handle! If that strange transformation happened to me in the next challenge when cameras were recording- Ugh, that’d be horrible! Nobody on my team would ever forgive me, and I’d bet they’ll all hate me, and-

“Firey.”

The flame is pulled out of his thoughts by the feeling of Gelatin standing up, grabbing both of his hands, and gently holding them. “You’re doing that thing again where you overthink every little thing. Even though that’s supposedly my thing to do.” He observes. “Haven’t I told you before? You can tell me anything that’s bugging you. I don’t care how strange or weird it sounds, okay?”

“Y-Yeah, I know, it’s just that.. eugh! Nevermind, I can’t take it anymore! Go out with me already!” Firey paused, his face flushing blue with embarrassment again as he realized how he was too forceful and left out all the nice things he planned to say. “N-No, wait, I’m really sorry about that! What I actually meant was.. uh.. will you go out with me?”

…

Suddenly, Gelatin began to softly laugh, which caused all the nervousness tugging at Firey’s metaphorical heart to fall apart and be replaced by anger. “Hey, what are you laughing at me for?!” The flame shouted. “If you really hate the idea that much, you can just reject me! You don’t need to be so rude!”

“No, no, no, it’s not that all, I promise.” Gelatin said, before looking away with a self conscious expression. “I simply thought that.. we were dating already. My apologies.”

Firey was silent for a few moments, the anger fading away as he pulled one of his hands away from Gelatin and used it to lightly punch the other, anxiously giggling as he did so. “Seriously?! You made me worried there for a second!”

And so, as the now 15 year old teenagers continued to laugh in unison while holding each other, a new relationship was formed. Firey was surprised by how many little details needed to be sorted out in the first month of their relationship, but.. it wasn’t that bad. W.O.A.H. Bunch spent the entire month repeatedly almost drowning to death, while Freesmart was too busy floating in the air and recording video diaries to look down and watch No Name. No cameras either, which meant that nothing was in the way of stopping the duo from sorting things out. Labels were a strange thing. Firey didn’t mind what he was called, but when he tried to call Gelatin his “boyfriend” for the first time, the other had looked so uncomfortable and bothered that Firey immediately stopped and said they should talk about it. As it turns out, Gelatin said that he didn’t mind being called by a label, but he simply just hated the term “boyfriend” and would rather be called “partner.” Totally fair! Neither of them liked those strangely specific and sappy pet names that are often shown in movies, so honestly, the main issue was physical affection. Although they were able to hold hands, Firey melting Gelatin to death if they tried anything else was obviously a concern. Would Gelatin really be happy if they never got to hug or cuddle each other? This was quickly resolved, however, when Gelatin disappeared for a day and came back with some sort of new chemical concoction. It was the color of gold, and when Gelatin injected it into himself with no difficulties, he was suddenly able to hug Firey! How wonderful!

As the two shared their first kiss that day with about the amount of amateurism you’d expect, all Firey could think about was how he never wanted any of this to end. Hell, he wouldn’t even mind the competition being canceled, because it would mean that he got to spend more time with Gelatin! Everything was perfect. Their relationship was perfect. Firey felt all the bad thoughts he experienced fade away when he was around the other guy. If only.. none of that had ever changed.

Chapter Text

Although none of these come even close to being the greatest mistake that Firey has ever made, there is a certain list of mistakes that Firey makes during BFDIA that come back to bite him later on. He regrets all of those so much. He should’ve been more careful. Shouldn’t have lied to him. If only he hadn’t gone too far with things. These all repeat over and over again in his mind, taunting him as he now sits alone in his little house. It’s been abandoned for a long time, but the condition of it is still stable. Not particularly dirty, either. It is pretty hard to leave trash all over the floor when you can just pick it up and toss it into your flame to destroy it. Right now, the window is open, letting a gust of cold wind blow into the living room that Firey is sitting in. He can’t resist shivering with chattering teeth. Normally, his flame is hot enough that he can handle cold temperatures, but his body has just been too unstable recently after the stress on him. He can hardly even burn stuff anymore, no matter how hard he tries. Coiny even stuck his hand into his flame once, just to see how long it’d take for a burn to happen, and was surprised to feel like nothing happened for several seconds. He wasn’t cold, but just barely being warm was very concerning. Something was definitely wrong with him. Everybody knows it too, after what happened. Golf Ball had dragged him to her factory once and concluded that he was having “an acute trauma response” that was causing his body to function more weakly than usual. Firey didn’t understand what could possibly be “cute” about having trauma, but then Tennis Ball quickly corrected his misinterpretation of Golf Ball’s words.

Oh well. Firey doesn’t really.. do much anymore anyways, so there’s no reason for him to have a lot of energy. BFDIA had been over for about a year now, so now they’ve all resumed peacefully living in Yoylecity. The main excuse was that the Hand-Powered Recovery Center was still stuck, glued to the outskirts right outside of the city. The actual reason, though, was because none of them were comfortable with just ditching all of the contestants trapped inside of the TLC-LOL amalgamation. It just wouldn’t be right to leave them. Not to mention how none of them even had a real objective with all potential hosts being gone. PSB and FSB were classified as “mysteriously missing.” TV was trapped with the rest of the contained contestants. Announcer had been gone for years. If one of them suddenly showed up and announced a brand new “Season 3,” Firey would probably just curl up into a ball and sob uncontrollably, completely refusing to participate. He hated this stupid show. Nothing good had ever come from it. Anything that the flame got close to obtaining was ripped out of his hands as soon as he was inches away from it. His island had been gone for a long time, with the replacement being a lousy farm that he also didn’t get to have. He remembers sort of angrily tearing up when he had first learned what the “new prize” was. Of course Coiny had to ruin it with his selfishness. What kind of asshole blows up the reconstructed Dream Island?! That’s in the past, though. All Firey cared about these days was how long he could sleep before the fake penny could shake him awake and scold him for oversleeping for what felt like the millionth time. He couldn’t help it. He always felt so tired. Never hungry, either. The idea of leaving his house was too much as well. He was like some sort of discount hikikomori, too sluggish and disoriented to ever do anything productive. The most pathetic part, however, was that it had all been his own fault. He would’ve never started feeling this way if it wasn’t for the selfish behavior that led up to his suffering.

It had really all started in BFDIA 7. Tennis Ball, too loyal and anxious to risk carrying out the scheme himself, asked Firey to switch from No Name to Freesmart in order to secure Ruby’s mineral piece of Yoyleite material. Always happy to do whatever makes his “friends” happy, the flame had agreed to do so on the condition that Gelatin switched to Freesmart as well. No way he’s leaving his partner behind! Besides, the jello could probably come up with some sort of smart way that the two could snatch the Yoyleite away from Ruby. Tennis Ball, desperate enough to sacrifice almost anything in order to obtain the nearly priceless material, had reluctantly agreed. Alright, awesome! As Firey casually lifted Gelatin up into his arms (Disgusting! Keep the public displays of affection to a minimum when there are cameras around!) and began to run off with him, Fries suddenly stopped them with an idea. If they switch to Freesmart, then No Name will only have 3 team members, which will make it way harder for them to win challenges. Why don’t they start some trouble in Freesmart so that No Name has an easier time with winning? Firey and Gelatin thought that it was a good idea, so they agreed with Fries and kept it in mind as they made their way over to the.. empty Freesmart area? As it turned out, Freesmart had not learned what the challenge was because they were too busy soaring back down to the ground below. As soon as they saw the duo, Book was supportive of the duo switching to the Freesmart team, but Pencil had no intentions of letting the two onto the team.

“Absolutely no way!” The writing utensil shouted.

“But we know what this episode’s contest is!” Firey pointed out.

Gelatin smirked at that realization, saying in agreement: “And you don’t!”

This changes everything! “Absolutely yes way!”

“Oh my gosh dear knowledge bearers, now we recognize your value as Freesmarters!” Ruby
pleadfully declared. “Please enlighten us on what the contest is!”

Gelatin replied with: “Lucky for you, we’d love to tell you the contest.”

“Fries says we have to!” Firey said.

The plan the two had silently agreed upon was simple. Since Freesmart had zero idea what the challenge was, they would have no choice but to do every single one that Firey and Gelatin said. This would distract them for long enough that Golf Ball, Tennis Ball, and Fries would be able to cobble together a decent enough elimination zone that could keep their team from losing. Once enough time has passed, Gelatin can “suddenly” remember the real contest, and Firey would have no trouble at all building a decently engineered loser chamber, keeping Freesmart safe as well. It was a genius plan, where everyone got what they wanted except the wretched W.O.A.H. Bunch team. Do 60 jumping jacks, eat 700 Yoyle bush leaves, step on 3 different planets. These were all different false challenges that- surprisingly- Gelatin had suggested when Firey immediately started struggling with sabotage. It was strange. Gelatin was all about making sure that the other teams didn’t get hurt by anything he did, so Firey was a little surprised by how his usual reluctance disappeared when the flame himself faltered. In that case.. it’d be ok to take things further, right?

“Gelatin’s such a dumb-dumb!” Firey exclaimed after the other’s last false suggestion. “No, the contest is to.. kill all your teammates!”

“Firey!” Gelatin shouted with a bit of concern. “There’s no way Freesmart’s gonna fall for that-“

Ruby proceeded to violently kill all of her teammates with no remorse present on her face. “Trust me, I am desperate to win this contest.”

After FSB briefly stopped by to question Ruby’s mental health, Ruby had recovered her dead teammates. “Why’d you kill us, Ruby?” The newly revived Book asked.

Ruby pouted in response. “It was to help our team with the challenge, Book!”

“I agree with Ruby.” Pencil stated. “We want to win, don’t we?”

Firey smirked at that. “Well, if you want to win, then.. the challenge is to burn down Yoylecity!”

“Okie dokie!” The writing utensil exclaimed as she used Firey’s flame to light up a small matchstick that she somehow had been holding onto.

The flame glanced back at Gelatin, expecting him to be impressed with his fantastic false challenge idea, but instead, the other was frowning at him. “Uhm.. don’t you think we should scale back on ”trolling” Freesmart?” Gelatin questioned. “Our main goal is to get Ruby’s Yoyleite, right?”

“..Maybe you’re right.” Firey admitted. “I just miss messing around with people. Like I did with Coiny in the good ol’ days!”

“Well stop missing and start doing! Because it looks like Freesmart is about to-“

“-Run out of time.” FSB said as he showed up and interrupted Gelatin. “Boop! Time's up! Let’s see how each team did.” He briefly turned to face the group and said something that would be edited out of the released version of the episode. “Freesmart, I’ll be back here momentarily. You all better have something great ready for when I return, especially since my wonderful owner is now on this team.”

“Whatever.” Pencil replied with an eyeroll.

As FSB flew away, Gelatin glared at Firey. “You went too far today. Do you seriously think that “missing the good ol’ days” is a real excuse for trying to make them kill each other and burn an entire city down?”

Firey hardly looked bothered by this. “Well, I also have a bit of a personal grudge towards Pencil, but that’s neither here nor there.” He absentmindedly said as a reply.

“So what? You just thought that it was fun to mess with her because of something she probably did years ago? That’s ridiculous, Firey. Even if we don’t lose, the others will definitely hate us-“

“Oh, don’t worry! I promise you that what you’re thinking about is not an issue at all. They hated us before we ever even switched onto the team.”

“..Huh? Why’s that?”

“Well, it’s quite simple. You see, we’re both guys.” Yikes, Firey. “That’s, like, an instant way for Pencil to start despising us. Everybody from last season knows that.”

“..Is that so?” Gelatin asked.

“Of course! I know from experience that she definitely hates guys.”

“No, not her hating men, I was talking about- Oh, whatever, it doesn’t matter.” The jello looked away and sighed. “I still don’t understand how you think this is okay. They’ll hate us even more now.”

“..Gelatin, I still don’t think you understand how this show works.” Firey said. “Haven’t you seen all of the dying and killing and insulting of others? No matter how bad it gets, it’s okay, ‘cuz the cameras just record it and then edit it into episodes! Sure, the viewers might get mad at us for this, but I know from last season that all you have to do to win them over again is to smile and laugh it off!”

…

“Do you.. really think that?” Gelatin asked, his voice so quiet that Firey could barely hear it.

“Of course I do! Nothing bad will ever happen as long as we just smile and wave. Even if Freesmart doesn’t forgive us, the viewers will. Alright?”

Gelatin didn’t get to say anything else, because then FSB returned and exclaimed with a nonexistent smile: “Onto to Freesmart! Let’s see how well you built your new loser chamber!”

“..Oh. So that was this episode’s contest.” Gelatin said, pretending to act surprised. “Who would have thought?”

“Your little shtick isn’t holding up so well anymore!” Book shouted.

“Well, where is your loser chamber?” FSB impatiently asked. “Gimmie, gimmie!”

“Well, all we have are these planetary passports and these shards of glass.” Ruby said.

“..And?”

“No ”and.” That’s it.”

FSB started to incomprehensibly shout in a fit of rage, causing Pencil to yell. “Oh come on, speaker box! You were the one who decided to not tell us what the contest was!”

“Don’t care, 0 out of 10!” He replied. “Which means.. you lose!”

Gelatin looked over to Firey with an expression that was somehow even more troubled than all of the other ones he’s done combined. “Oh no! Firey, you know what this means!”

Pause. “What?” Firey asked.

“It means we’re up for elimination!”

How dreadful. While Pencil was so hostile to the others that viewers might boot her out without any hesitation, Gelatin wasn’t certain of that. Firey and I caused a lot of trouble for the team today. He thought. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I got thousands of dislikes flying my way in about a month. He kept his hesitancy to a minimum, however, as he headed back to the “EVIL HERE” Hotel with Firey. However, when the two went back to the fancy room they had been staying in for about a month, they were surprised to see that Golf Ball, Tennis Ball, and Fries hadn’t arrived yet. They didn’t lose during today’s contest, so surely they’d return here to celebrate, right? They never came back. Gone for the entire month. Maybe that’s a good thing, though, because if Tennis Ball was around, then he’d be disappointed by the fact that Firey and Gelatin were unable to obtain the Yoyleite mineral from Ruby. Maybe he’d even be glad if either of them got eliminated during the next episode. That would suck. Since pretty much every team on the show either disappeared without a trace or hated them, Firey and Gelatin spent most of that month just enjoying each other’s company. The amount of hours they used to just explore the city together were far too many to keep track of as they gathered supplies to use for a variety of things. Food, cleaning supplies to keep the hotel tidy, and most importantly of them all: the blankets and pillows required to make the most awesome fort of all time. Who cares if it sounds immature for their age? Certainly not Firey, who loved cuddling with Gelatin in a fort filled with many layers of fireproof blankets. They weren’t naturally made that way, but all Gelatin had to do was cover them with some spray variant of the same fireproof chemical that he used to be able to hug Firey to make the layers able to withstand the flame’s heat. Those were some fantastic weeks. Neither of them talked about the potential elimination one of them might face when production for BFDIA 8 started, but Gelatin would occasionally ask Firey the most strange question he had ever heard.

“Would you ever lie to me, Firey?”

Firey was always confused by this constant inquiry. As far as he knew, he had never uttered a single lie to Gelatin. What kind of object would lie to someone they care about? He’s pretty sure that if some sort of official guideline for morals existed, one of the biggest rules would prohibit lying to your dearest partner. It’d just be plain wrong. Therefore, Firey’s answer to this question should be “No, of course not!” Still, he isn’t sure. Maybe he accidentally told a little lie once. Maybe he used the wrong adjective to describe his thoughts on a subject. Or maybe he actually lied about something serious and simply forgot. Are those potential situations against the metaphorical rules of morality? Or can they be excused? If he was a few years younger, Firey wouldn’t be overanalyzing this question so darn much, but now, with so many betrayals under his figurative belt that stemmed from miscommunication, he tried to be more thoughtful about the subject. Therefore, his real answer is “No, not that I know of,” but there’s no way that he can say that to his partner!

So instead of saying that, Firey would scoot close to Gelatin and gently hold his hand, declaring with a soft smile: “No, not in a million years! All I’ve ever told you about things is the truth! See, I’ll give you an example right now.” He gave a different one each time, but it was always a sincere compliment towards the other. “That’s definitely the truth, but.. out of curiosity, why are you asking?”

And every single time, Gelatin would reply with “Oh, no reason. I’m.. glad that you feel like you don’t need to lie around me, though. It makes me feel better knowing that everything you say is true.”

Now, this may sound like a pretty good thing. Firey would repeatedly profess how honest he was, and Gelatin would thank the flame for his sincere earnesty. It was a comfortable little cycle that they repeated throughout their month together, even if Firey found it strange that Gelatin kept asking it. Maybe he was just feeling insecure about their relationship? Hopefully not. It wouldn’t make Firey feel good at all if he learned that Gelatin secretly doubted every word of kind praise said to him. Either way, it hadn’t been that big of a concern to him, and by the time that the flame had gotten eliminated in the next episode, he had forgotten all about it. The “WTF,” which he later learned was built by Tennis Ball, certainly deserved its cruel acronym. Firey was not the first to be sent to the Weak Trembling Fortress, but since the only other object present was Rocky, he was basically alone. It was horrible to have nobody to talk to in such an isolated spot of Yoyleland. If he was his normal self, he’d be able to just burn down the wooden WTF and walk out of there with no difficulties. Pencil made sure that never happened. Stuffing a Yoyleberry down someone’s mouth as they’re shouting is an asshole move, but Pencil didn’t care, so now he was stuck with a suffocated flame. Thanks a lot. Firey could tolerate being metal for a while in BFDI, but now it was starting to take a toll on his mental health. Nighttime was the worst. As mentioned before, the fire had already been experiencing nightmares and even bouts of sleep paralysis for years, long before the events of BFDI. However, these were much easier to tolerate when he had a flame that basically worked as the best nightlight of all time. Begone, sleep paralysis demon! The light will scare you away! Yeah, no, that wasn’t an option anymore. Firey lost count of how many times he woke up frozen with fear as some sort of ominous, shadowy creature stood in the corner of the WTF. At least Rocky didn’t look too upset whenever he started screaming with fear.

Somewhere along the way, as more and more objects got tossed into the WTF, Firey wondered if this is how Leafy felt. They were currently dead as far as he knew, but before that, the leaf had apparently been living in Yoyleland for around a year before attempting to return from exile. It didn’t go well. After Pin and Bubble’s murder attempts failed, Leafy had shrugged their weapons off and went to go find Firey. Before he had to actually say anything to them, however, Gelatin had swung a giant hammer down against Leafy’s body and crushed them in order to defend Firey, killing the leaf instantly. Yep, that’s totally all that happened. Nothing left out whatsoever. Thinking about that made Firey think about what life was like for Leafy before their failed attempt to return. Did they also have trouble sleeping in the outskirts of Yoyleland? Did they hate the bittersweet taste of Yoyleberries and the metal coating that suffocated their body as much as he did with his own? He hoped not. Although Firey tries to reassure himself with the knowledge that there really was nothing else he could’ve done to help Leafy after the hang glider crashed back then, he can’t help but wonder if maybe they both could have avoided such terrible experiences if he had let Leafy onto Dream Island. Pondering about what could’ve been slowly turned into desperation to fix something now. By the time that BFDIA ended, Firey had fully fleshed out his plan. Once nobody was looking, he was going to sneak over to the HPRC, type in Leafy’s name, recover them as quickly as possible, and then sneak away while they escape. It was a perfect plan, really. If only he hadn’t been-

The sound of a knock on Firey’s front door snaps him out of spiraling thoughts regarding the past. His voice still too damaged for it to be normal for him to talk loudly, the flame just ends up practically whispering: “Come in, Coiny.” The coin always visits at least once a day, so it’s not unrealistic to assume that he’s the visitor.

Surprisingly, the visitor turns out to be Gelatin, who remains standing by the door. “Hey.” He says, as if it’s just been a few hours since they’ve talked and not several weeks.

“Don’t just stand there, come in!” Firey excitedly shouts, ignoring the vocal strain it brings before his eyes suddenly widen. “Oh, but before you sit down, be sure to turn on the coffee machine. Coiny will be visiting in a bit, and he always likes having caffeine when he’s here.”

Gelatin looks disconcerted by this information. “How long do you think it’ll take for him to arrive?”

“Uhm.. hmm.. at least 5 minutes? It really depends on when Pin’s appointment ends. You know that he always goes to those.”

“He sure is a busy person.” Gelatin remarks as he closes the door behind him and turns on the counter coffee machine, this being a rather easy task because the living room and kitchen are connected. “To be honest, I’m.. not sure how to start this conversation with you.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Firey admitted with a smile. “After all, it’s been a while since we’ve actually talked! I missed you a lot!”

Gelatin looked away. “No, that’s.. not what I meant. I don’t know what to say for this because.. you won’t like what I’m about to tell you. In fact, we’ll probably never speak again after this.”

Firey nervously chuckled, unsure of how to process that. “Aren’t you being a bit dramatic? What could possibly make me never want to see my partner again? Absolutely nothing!”

“Well, about that.. I think we should “end our partnership,” so to speak.”

“Hahah, good one!” Firey laughed with a big grin as he ignored his metaphorical heart stopping, only for the laughter to slowly die down as he noticed Gelatin’s blank expression. “..Oh. You’re.. actually being serious about this?”

“Yes. We simply aren’t compatible anymore.”

“What do you mean? You seem to be the same as always, and I’ve been feeling a lot better lately. I’ll be back to my normal self in no time! How could we ever be too different for each other?”

“Who knows? Maybe that Yoyle Needy incident scrambled your mind far too much.”

The flame was starting to become angry about what Gelatin was saying, immediately standing up. “You’ve gotta be kidding me! I just said that I’m fine, you shouldn’t doubt me so easily. If you don’t believe me, ask Coiny! He certainly knows me better than you do at this point!”

“Oh, really? He never cared about you before, as far as I know. The only reason he’s pretending to care now is that he pities damaged goods. Pin’s a fantastic example of that.”

“S-So that’s it, huh? You suddenly think I’m too fucked up and BROKEN to ever love?! What do you even have to gain from this? The others all tolerate me a lot more now, so if you start saying that horrible nonsense around them, they’ll-“

“Oh, don’t you worry. I won’t say a word to them about this, but.. that isn’t the actual reason why I want this all to end. Truth be told, I don’t care how “broken” someone is. Objects shouldn’t be judged by their lowest points and that includes you. I do not think we should part ways because of what happened to you.”

“Then WHY did you SAY THAT?!”

“Because.. it connects back to what I was actually going to tell you. Do you remember all those times I asked you about if you ever lied to me?”

“And I said no, because that’s the truth!”

“..That’s what I thought as well. You said it so sincerely everytime that I almost didn’t doubt you. If I had to guess, you probably.. refused to consciously recognize your lie. How strange.”

“What could I possibly lie about?! I was honest about everything I ever told you. What kind of object would I be if I betrayed someone’s trust?”

“Huh. That’s funny, the irony of it. Is that also what you said to Leafy before you banned them from your precious Dream Island?”

Silence. “..How did you learn about that?” Firey whispered after a few tense seconds.

“Nobody talked about what happened back then, but I did my investigative work. Anybody would find it strange that we’re competing for a prize that went missing, so I concluded that someone must’ve stolen or destroyed Dream Island. You told me about how you won BFDI, so I knew that you would hate the person who stole it from you. My first suspect was Pencil, since you detest her greatly, but then I realized that my theory made no sense. She would have been exiled or killed if she had really taken the prize. It had to have been someone else. As fate would have it, Leafy returned to the grasslands. Bubble and Pin immediately borrowed some of my freeze juice syringes, so I knew that they hated Leafy immensely. Hell, you even talked to Leafy. I didn’t hear what the conversation was, but when I killed Leafy to stop them from hurting anybody, you suddenly acted as if you had no idea who they were. What a lie. You only said that you didn’t know them because you didn’t want me to know. In fact-“ He glared at Firey as he shouted the next part. “-I bet I was just your cheap replacement for them!”

“No, of course not! Leafy and I, w-we were never partners. Even if we somehow were, then I’d technically be cheating on them, which isn’t right at all! Do you seriously think I’m that cruel?”

“Nah. I know I’m not a replacement in that kind of sense, but I still can’t help.. noticing the similarities between us. Green, friendly, happy to be your best friend. You must’ve loved having somebody new to spend time with.. but I don’t actually care about being a replacement for Leafy, either. Although I do not know the details, I’m certain that our dynamic is vastly different from the one you had with them, and your claims only serve to prove that.”

“I don’t understand you at all anymore! You keep making up all these stupid reasons for why we should split up, only for you to turn around and say that these reasons aren’t why! How come?”

“Haven’t you connected the dots already? Leafy and the Yoyle Needy.. you know exactly how those two things are connected.” Firey’s eyes widened, but Gelatin kept talking. “It wasn’t hard at all, really, to assume what you were gonna do after being stuck in the WTF for so long. I had the perfect excuse as well for feeling so betrayed-“

“Stop.”

“All I had to do was pay a visit to Freesmart-“

“Stop it.”

“Cry into Pencil’s arms about how you were using me the whole time-“

”STOP TALKING!”

“-And tell her that you were going to revive Leafy when nobody was looking. I said that even if you didn’t do it as soon as you possibly could, you would eventually, so keep an eye out near the HPRC. Imagine her surprise when she found out that you really were trying to-“

“SHUT UP!” Firey snarled, taking a step forward. “Y-YOU DIDN’T TELL HER THAT AT ALL! THERE’S NO PROOF!”

“Really? Then how come Pencil instantly caught you in the act? Why didn’t I care when you were being put on trial in front of everyone?”

“Sh-She could’ve just been trying to make sure that Flower or Woody didn’t get revived! Nobody wants those two around! Yeah, a-and you just didn’t react to it because you didn’t wanna get in trouble for sympathizing with me! That’s all.”

Gelatin raised an eyebrow. “You’re.. trying to defend me, even after I confessed to all of that?” He shook his “head,” then burst into loud laughter. “HAHAH, THAT’S HILARIOUS! OF COURSE AN IDIOT LIKE YOU CAN’T EVEN COMPREHEND THE TRUTH!”

“CUT IT OUT! Why would you tell Pencil that I was trying to recover Leafy in the first place? I simply can’t imagine how that benefits you at all! All you ever cared about was making sure that nobody got hurt by other people’s actions!”

The other’s laughter had slowly died down as Firey was talking, and now Gelatin was back to having a blank expression. “..Maybe I used to care about stupid stuff like that, but now? Not anymore.” He smiled, but it was quite obvious that it wasn’t sincere at all. “It doesn’t matter what happens next. If I tell everyone what I did, they might get mad, but I can just.. smile and laugh it off! It’s exactly like what you told me before. I needed to change myself to better understand that statement. It was hard, at first. I felt like I was just losing sight of myself, but.. I shrugged off that uncertainty, and guess what?” He holds up his arms in the air, as if his favorite sports team had just won a match. “It worked! Everybody likes me much better now! All of them.. except you. I knew that you would never accept this. You’d try to convince me what you said before was a lie. I couldn’t allow the possibility of me giving into weakness, so I needed to get rid of you. Now you can’t stop me. You’re too weakened to, and even if you weren’t, I had a year to make sure everyone believed me instead of you. Any doubts now, Firey?”

…

“Get out.”

Gelatin rolled his eyes. “So predictable. You went from defending me to trying to kick me out the second I talked about myself instead for once. I knew that you only cared about yourself-“

“I SAID GET OUT! CAN’T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE? I HATE YOU!”

…

“Sure, if that’s what you want.”

Gelatin opened the front door to the house and left, leaving the entrance swung wide open, but Firey didn’t care. Some sort of enormous beast could destroy his home right now and he wouldn’t even notice. The flame collapsed onto the floor, unable to control the tears that began to spill down his face and pelt his body. They hurt, but only a little, because the pain felt completely disconnected from him, his body separated from his mind. This happened a lot when he was in the cage. Although he was already prone to spacing out in the past, being tortured with his worst fear for about a year straight made it way worse. Everything feels too blurry and hazy right now to comprehend. The quiet beeping of the coffee machine in the background simultaneously feels too loud and too quiet at the same time. Is any of this even real right now? Maybe none of that entire exchange ever happened. Maybe Gelatin still loves him. Maybe, just maybe, Firey ISN’T a terrible person for somehow not noticing these strange changes. He’s so stupid. Only a horrible moron like him would be in this state of denial over something as silly as a relationship break-up. He should’ve known that Gelatin would turn around and snitch to Pencil about how he was going to recover Leafy. He should’ve never recovered Leafy to begin with. He should’ve-

Firey “suddenly” (An inaccurate way of describing it, but still.) finds himself sitting on the couch, which is definitely not where he was before. A small glance to his right bears no results, but looking at the left side of vision and seeing Coiny confirms the suspicions that he has. Coiny must have shown up at some point, a while after Gelatin left. Great, now he’s fucked up another thing. All he had to do was just ignore what Gelatin told him and be a good host to his guest Coiny. He couldn’t even do that right. At least it’s still daytime though, based on the sun flickering through the slightly open doorway. It would have been deeply embarrassing if turned out that he had been spacing out for the entire day. (It’s much more serious than that, but Firey would rather not think too hard about it, and he can’t even remember the word Tennis Ball used to describe his strange state.) There’s a bag of wrapped up muffins under Coiny’s arm, and Firey suddenly realizes that he hasn’t eaten all day. Uh oh. It’s not like he actually needs to eat, but Coiny thinks aggressively gifting him food to consume will help his fire body feel better. So far, it hasn’t been going so well, but Firey decides to continue the daily tradition anyways as he slowly sits up and reaches for the bag-

Coiny snaps awake and starts violently hissing like a cat, causing Firey to uncharacteristically screech “EEK!” as he scoots backwards to the right side of the couch.

At the sound of the other’s screaming, Coiny recognizes who is stealing his precious muffins, and stops behaving weirdly immediately. “Hey Firey,” he casually states. “Are you feeling better?”

“Uhm.. y-yeah, I am.” Firey nervously says. “Why’d you fall asleep, though?”

“I was just really tired. As soon as I tossed you onto the couch, I sat down next to you and fell asleep almost instantly. Eugh, I should’ve drank more coffee this morning..”

“I had some ready for you on the counter! You should’ve just drank that.”

“Oh, you made some?” Coiny glances over at the coffee machine, where a now cold pot of coffee remains untouched. “Whoops. Anyways..” He opens the bag of muffins and hands one to Firey. “Here. Pin made these after her appointment today. Said that since she hadn’t made them in a while, you might appreciate them.”

“Thanks.” Firey quietly whispers as he takes one of the muffins and takes a bite out of it. On one hand, he’s currently kind of bothered by the fact that Coiny didn’t ask him what happened, but on the other.. he just wants to forget about it. “How’d it go today? She’s been able to walk for 7 months, so you’d think those appointments would stop by now.”

“I thought the same, but.. I guess GB and TB want to make sure that no strange malfunctions happen. It’s too strange of a project to guarantee that nothing goes wrong, after all. Fusing the chemical structure of pigment with prosthetic limbs.. that just sounds ridiculous.”

“I’m glad that she’s happy.” Firey says with a weak smile. Unlike me, of course.

“Me too! The check up went well like usual, but.. I saw something strange, actually.”

“About Pin?”

“No, of course not! She passed all the tests just fine, but while TB was handling that, I was sort of just aimlessly wandering around GB’s factory. She got all mad at me like usual for it, but before she could kick me out, I noticed something behind her. It was a whole pile of syringes.”

Firey had a bad feeling about that. “That’s weird.” He pointed out. “GB and TB don’t use syringes.”

“I know! I asked her about it, and guess what? She said that Gelatin visited her in the middle of the night and gave them all to her. I told GB to just give them back, but she said she couldn’t, because..” Coiny looked away with a troubled expression. “He wanted her to dump all of them into her incinerator, since if she fell in while burning them, she wouldn’t have any chance of dying, unlike him.”

Although not as loud or dramatic, when Firey’s muffin rolled out of his open palm and fell onto the floor below, it was comparable to the sight of a glass cup shattering.

Chapter Text

Gelatin has no idea what he’s doing anymore.

Every day, no matter what new and exciting event happens, all feel like nothing more than an amalgamated blur of fake smiles and laughter. If you asked the jello what happened earlier today, he’d probably recall something that occurred a few weeks ago instead. Of course, when you’d then point out this lapse in recollection, Gelatin would let out an awkward giggle and apologize for being so stupid. That’s what he was, after all. A complete dumb-dumb who couldn’t do anything right. Every day, someone would scold him for making some big mistake. ”Gelatin, you can’t just throw forks at other people whenever you feel like it! Stop it!” “Gelatin, stop touching all of my belongings! Hasn’t anyone told you about personal space?” “Gelatin, can you stop talking for 5 MINUTES?! You’re so annoying!” Tch, big deal. No matter how many times he’s scolded for acting so strangely, he’ll never be able to change, because idiots are incapable of changing. It’s not so bad, though! If the other objects were asked how to describe Gelatin, they’d remark that despite being a complete idiot, he always knew how to make others smile with his goofy demeanor. That’s just the way he likes it, and nothing’s ever gonna change that. No matter how much the people around him scold him or whine about how horrible he is, they still fondly smile at him and let out a joke or two.

There are times, however, when a bit of clarity begins to slip through the cracks. Although Gelatin boldly claimed to Firey back in Yoylecity that these moments of doubt were just a thing of the past, this was actually just a lie. If anything, his concern seems to worsen more and more as time passes. Right now, he’s laying in bed, frantically trying to keep his fragile breathing steady. He’s been living in the Team Ice Cube house for a while, so he gets his own little room. If someone were to look inside, they’d be surprised by how bland it looks. Nothing compared to the fun and silly personality that Gelatin eagerly displays. The jello forces himself to sit up in bed, crossing his arms to keep himself sturdy as he slowly breathes in and out. Today was the production of BFB 5. It was horrible. His team almost lost the challenge, but the worst part of the day was before that had even happened. Death P.A.C.T had been up for elimination after losing the previous challenge, and the reward each member received for staying in the game was strange fortune cookies. All of the fortunes turned out to include some sort of praise written for Ice Cube. When Tree asked Four where they got the fortunes from, the algebralien said that he found them inside of a dumpster. Team Ice Cube, who had been listening nearby, had put the pieces together. Bracelety’s notes about Ice Cube must’ve been tossed into a dumpster after she was eliminated. Who else would commit such a bold act of betrayal except Gelatin? Impressed, Team Ice Cube turned to face the jello, who nervously laughed as Donut approached him and slowly raised his hand.

Gelatin couldn’t help flinching at the motion. He’s going to hit me for being mean! I just know he is! He hates me! This, however, did not happen. Instead, Donut awkwardly gave Gelatin a head pat. Since nobody commented on it, the jello thought that his flinch had been easily overlooked. It was not. Once the challenge ended and everyone had gone back to the Team Ice Cube house, Donut asked if he could talk with Gelatin. Although he felt a deep sense of dread towards the idea, he pretended that he was okay with it by loudly giggling at the word “private” while Donut rolled his eyes and lightly dragged him outside of the house. As the two rounded their way around the corner, Donut kept glancing left and right to see if anyone was watching. Why?

The pastry almost immediately answered his internal concerns. “Gelatin, you’re probably wondering why I brought you out here. I.. really just don’t want Junior or Naily to overhear our little talk, in case it was as serious as I thought.”

“Sure thing, Donut!” Gelatin exclaimed. “I’m as serious as the sailor who went to sea-sea-sea to see what he could see-see-see!”

“What the fuck does that even mean?!” Donut murmured underneath his breath, before going back to his regularly raspy volume. “Look, I saw your reaction to me attempting to pat you on the head earlier. I was just wondering if.. you’ve been.. hit a lot in the past? That kind of reaction is really unusual. I can’t exactly give Barf Bag a head pat, but if I hypothetically could, I’m sure that she wouldn’t be flinching like that. Is everything okay? If it’s about me yelling at you all the time, you know that it’s not that big of a deal.”

“Awww, lil’ ol’ Donut cares about me?” Gelatin replied, placing his hands on top of his mouth and pretending to look flustered. “I’m sooo flattered!”

“Of course I care about you! Even though you get a little distracted sometimes-“ Understatement of the century. “I consider you a valuable member of this team. You cheer us up and boost morale when the going gets tough, and that’s not something we can ever really replace.”

“Relaaax, I was just kidding! I’ve never been hit by anyone, trust me. I even have my fingers crossed to prove it.” He held up his right hand to show that 2 of his fingers had been summoned for once, just to show a pretty strange visual of them being criss-crossed together.

“Then why did you flinch? I would never hit any of my teammates, yet you immediately got scared and started doing that weird nervous laugh you always do whenever things are looking bad. Everybody saw it.” Donut said as he was trying to do some sort of stern fatherly voice. This doesn’t really work because they’re actually both the same age. “Please, Gelatin. You.. don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“..Well, alright! So there was this time, like, 5 years ago when I was trying to murder one of my least favorite Shadehouse employees, and guess what?! He had the audacity to slap me! Right across the face! I was so sad that I cried for 40 hours straight! How could anyone be so mean?!-“

“GELATIN! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS ACT LIKE THIS?! I’m trying to talk to you about something important, yet you keep treating this all like a joke. That sort of reaction isn’t normal!”

“..You’re right.” Gelatin admitted. “I’m sorry, Donut. I know that I need to be more mature about the situation. I promise that from now on I’ll be super cereal- Oops, I meant serious! Hehehe!”

“UGH, THAT’S IT! I’m done talking to you!” The pastry screamed as he stormed back inside of the house and loudly slammed the door shut.

Gelatin wasn’t sure if Donut was trying to kick him out of the team house. Not wanting to test the other’s patience by going through the front door, he decided to just sneak in using his bedroom window, which he always left wide open. Squeezing through the gap in the frame, Gelatin hopped into his room and then closed the window behind him. While the room is mostly uninteresting, there are still two notable things: a pile of forks and a hung up dartboard. He made his way over to the pile and picked up a singular fork and tossed it at the dartboard. Bullseye. Gelatin removed the fork and tossed a different fork at the dartboard, this time with one of his eyes closed. Another bullseye. This is such a boring task. No matter what he does to “handicap” himself- Facing away from the dartboard, doing a handstand, throwing the fork with his leg- it always lands perfectly on the red dot in the center. He’s even tried moving the dartboard to different locations to see if that does anything, but to no avail. He hates it. With his headphones and chemical supplies having long been destroyed, Gelatin took to tossing random objects at targets for his new hobby. He’s tried a bunch of utensils over the years, but the one he’s specialized in the most is forks. It’s much easier for forks to land on targets compared to spoons and they’re somewhat safer than throwing knives. Plus, he looks like an idiot to anyone not paying attention! It all works out! Or, at least, it used to. Lately, this hobby of his has become such a chore, and everyone else is increasingly more and more unhappy with what he’s doing. He promised that he wouldn’t throw anymore, anyways, so.. why does he still have this pile in his room? Nobody would miss these forks if he suddenly disposed of them.

Because.. I don’t want to let go of any more things in order to make everyone around me happy.

This thought disturbed Gelatin deeply, no matter how many forks he tossed into the dartboard in order to distract himself. He had given up a lot of things already. The freeze juice, the headphones, his true voice and personality. Now he would have to get rid of the forks. When was it ever going to be enough? Nobody ever seemed to be satisfied by anything he did. How many syringes did he need to burn to make people happy? How many forks must be thrown to get the message across? He wasn’t sure, but he needed to distract himself with something else before his thoughts spiraled too much for him to handle. Smacking the dartboard off the wall, Gelatin turned away from it and moved to the mirror on the other side of the room. It was perfectly ordinary in terms of frame quality and height, but all Gelatin cared about was his reflection. Everyday, he stands in front of it and studies his expression intensely, making sure that every figurative muscle in his face is working together in order to make the greatest smile ever. It always felt wrong and plastic against his face, but as long as Gelatin’s expression looked perfect, he wasn’t too concerned. He would also test his voice everyday, to make sure that it sounded just right.

You see, his natural “old” voice that he used in BFDIA was considered too cold and unexpressive by the others. While the voices of objects already change as they mentally mature, Gelatin was unsatisfied by the changes his voice had begun to experience after BFDIA 5 had ended. Eugh. He hated how boring he had sounded when speaking to other contestants, enthusiasm rarely ever showing even during the most exciting of times. This had to change. During the IDFB era, Gelatin had spent a lot of time in his own little house testing out what sounded the most captivating to both himself and others. In the end, he settled on a more high-pitched and excitable voice that teetered on whininess at times. It exhausted him greatly, but.. that’s probably not a big deal. When you put on a new voice for multiple years, you sort of forget how to sound “normal.” The lines between “reality” and “fiction” blur more and more everyday. His body shouldn’t be overwhelmed so easily by just a little bit of pressure exerted against it! That would be ridiculous! Recently, however, he’s been coughing a bit, and the same happens as he tries speaking in front of his mirror. How dreadful. Barf Bag makes tea sometimes, so maybe he could swing down by the kitchen and grab some in order to soothe his mouth, but.. the others would find it strange. Gelatin drinking tea? It’s more likely than you’d think. Maybe he could stealth his way downstairs, but he didn’t really feel like it. That’s never really been his thing, anyway. What to do?

Maybe I could brew some hot chocolate in the morning? It seems much more childish, so the team won’t find it strange. Besides, pretty much everyone would love it besides Donut.

…

Has Firey ever drank hot chocolate? Chocolate IS his favorite food after all, and contrary to popular belief, he can actually drink a bunch of stuff, as long as the liquid doesn’t spill onto him. Therefore, maybe he’s drunk it before and loved it.

Any thoughts about Firey were immediately shoved into the disturbing thoughts section of Gelatin’s mind, and this was no exception. He shouldn’t think about him at all, because by now, they hadn’t spoken to each other in over a year. This is mostly because Gelatin just doesn’t want to talk to him, but even if he were to try, Coiny would get all defensive and attempt to steer him away. One time in Yoylecity, Gelatin went to talk to Fries about his exciting new garden. However, Coiny had also been there, and- Gelatin will forever swear that this happened- he started acting like a dog. The coin literally started jumping up and down while barking furiously until Gelatin took the hint and absconded from the scene. Fries, who had no choice but to witness this very strange scene, stared at Coiny with a concerned glance for several seconds. It was obvious what had happened. Firey told Coiny about the break-up, which makes perfect sense, considering Coiny was basically his emotional support after what happened to him. Strangely, however, Firey didn’t tell anybody else, and he made sure that Coiny never said a word either. People subtly figured out that their relationship had ended, but they never got to know the details. How Gelatin had walked away after saying all of those nasty insults to Firey. He had never meant a word of them, and even confessed this to Firey himself, but Gelatin had to say that stuff. If he hadn’t, then Firey would do anything he could to get Gelatin to just talk to him and figure out a solution. He can’t allow that under any circumstances. The perfect smile already starts to slip away from the reflection just from thinking about him. Imagine if he had to actually talk to him.. eugh. He should just go to bed. Turning the light off, Gelatin crawls into bed and immediately passes out. He doesn’t even cover himself up with a blanket, but.. that’s probably because it strangely brings up old memories for him, of blanket forts and gentle cuddling in Yoylecity. It hurts. Thinking about it physically and mentally pains him on a level that he cannot truly comprehend. Why was he happier back then.. compared to now?

Seasons come and go without anything changing, in defiance of the doubt and uncertainty. It’s almost as if time is attempting to suffocate Gelatin until he can’t take it anymore. More of his team gets eliminated. After Bracelety, there was Firey Junior, (No, he is NOT going to acknowledge how strange it is that there’s “another Firey.”) and then he is 20 years old when Two shows up and offers a brand new prize for the contestants to battle for. It’s alright, but Gelatin isn’t actually interested in it. What purpose would unlimited power have for him? He initially just switches over to Two’s show because he thought the sight of Four getting beat up by a spike ball was funny. Serves them right for zapping him with lasers! Plus, he can continue to be with his teammates. However, when Lollipop and Ruby tell Four that he needs to change the prize of his show, they respond by upgrading “a BFDI” into “a BFB.” It looked like some kind of infinite mirror that could copy everything done in front of it. Interesting. It would certainly be a better mirror than the one Gelatin uses keep his smiles intact.. yep, it’s settled. He’s got to get it. Shoving Ruby aside, he displays the potential of “a BFB” by beatboxing in front of it. Another hobby that he picked up to pass the time. Once the mirror copies the action, it creates a song so epic that the other contestants begin to reconsider their actions. Gelatin watches as Blocky, Lollipop, Spongy, Teardrop, Balloony, Woody, and Loser all make their way back over to Four’s show. Taco joins them shortly afterward. Considering how almost everybody left on Four’s side switched to Two when they saw that the prize was changed, Gelatin thinks that the algebralien should thank him for his noble need. He just saved the show! Now all the jello has to do is grab his stuff from his room, and-

Two’s voice interrupts him. “Because we can’t have two competitions in the same place, Four’s crew? You’re gonna have to go.”

Wait, what?

They press some sort of button that teleports the 14 remaining contestants and Four away from everyone else in a flash of light. Gelatin opens his eyes and discovers that he’s sitting on top of an unusually mountainous landscape. The steep cliffs below where some of the other contestants were teleported to are made up of strange purple and dark pink rock formations. A quick glance above shows that the usually blue and sunny sky of Goiky has been replaced by numerous tall pillars and archaic temple ruins. The slightest press against the ground revealed that the grass was squishy and made strange sounds when you stepped on it. Normally, this would be hilarious news, but all Gelatin could think about right now was how.. uncomfortable it felt. All of this felt so wrong. This wasn’t home. This wasn’t the land that he had been living on for 3 years. Hell, the new location didn’t even resemble the other side of Goiky. Why did nobody else find this strange? As he saw the other contestants on nearby cliffs start to chat with one another and casually look around, Gelatin felt his vision begin to blur. The smile on his face was starting to get smaller as well. Shit. Now that he didn’t have a mirror anymore, he had no reflection to fix the way he looked. Maybe there was a source of water nearby? Yeah, that makes sense. If Gelatin finds a pond or a lake, then he can look at his reflection in it and correct his smile. It’s a fantastic plan, and that means it’s time to accomplish it! As long as he can just smile and laugh it off, there’s no reason for Gelatin to ever panic about the current situation he’s in! After all..

Haven’t you seen all of the dying and killing and insulting of others? No matter how bad it gets, it’s okay, ‘cuz the cameras just record it and then edit it into episodes!

The sky is beginning to set when Firey truly realizes the situation he’s pushed himself into. All of his friends are gone. Coiny, Pin, Needle.. all 3 of them went to join Two without even stopping to check on Firey. He isn’t sure how to feel about that. Maybe he isn’t that close to Needle or Pin, but.. he thought that Coiny would care a little more. The amount of days where Coiny visited Firey’s home and comforted him whenever he was hopelessly spiraling were far too many to count. He had been so kind and caring then, a far cry from the usually arrogant and prickly demeanor that the false penny often displayed. Even after everyone moved away from Yoylecity, Coiny still kept an eye on Firey. He made sure that the flame was as far away from Pencil and Leafy as possible. Maybe it was their eliminations at the start of BFB that caused Coiny to stop caring so much. After all, Firey was way less likely to have a drastic nervous breakdown if Pencil wasn’t around to threaten him, right? Well, sort of, but that’s not the point. What bothered Firey was how little Coiny cared about him once the “danger” troubling him was gone.

Maybe Gelatin was right after all. I was just “damaged goods” that everybody pitied. Maybe Coiny thought that since Pencil got eliminated, he didn’t have to pretend to care anymore?

Eugh, enough of this. Firey needs to stop thinking about Gelatin. He’s already doing more than expected of him by keeping the other’s secret, repeating thoughts about the jello over and over again is far too much. He hasn’t spoken to him in about 3 or 4 years by now for quite obvious reasons. It doesn’t feel as good as it should. Wouldn’t most people be happy about never having to deal with their ex-partner? Firey wishes he could be like them. Before the show split, there are so many occasions during team challenges where Firey finds himself getting distracted. Sometimes, he really is just staring off into nothing, but other times? He realizes that he’s gazing at Gelatin. The other is certainly on a strange team. Donut and Spongy aren’t exactly popular contestants. Naily, Bracelety, and Barf Bag all lack experience. Hm.. shouldn’t there be a 7th member? Oh well, whoever it is must be irrelevant and annoying. How could Gelatin possibly benefit from being on such a team? At least Firey made sure that he was part of a group with his friends and an amazing team captain. Who’s the stupid one now, huh?! But.. maybe that’s the point? See, this is exactly why Firey can’t stop thinking about Gelatin! He does all of these confusing and dumb things, only for him to actually have some sort of secret plan behind it. He overhears from Needle about how Gelatin stole another team’s crystal during the BFB 13 and 14 duology challenge in order to make his team win. At first, he is annoyed, since that is totally cheating, but then he realizes that it’s actually a pretty good idea. After all, once Needle saw Gelatin performing the motion, she did the same thing, and that caused The Losers to be safe from elimination with no suffering required. Well, until the lava apocalypse came and killed half of his team, but that’s not the point. Considering Leafy survived it despite their easily burnable body, the others should have just tried to survive better.

Anyways, it’s time to seriously stop thinking about Gelatin. Yep. It’s for good this time. No more thoughts about that mysterious jello. Kind of strange that he chose to join Two’s show, though. Firey wasn’t exactly paying attention, but when he saw Gelatin switch to the other group, he was pleasantly surprised. Why would Gelatin want limitless power? All Two had really done with it was use it to beat people up and Firey is pretty sure that goes against Gelatin’s moral code. Maybe he wants to take the power so that nobody else can use it? Whatever, Firey’s staying out of it. He’s pretty comfortable with remaining on a smaller show, especially since it means he has a better shot at finally winning a prize. The flame doesn’t care too much about losing, but hey, wouldn’t it be nice to finally win a prize without losing it? It’s going to be a great season, and as Firey slowly begins exploring the Pillary Ruins to find a spot to rest, he thinks about all the contestants competing on the show. Of course, he already knows Leafy, Bubble, Spongy, Flower, Woody, Blocky, Ruby, Teardrop, and Loser. Taco is an unfamiliar object to him, but she seems nice. Balloony is also a bit of a wild card, but he detests Leafy, so Firey isn’t sure that he wants to speak to him. Hey, just because Firey argued with them a bunch doesn’t mean they stopped being friends! It’s Leafy who got all mad and said they should never speak to each other ever again! He.. might need to avoid talking to them for a while, though. It’s totally not because he’s insecure about his reputation. Ok, it absolutely is. He tries to distract himself once more by thinking about the remaining “newbie,” but Lollipop doesn’t seem particularly nice. Darn.

Despite the few sour apples, this cast of 13 seems like it’s gonna be amazing! Thinking about the number though, that.. doesn’t make much sense. Sure, Four can’t exactly control how many contestants they were left with, but 13 is such an impractical number for a gameshow. How can you possibly make two even teams with that number? It’s impossible. This is troubling information that Firey finds himself pondering as he climbs around the rocky terrain. One might consider this feat a falsehood due to his fear of heights, but the answer as to why he wasn’t screaming uncontrollably was quite simple: the grass below is rather soft. Sure, it’s taking all of Firey’s willpower to not freeze up and become overwhelmed with fear, but he is slightly comforted by the knowledge. If he falls, the grass will briefly soften the impact for his limbs.. only for his flame to then burn the grass. Still, Firey is able to navigate through the Pillary Ruins with little difficulty, and he eventually stumbles upon a small, abandoned ruin that resembles a building. What makes it stand out is that numerous vines dangle over the top of it, essentially forming a vine “curtain” that covers whatever is inside until it is moved. Perfect. Firey hops off a small cliff that he is standing on and begins to approach the deteriorated structure. His hands grasp the vines swinging above them, and he is just about to pull them back when he suddenly hears a quiet noise that makes his metaphorical heart freeze up. It’s the sound of somebody.. crying?

Firey wasn’t going to just let another object be forced to suffer alone! He had to help somehow, but.. he can’t just barge into the abandoned ruins now. That wouldn’t be right, because violating personal privacy is totally unacceptable. Therefore, in order to get this mysterious object’s attention, Firey picks up a nearby rock and gently tosses it through the vines. It makes a loud sound when it lands, alerting the object to the presence of another person.

Silence. “Hey, are you okay?” Firey asks, the usual raspiness and impatience in his voice now absent and replaced with a layer of concern.

The voice is already unrecognizable, but at least the sobbing slows to a stop, preventing those tears from muffling the object’s speech. “Go away. Why are you even here?”

“Are you serious? Of course I’m going to be concerned about someone crying in the middle of nowhere. It’s not healthy to do something like this!”

“Duh! You think I don’t know?! Even a moron would be able to recognize that. I’m not as stupid as everyone says I am. I lied to them.”

Firey has no idea what the other object is talking about. “I-I wasn’t trying to imply that you’re dumb!” He shouted. “I just.. didn’t know how else to say that I was concerned. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted. Now can you please go away?”

“No! I may not know who you are, but.. even so, I think that you deserve having someone that wants to help you. Can I help you?”

“No! You haven’t even provided a good reason for why I should listen to you! For all I know, y-you’ll run off and tell everyone all about this!”

“I swear that I won’t! I want to comfort you because.. I know how important that sort of assistance can be.” Firey remarked with a distant expression. “I don’t want to talk about what happened, but.. I-I wasn’t the same object after that, that’s for sure. The others around me abandoned me or treated me differently because they didn’t know how to help. It made me feel bad. Was I really so undeserving of help after what happened to me?”

“I don’t know you, but.. probably not. Not even a bad action could deserve such suffering and indifference from the people around you.”

“W-Well, yeah, I know that now, but back then? I thought that.. I deserved to be left alone. It was the loneliest I had ever felt, but.. someone helped me. I won’t say who it is, but they brought me comfort during the worst time of my life. With that warmth, I.. was finally able to start living again. I don’t know what your situation is, but maybe.. the same will happen for you? N-Not exactly the living part, but-“

“Hey, don’t worry. I understand what you mean. You want to help me because you think that someone providing you comfort gave you the will to move on from what happened.”

“Yeah, that’s basically it. So.. is it alright if I try to help you, then? I promise that I won’t come into the place and find out who you are.”

…

The sound of the rock being thrown back to Firey was enough to break the tension. “..Fine. What exactly do you want to talk about?”

“I wanna know what’s bothering you! I don’t need to know the details, but a general summary could work. Something that could help me provide some words of comfort.”

“I don’t.. know who I am anymore.”

“What do you mean? If you somehow have amnesia, then you should see Four and X about that. It’s super inconvenient for a gameshow.”

“No, not literally. I know that I’m-“ The voice cut itself off. “Well, I don’t want to tell you. The point is that I literally know who I am, but in a figurative sense? Nope. It’s been this way for years. I don’t even know why I’m in this season.”

“Wow, that’s a lot to unpack.” Firey remarked, but he made sure that his voice didn’t sound annoyed. “I’m still not exactly sure what you mean, though. Do you mean that.. you don’t have any hobbies?”

“Nope, not anymore. I had to give all of them up. In fact.. I truly gave up everything I had.”

“..Even your friends?”

“I hardly had any to begin with.”

Firey chuckled, but it was bitter. “I can relate.”

“We definitely seem to have a few things in common. It’s a shame that I have no idea who I am. Maybe if I did know, I’d be able to find more things in common with you.”

“It’s not about me at all! To find yourself, you have to find what makes YOU feel like your own person. If you spend your time trying to figure out what others like or want to do, you won’t get anywhere with your plan of trying to be yourself.”

“That’s the thing. I don’t even want to go back to being ”myself.” It isn’t worth it.”

“Why not?”

“By being myself, I hurt everyone around me. They all got injured by my careless creations. That’s why I had to sacrifice everything that I had.”

“That’s dumb. You shouldn’t have to tear yourself to pieces like that in order to make others happy.” Firey slightly scooted closer to the vines. “But hey, there’s hardly anybody left now, and chances are that you only know a few of them. Isn’t this a perfect time to start finding yourself?”

“I’m.. not ready yet.” The voice admitted.

“You don’t have to be! It took me a long time for me to start feeling better after the things that happened. It’s unrealistic to think that your problems will be solved in a short span of time.”

“Wow, that’s pretty smart. Has anybody ever told you before that you have a lot of wisdom?”

“Hahah, I wish! All anybody ever does is call me an idiot. I may not be the brightest, but- Oh, wait, I literally am the brightest! Hilarious!”

The voice was silent for several seconds. “I appreciate your company, but I think we should stop talking now. It’s getting late, and you need to find a place to rest. Thank you for your time.”

“Huh?- Oh, you’re right! I didn’t realize that the sun was starting to set!” Firey stood up with a smile. “I hope we get to talk again sometime. It was nice to spend some time speaking with you.”

“Of course, Firey. It’s always been a pleasure to speak to you. Your advice was most intriguing.”

“I knew it! I’m quite the conversationalist, so it makes sense that you- Wait, huh? How do you know my name? I never said that.”

“You are pretty popular. I could recognize you just from your voice alone. Even without the raspiness, you have a particularly unique voice.” Irony.

Firey’s previous concern was beginning to fade away. “You knew who I was this entire time and didn’t say anything?!” He asked.

“It’s your fault for not leaving when I told you to.”

“You’re the one who let me stay!”

“So what? I’m tired now, so leave me alone.”

“..No.”

“What?”

“If you get to know who I am, then I should get to see who you really are!” Firey shouted as he took another step closer to the vines.

“S-Stop that!” The voice frantically replied to him. “You wouldn’t like knowing the answer! Ju-Just turn around and go!”

“I don’t care who you are! Reveal yourself!” Firey exclaimed, pulling back the vines so that they weren’t in his way. “I just want to know so that I..” He stopped, his voice trailing off as his mouth gaped.

No, no, NO! It couldn’t be him! Why did everything have to lead back to him?! Why couldn’t it have been literally anyone else on this stupid show? He could’ve easily connected with someone else over the feelings of loneliness and having to pretend to be a different person, but.. with Gelatin?! No. He can’t. It’s.. impossible for him. As the jello takes a step back with widened eyes, Firey notices that he looks absolutely terrified and afraid of him. If one were to look more closely at Gelatin, they’d be able to see the staining tear stains that the jello had spilled just minutes ago. He wasn’t lying about any of what he said. That was actually the worst part. If Gelatin had been lying, at least Firey could be comforted with the knowledge that Gelatin was truthfully fine in reality. But this? Who the hell is he even looking at anymore?! Certainly not ”his” Gelatin, not the one Firey had spent so many nights holding close to him as he whispered words of reassurance under layers of blankets. Everything about the other is completely different now. Even his voice is new! It sounds as if someone ripped the old one into a million pieces and then glued it back together with cheap glitter glue. Firey had no idea how to react. All the words in his mouth dried up the very moment that he pulled the curtain back. How is he supposed to help with this? He can’t. Even if Firey could find the courage to help.. should he really do so? After all, Gelatin was the one who ratted him out to Pencil when everybody lived in Yoylecity. He had caused the worst year of his life to happen. I should be hating him right now!

So Firey did what he’s always done best. Years of experience with the subject help him here. He turned away from Gelatin and ran away from the ruins, never looking back. If he had chosen to turn his glance back over to the building, however, he would have regretted it instantly, for all that was left behind was Gelatin wearing an uncharacteristically remorseful expression as he stepped out of the ruins and watched Firey sprint off. This could’ve easily been the perfect time for the jello to shout out an apology to the flame, but he didn’t. Because contrary to popular belief, Gelatin is just as much as a coward as Firey is. He does not have the mental strength to reveal himself for who he really is. The idea of that lacking strength suddenly showing itself for this is equally impossible. All that’s left for Gelatin to do now is to do what he does best. Smiling and laughing off any suffering that occurs around him.

Chapter Text

The next month after that is filled with numerous tense and awkward days. Everytime Firey has to find a new cave or temple to spend the night in, he has to silently pray that he won’t accidentally stumble upon one that Gelatin is also interested in. While it may be more logical to simply choose one location in the Pillary Ruins and stick to it for the entire time you’re there, not a single object would ever do that. This is because most objects are traditionally travelers. They are never content with just staying in one spot, and it is always embedded into their instincts to travel and find better opportunities. This was one of the reasons why everyone had decided to leave Yoylecity. Despite the fact that they all had finally found a place with decent shelter and food, they grew bored of it within a few years, and thus the objects had relocated to Northern Goiky. Such nomadic tendencies carried over to smaller feats like finding a place to rest. Firey in particular was prone to this. Sure, a campfire will remain in one place for as long as one wishes, but neglecting it will either cause the flame to go out or spread its way through a forest in a blaze of glory. He couldn’t just sleep in one abandoned building, he had to find a new place to sleep almost every single night. The only reason that this hadn’t been the case in Yoylecity was that he could not muster up the energy it would take to even leave his house. Hell, by the time that the journey to Northern Goiky began, he was barely through recovery. The others thought that he was going to keel over and die at any moment. How embarrassing. Just because he was tortured a little doesn’t mean that he can’t safely travel like everyone else! The fact that he’s here in these abandoned ruins proves that!

Luckily, Firey never ran into Gelatin during his daily quest to find a place to sleep. He did bump into the others a few times, but they were never cross about it. In fact, they were often eager to let Firey stay, for his warmth and light made the ruins a little easier to rest in. Always eager to please the people around him, he would agree to the task.. until the other object who had requested this fell asleep. He would then stand up and sneak out of whatever abandoned spot they were staying. This was due to Firey not feeling comfortable with sleeping near somebody else. What if he woke up screaming from a nightmare? That would be horrible. No thanks. Firey’s much more accepting of the concept of stealthing his way out of nighttime companionship. Although the others definitely noticed this, they didn’t comment on it, and it was something that Firey was deeply grateful for. He would rather face his sleep paralysis demon 100 times in a row instead of sitting down and talking about his feelings with most objects in this cast. There is one that he feels like he can trust- that being Loser- but Firey would rather not be such a bother. Besides, that cube’s reputation took a nasty blow after he lied in BFB 7. He can’t be seen associating with someone involved in a scandal!

This changes after the events of BFB 17. Four had initially felt excited about hosting the rest of BFB on his own, but as time passed the algebralien became increasingly more insecure and self conscious of how alone they truly were. Their favorite (and also the only) co-host X was still back with Two and their colorful crew of contestants. How dreadful. After a bit of bribery, Four was able to convince the contestants to retrieve X from the remains of the lava apocalypse. Easier said than done. Firey was put on a team with Flower, Blocky, Woody, Taco, Loser, and Spongy. None of them had any real plan for obtaining X, especially since they lacked the form of transportation that the other team had. Looking down at them from the cliffside, Firey physically had to hold back a shudder when he saw Ruby pull out the Freesmart Supervan from the small little container she had been holding. That unnamed team was surely going to win! Desperate to find any solution, Firey had turned to the only comrade he had left in this game: Loser. He came up with a solution so awesome that it instantly restored his reputation and stopped everyone in their tracks. Just kidding, he spat on the ground and said that X would “mark the spot” there eventually. It was disgusting and unhygienic, but not having any other ideas, Firey and the rest of the team reluctantly accepted the idea. They all sat around for about 10 minutes and were just about to give up, when- all of a sudden- X flew in out of nowhere and landed on the remains of Loser’s spit. Four, too delighted to question how this had even happened, announced that the team Firey was on had won and was safe from elimination. This meant that Leafy, Bubble, Ruby, Lollipop, Balloony, Gelatin, and Teardrop were all up for elimination. As the cameras stopped rolling, Firey couldn’t help but wonder how the other team possibly lost. A pinch of interrogation suggested that they had actually retrieved X first, but somehow lost them when they went to retrieve Teardrop after they were accidentally abandoned on the grounds of what was apparently the “TPOT season.” Huh. Well, that’s the fault of the team for screwing up.

Despite their loss however, the team’s morale seemed hardly damaged, and in fact they chatted with the other team amicably. Taco, always one to preach about friendship and bonds, suggested that both teams should meet at a selected spot everyday to eat breakfast. Not having anything better to do, everybody else agreed. Somehow, two large picnic tables had appeared in an open spot the very next day. The Pillary Ruins don’t have any small critters that could be used as food, and objects are mostly vegetarians out of necessity anyways, so the contestants would usually make little salad bowls out of the exotic vegetation found in this strange place. Once in a while, somebody would want to spice things up a little, so Firey willingly cooked their salad until it was crunchy and warm. Breakfast was Firey’s favorite part of the day, yet he wasn’t sure why at first. It’s not like he enjoys the food. In fact, he can’t even taste it at all. Due to the concept of recovery being something that everybody in Goiky is eternally grateful for, there are many side effects to recovery that have been unstudied and left unchecked. For example, if your mind subconsciously believes that something is permanent, then the recovery center will accept that as fact. This has to be an unconscious thought, however. If you paint yourself pink and then die, you won’t permanently be pink, because your mind knows that it’s a temporary cosmetic change. However, if your mind was so stubborn that it considered the coat of paint a part of your “true self,” then you would come back with that change. Woody didn’t always have a chip in his wood, but after he got injured by Rocky, he went years without dying. As a result, when he had finally been recovered in Yoylecity, his mind was so used to having a missing piece that it had carried over to his body as well. When Pin lost her limbs, she didn’t get them back through recovery because her body and the darkest depths of her mind had already adjusted to life without them. The same had applied to Leafy. During their time in exile, they had gotten some nasty scars from having to fend off the dangers of the wilderness by themself. Recovery healed most of these, but one horrible injury had remained: a massive tear on their right side. Everytime Firey saw it, he felt a pang of guilt, but he would often force it back down by remembering his own recovery side effects. It was literally impossible for any scars to be left on his outer body, but in exchange? He sustained permanent damage to his inner body instead. At one point, Firey had been able to eat food and experience the same range of tastes that everybody else was capable of tasting. However, constantly dying and being brought back from the dead had completely killed his taste buds. As he eats his crunchy salad, he can’t taste anything. It’s not like salad is the most flavorful meal, but you’d think it’d at least taste like something. Nope.

So it can’t be the food. The picnic tables aren’t exactly the reason why, either. In fact, Firey didn’t really like them. It took a ton of concentration to lower his temperature enough that he wouldn’t set either of the tables on fire, which really sucked. If you glanced at him while the two teams ate breakfast together, all you’d see on his face is a scrunched up expression as he ate his salad and tried not to burn anything. Lollipop would often tease him for this. Honestly, she wasn’t as bad as Firey thought. Once the teams got bored of sitting in organized units, they had sort of just started to eat with whoever they felt like spending time with. Surprisingly, Firey found himself chatting with Lollipop plenty of times. He even talked with Bubble and Ruby, despite the uneasiness he felt every time he did so. They may not have been the ones who caused what happened in Yoylecity, but they still went along with it. If he talks to them for a bit too long, he remembers how Bubble was the one who suggested to Pencil that they hang him from the top of the Yoyle Needy. Or how every once in a while, Ruby would tell Firey to cheer up and stop complaining when he started to scream during his imprisonment. Yeah, no thanks. Not wanting to risk snapping at either of them for stuff that happened years ago, Firey decides that today he’ll go with the safe option of sitting with Flower and Loser. An unlikely duo, but Flower is still begging Loser to support her fashion brand, so the combination makes sense. The flame munches on his salad as the sound of his two friends talking begins to fade into the background. Somehow, he finds himself eavesdropping on the other conversations around him. Balloony and Bubble are chatting about old friends that they both miss. Blocky is threatening Ruby- probably for some dumb reason- while Taco tries to stop him from hurting her. Woody is afraid of salads and Spongy isn’t allowed to sit at the table, so they’ve formed a temporary truce of silence where they enjoy each other’s company. All seems well in the world, and Firey is about to go back to listening to Flower’s rambles when he suddenly hears an unfamiliar laugh. It’s one that makes the flame tightly grip the side of the picnic table with how forcefully cheerful it is. A quick glance at the other table reveals that Lollipop, Leafy, and Gelatin are conversing with each other. Teardrop is also there, but.. y’know, they aren’t exactly a talker, so the exchange is just between the other 3 objects.

“Stop laughing about it. Everybody is going to start staring at us if you keep going.” Lollipop said.

“Hahahah! S-Sorry, Lolly!” Gelatin shouted. “I just can’t help laughing at the irony of it.”

“Don’t call me that. You’re far too stupid for me to be fond of a nickname. Try reading a book for once. Maybe that will warrant a reward.”

This instantly caused Leafy to sputter. “Be nice, Lollipop! If Gelatin wants to call you a nickname, so be it! You should allow others to call you whatever they feel like referring to you as!”

Lollipop rolled her eyes. “I’m not taking advice from the Balloony murderer.”

“Wh- Hey! That was like.. 3 years ago!”

“She’s got a point though, Leafster.” Gelatin pointed out, and god did that make Firey feel sick.

He wasn’t jealous. That would be ridiculous. It’s just that.. in all of the years that Firey knew Gelatin, never once had he heard the jello willingly refer to someone with a nickname. Not once had he ever participated in the name calling towards Needle. Not once had he ever referred to someone with an affectionate nickname. Even abbreviations of other objects’ names seemed to be a bit of a struggle for him. When talking about someone like Golf Ball, Gelatin would typically use her full name instead of shortening it to “GB.” Seeing the jello call someone such a fond nickname made Firey want to excuse himself from breakfast immediately. “Lolly” was bad enough, but “Leafster” was so.. sickening. Even if the flame could shake off seeing Gelatin give others a nickname when he never could, he couldn’t excuse them talking to each other. Hell, they might even be friends. Now, admittedly, Firey did mess up when he ruined Leafy’s friendship with Eggy. It wasn’t right for him to try to control who they were close to, but this is totally different. Gelatin was trying to get Leafy captured by Freesmart! Even if he didn’t actually care about what they did, he still used the leaf as part of his plan! And the worst part was that his plan mostly worked. Although Leafy managed to get away, Gelatin still succeeded in using them as a pawn for his plan of “self reflection.” To see Gelatin turn around and try to befriend Leafy makes Firey feel deeply confused. Glancing back over at Flower, the flame is surprised to find that she’s not even sitting with the group anymore. An empty bowl left behind indicates that she must’ve left after she finished eating. Loser is still consuming his own salad, however, and when Firey’s gaze flicks over to him, the idol cube flashes him with his usual warm smile. It’s about to be trademarked soon.

Gaining a bit of courage from his pure disgust towards Gelatin, Firey swallows his nerves and lightly shoves his bowl to the side of the picnic table. “Loser, can I ask you about something?” He asks as politely as possible.

“Of course, Firey. You know that I’m always willing to provide my friends with assistance when they need it. What’s up?”

Resisting the urge to fanboy, the flame nervously begins to fidget with his hands. “I just need some advice about what I should do for a friend. Well, they’re not even my friend, really. I mean, we were friends at some point, but- uhm- things change, y’know? N-Not in a good way either, although at one point it was in that way, and-“

“You’re rambling, Firey.” Loser points out. “How about you stop and breathe for a second? It’s better to take your time with what you want to say.”

“Y-Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Loser.” Firey replies as he forces himself to calm down by taking deep breaths and slowly letting go of the table. Once his grip is absent, he resumes talking. “So.. I had this friend once, and they were basically the most amazing person I had ever met- Besides you, of course!- but they were so insecure about who they were. I tried to reassure them countless times that they were fine just the way they were, but.. it wasn’t enough. They had such a strong desire to change who they were that they did anything possible to achieve that goal. Even if it meant destroying our friendship. It hurt, but I thought that I could just forget about it as long as they were happy with who they were. I went years without even speaking to them, just so that they’d finally be able to be someone they were proud of without any painful past reminders.”

“But.. that changed, right?”

“Mhm. I talked to them while they were.. disguising themself. Honestly, I didn’t even recognize them at first. We talked for a little bit. About how they had no idea who they even were anymore. I tried to tell them that it’s okay for them to try and rediscover themself, but.. they said they weren’t ready yet. I didn’t know how to help after that, and I was still so angry at them for destroying our friendship, so.. I left. Was that a bad thing to do?”

“..Not necessarily.” Loser answered. “I know I don’t talk about my past much, but your situation reminds me of.. somebody that I used to know. They never competed on this show, so you don’t know them, but.. we used to be really close with each other. They never lost their sense of self- In fact, they were determined to keep it in spite of everything happening around them. I was the one who faltered at my lowest point.” When Firey frantically looked around to make sure that nobody was eavesdropping, Loser softly laughed. “Don’t worry, nobody’s paying attention to this. Anyways, they tried so hard to help me and to make sure that I didn’t lose sight of who I was. I didn’t care. I shoved them to the side, saying that they should just accept that I was changing. I claimed that I was altering who I really was for their own sake. They didn’t like that. Before I could even learn to regret my words, they.. left without saying goodbye. I regret how I acted every single day, truthfully.”

“..Why are you telling me all of this? I don’t think that it’s a good idea to spill your secrets to some boring ol’ fan like me, Loser.”

“I saw how you acted during our first challenge in this new place. The idea I had- while absolutely being amazing and well crafted- definitely sounded unconventional. I understand why you doubted me for it. The others faltered as well, but.. in spite of that, you chose to believe in me anyways. I don’t care how you reacted to my lie in BFB 7, but.. as far as I know, you never felt betrayed by me then. That’s something I heard a lot of the others say.” Loser sighed in the most polite way imaginable. “I cannot thank you enough for that. Even though I’ve messed up from time to time, you continue to be a fan of mine. You continue to internally look past people’s mistakes, even if everyone else around you chooses not to.”

“Th-That’s not true! There are so many times where I shunned someone for messing up. I could give you a few examples right now of people who I’ve judged along with everyone else for their mistakes.”

“I said internally, didn’t I? Even if you outwardly act out and shun someone for messing up.. you don’t actually think that way, do you? Your hatred is only an act out of fear of losing your friends. I don’t have any proof of this but.. if you believe in me, then I can believe in you.”

“I.. appreciate what you’re saying, but.. how does that connect back to my current dilemma? I have no way of helping my friend. In fact, like I said before, I’m.. not even sure if we are friends. If that’s false, then I have no way of helping them.”

“You believe in others no matter how much they mess up. Even now, you continue to believe in your friend. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be having this conversation with me right now. If you want to give up on someone who has lost sight of who they are.. that’s perfectly fine. You’re not obligated to help others, especially if they don’t deserve it. But.. I think that if you don’t talk to them about this, it’s going to be detrimental to your own wellbeing. They.. are still around, right? I don’t think you would be so bothered if they were gone.”

“Yeah, but.. I can’t tell you who it is. Sorry, Loser.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I already had a feeling about who it was.” Loser remarked, and for a second Firey was very startled, until the idol cube continued with: “I mean, seriously, anyone who gets arrested for identity theft has a darker side!”

Firey assumed that Loser was talking about somebody else and started laughing, finding it hilarious how totally “incorrect” Loser was. “Hahah, yeah! They definitely have a messed up side.” Hopping off of the picnic table seat, Firey faced away from Loser. “You’re right. I should go talk to them about this mess. Thanks, Loser. You always manage to steer me in the right direction!”

“No problem, Firey. It’s always a pleasure to talk to a fan like you. I hope that you can help the person that you’re talking about.”

“..Me too.” Firey decided.

With that declaration in mind, the conversation was over. After politely waving goodbye to Loser, Firey left the breakfast area and tried to decide what he should do for the day. Sure, he just had this whole motivational conversation about how he should go talk to Gelatin, but.. when he looked around the picnic area, the aforementioned one was nowhere to be found. Amazing. Tracking the jello down would be such a pain, and it’s also possible that he might turn up on his own eventually, so Firey decided to dismiss the subject for now and figure out what else to do in the meanwhile. Conjuring a piece of blueprint paper from the same mysterious “hammerspace” that every object seems to conveniently have, the flame sat down in an empty field with it and began to absentmindedly sketch out some new architectural creation. He’s been trying to revisit this hobby of his lately, and so far, it’s.. not going so well. The quality of his drawings are the same as before, but he has no passion for coming up with new ideas. Strangely, all Firey seems to be able to draw is ferris wheel concepts. It’s stupid. They’re not even special ones with exciting gimmicks, just boring ol’ ferris wheels with no variety to them. These amusement park attractions aren’t what Firey’s looking for, and everytime that he realizes that he’s drawing yet another one, he impatiently picks up the blueprint paper and tosses it into himself to burn. He’s about to do the same right now, but as his flames begin to lick at the paper, he pulls it away from his body and pauses. He’s used to destroying his own creations out of simple convenience, but.. it reminds him of something..

“Gelatin visited her in the middle of the night and gave them all to her. I told GB to just give them back, but she said she couldn’t, because.. he wanted her to dump all of them into her incinerator.”

Fuck. Nevermind then, he can keep his stupid drawings. Ferris wheels are fine. In fact, he just fucking loves them! He’s bursting with pure adoration towards those spinning devices! Why, if he only had to see one thing for the rest of life, it’d be FUCKING FERRIS WHEELS! That would be sooooo wonderful! Objects are hypothetically speculated to be “immortal” for as long as recovery exists, so he can spend the rest of eternity obsessing over them. Yep, that’s definitely what he’s going to do! It would be way better than destroying the ferris wheel drawing and ignoring it like it had never happened. Unlike some people, he’s not a complete JERK who would destroy countless prized possessions in order to feel better about HIMSELF. In fact, if he was so unbelievably stupid and horrible, he’d probably make sure that EVERYONE HATES HIM, instead of trying to force all of him to like him. God, he fucking hates Gelatin. All of these tangled feelings are still far too much for him. He can feel the familiar sensation of tears hit his flame, stinging him in the process. How annoying. The fire reaches one of his hands up to his eyes and tries to wipe them, but.. nothing happens. Not because he is so overwhelmed that the idea is impossible, but because.. he was never crying to begin with? Strange. A quick glance around him shows that nobody is around, so it’s not like anybody is playing a cruel water prank on him. What’s going on? How is he being hurt by water if there’s no pranks or tears involved in causing that? Firey is so concentrated on thinking that he doesn’t notice the soft drip, drip sound above him. It is only when he finally looks up at the sky and sees dark clouds through the mist that he realizes something: a storm just started, so now.. it’s raining.

When Gelatin sees rain begin to fall from the sky, he does not feel the sharp pang of dismay that you’d expect. In fact, he is rather calm about all of this. Based on the lack of thunder or gusts of wind, this storm is nowhere near as bad as the one that swept through Yoylecity 4 years ago. It destroyed so many buildings, swept through them without a care in the world. The only reason that everybody had been able to fortify enough defenses to protect themselves from the storm was because of energy boosters that Gelatin had alchemized. That was the last time that he had ever done something “smart” for the sake of others. Truthfully, it had been an accidental creation. He had really meant to make something that would stave off his desire to eat the potatoes growing inside of the garden Fries made, but something had gone wrong. This unusual lapse of error had really been the first sign for Gelatin that he should give up on chemistry. His heart just wasn’t in the right place for it anymore. The jello doesn’t really have the time to reflect on the “true self” that he lost long ago, though. He’s more concerned about his literal self. If he stays outside, the rain will surely drench him, and then he’ll become soggy. That’s always a horrible state. Even the smallest splashes of water tend to suck the energy right out of him, and the more exposure to it he gets, the more his body begins to fall apart. It’s not very fun to see parts of your jello body literally fall off of you. With some effort, he can resculpt himself, but that requires being dry first, and if he gets stuck outside, there’s no quick way of accomplishing that. Chances are that he’d end up slowly dying from his body breaking down from sogginess. The thought is so disturbing that Gelatin immediately seeks out shelter. It doesn’t seem like there’s anybody nearby, so there’s nobody that he can spend the storm with, but it shouldn’t be that big of a problem. He can pass the time by resting, or.. by thinking about what Firey said to him the other day.

You shouldn’t have to tear yourself to pieces like that in order to make others happy.. but hey, there’s hardly anybody left now, and chances are that you only know a few of them. Isn’t this a perfect time to start finding yourself?

The idea should feel like it could be possible, a reality that Gelatin can grasp with his hands and hold close to his metaphorical heart. So why does it feel like that potential path is only slipping further and further away from him? As the years pass, his sense of self blurs more and more. He had been so close to accepting himself for the way he was now. Living in an endless haze of falsehood wouldn’t be the most ideal outcome, but.. he was so lost in the fog of it that he hadn’t even realized what he was doing. Two splitting up the show had changed something in him. No, that’s not accurate enough. It awakened something inside of him, an urge. The conversation with Firey only strengthened that need. For the first time in years, Gelatin’s mind.. truly felt clear. If it had rained during the start of BFB, he probably wouldn’t have thought much about it. Now here he was, reflecting on the past and analyzing the negative consequences of staying out in the rain. As the jello hops over the side of one of the cliffs and begins to search for a shelter, he is only brought out of his collected sense of awareness by a strange orange shape in the distance. Hm. If he abandons that blob in order to find shelter, it might be gone once the storm goes away. Better to investigate it now before the heavy downpour starts. Gelatin is no fast runner, but he can keep a steady pace when he actually bothers, so it takes him less than a minute to make his way over to the mysterious shape. The rain is still at its “sprinkle stage” when Gelatin’s eyes slightly widen with the realization of what- or rather, more accurately- who he is looking at. Firey appears to be completely frozen. In a figurative sense, of course, since all of the freeze juice doses have been destroyed for years. You would think that the pain inflicted on the flame from the rain would be enough to snap him out of whatever strange state he could possibly be in, but apparently not. If anything, the rain only seems to be making Firey visibly more tense and afraid. Gelatin moves himself around to the front of Firey’s vision and awkwardly waves a hand in an attempt to try and get his attention.

“Firey, are you there? We need to get out of this rain. You’re going to get yourself killed if you don’t stop looking like that.”

..No response. Alright. Talking to him in a normal way didn’t do anything, so how about..?

“Hey Fireball! Fancy seeing you out in this weather. I’ve spent the past 5 minutes looking for a cave, but then I got sooooo distracted, because all I could think about was how cave rhymes with crave, and then I felt hungry all over again, haha!”

Nope, still nothing. Gelatin feels a little worried by now. He thought that Firey would surely snap out of it by now to shout at him for putting on that false facade of silliness. A strange sound suddenly rings out, and at first Gelatin thinks that it’s connected to the storm, but then he realizes that it’s coming from Firey. His breathing was dangerously unsteady. Ragged gasps being forced out of him like his life depended on it, it’s rather obvious that the flame hasn’t heard a single word that the jello has said to him. He won’t be looking for a spot to hide anytime soon. In fact, if Gelatin turned around and ditched him right now, Firey would just die. Sure, Gelatin could ask Four to recover him, but not only would that cause the others to ask questions, it would also make it rather obvious that he just let Firey die instead of doing anything about it. Everyone would surely hate him for that. This is what motivates Gelatin to grab Firey by the hand and drag the flame with him as he moves to find a spot of shelter. Yep, that’s absolutely why. It’s NOT because he’s REALLY concerned about Firey’s wellbeing. That would be ridiculous. He just needs to keep up the facade of kindness by helping Firey live. Luckily, before either of them begin to die, Gelatin finds a cave unlike any other. As the jello shuffles inside, he gently drops Firey onto the floor and begins to look around. There doesn’t seem to be anything in this cave except sticks. Making a campfire feels kind of pointless when he has a sentient flame as a companion, but.. a quick glance over at the other object makes Gelatin realize something. Firey’s flame is rather low right now. Right, of course. Why wouldn’t the rain do a number on it? Gelatin comes up with an idea rather quickly. Picking up a bundle of the sticks and making sure that they’re dry, Gelatin makes his way back over to Firey and tosses the sticks into the flame. Immediately, his body begins to flare up with life, and Firey suddenly starts to cough uncontrollably, clearly startled by this strange feeling. At least his gaze seems to soften slightly. Gelatin, unamused by this, sits down next to Firey and glances at the entrance of the cave. The intensity of the rain is beginning to rapidly pick up. This is going to be a very long day if the duo doesn’t talk things out.

He tries to distract himself by conversing with Firey once more. “Are you listening to me right now?” The other tries to talk, but all that comes out is another cough. Gelatin shushes him rather harshly at the sound of that. “Nope. You don’t need to talk if you aren’t ready to. I just wanted to know if you were listening.” He leans back a bit, eyebrows slightly narrowed with annoyance. “A simple gesture would’ve worked for showing that, but I’m not surprised that an idiot like you couldn’t realize that. You’re such a bother. Honestly, everyone around you would be far happier if you keeled over and died forever, but alas, we know that this isn’t happening anytime soon. You’re too stubborn for that.. usually, that is.” When Gelatin saw that Firey had looked away from him with an unreadable expression, he kept talking. “I sincerely doubt that you’re afraid of the rain. Sure, it would make sense, but then your reaction would’ve been more mild than what you displayed. I also have trouble with water, yet you don’t see me panicking like that. It’s something else bugging you, isn’t it?”

“..Yeah.” Firey replied. He went back to being silent after that, and for a few minutes there was nothing but tension between them as Gelatin patiently waited to see if the other would elaborate. He ended up doing so about 4 minutes later as he glanced at the rain outside with a distant expression. “This storm just kind of brings back memories. You’re probably thinking that I’m being reminded of that horrible storm we experienced in Yoylecity. Maybe I am, but.. I can’t say that mess was all that bad. After all, it was the only reason Coiny was able to convince Pencil to free me from that cage.”

“Really?” Gelatin asked with genuine curiosity, for he had sincerely never heard the explanation for why Firey was released from his punishment.

“Yeah. Pencil, she.. had some bizarre moral code. Imprisonment, harassment, torture- those were all “fair game” to her. She claimed that it was all just part of her duty as the one carrying out the punishment. If I died however, that would be going against her code, and because of that, Coiny convinced her that letting me free was the only way of ensuring that I wouldn’t die. He was right, of course. Even if the cage had been covered with something, the chain would eventually rust to the point of breaking, and..” Firey anxiously swallowed at the thought. “I don’t want to think about that.”

“I’m glad that you were freed, but.. what do you mean when you say that Pencil found torture acceptable? How would you know that?” Silence. “Firey, this isn’t funny. Did she actually-“

“I don’t know, maybe it doesn’t count as torture. It still hurt, though. I-I mean, it’s not like getting water dumped onto me is normal, right?”

…

“She did what?!”

“Not enough water to ki-kill me, of course. Just enough that I’d scream and beg her to stop. It was ridiculous. She kept insisting that I knew where Leafy ran off to, but.. I genuinely have no clue where they were before we all moved away from Yoylecity. That’s what this rain truly reminds me of. Did you.. know about this?”

“..No, of course not. I was never a “real Freesmarter,” so I wasn’t allowed to visit the Yoyle Needy. I tried to argue with Pencil about it, but she refused to budge. It’s probably for the best, anyway.” Gelatin admitted. “I’m.. not sure if I would’ve been able to handle seeing you like that.”

“I find that hard to believe, considering how quickly you sold me out for your own goals.”

“What else could I have done? I’ve already explained myself before. It was the only way that I could get rid of you before you could convince me that I was being too impulsive.”

“I know, but.. was it really worth it?” Firey asked. “I don’t see how anyone benefitted from this. I’m not happy. You’re not happy. Something about Pencil changed because of that. I.. knew that she was always a bit demanding and aggressive, but.. I didn’t know she could be so horrible.”

“I never said that what I did was good. In fact, the losses of this situation vastly outweigh the benefits. I can apologize if you so choose, but I can’t imagine being able to change your mind.”

“You’re right. No matter what you do or say, I will never be able to change how I feel. If I ever hear you apologize to me, I’ll totally beat you up, because.. I already forgive you.”

“WHAT?!” Gelatin shouted, eyes widened as he looked uncharacteristically confused.

“Oh, don’t give me that! All you did was tell Pencil something you figured out through speculation. I never once told you that I was going to revive Leafy, so you didn’t really betray me. Anyone else could’ve figured that out and told Pencil. B-Besides, I know that you regret what you did! Even if indirectly, this is tearing you to pieces! I can see the guilt in your unreadable expression!”

“So what? You shouldn’t forgive me. I don’t need your worthless acceptance.”

“There it is! Everytime I try to help you, you think that you can push me away through nasty words! News flash, it won’t work this time! No matter what you do or say, no matter what lie you conjure up, I.. I won’t accept it. I’ll continue to forgive you.”

“You really shouldn’t do that, Firey. I’m the reason why you lost all of your friends. All of your suffering was caused by my actions. I knew that you wanted to hide things from me, but instead of respecting your wishes, I forced the truth out by exposing you. Just accept it, Firey. I wasn’t a good person. Why do you keep trying to talk to me?!”

“You think I’m perfect? That I’m good compared to you? OF COURSE NOT!” Firey angrily screamed, his voice louder than the rain outside of the cave. “No matter what I do, I always fuck things up! It’s what drives everybody away! Everybody always wants to abandon me and replace me with someone less horrible. You’re not special in that sense and you never HAVE been! So go ahead! Keep insulting me! Keep abandoning me! Keep going! I. DON’T. CARE! IT’S NOT WORSE THAN WHAT ANYBODY ELSE CLOSE TO ME HAS DONE! IT’S NOT WORSE THAN ANYTHING I’VE EVER DONE! IF YOU REALLY WANT TO GET RID OF ME, THEN YOU’RE DOING A LOUSY JOB OF SHOWING IT, GELATIN!”

…

Gelatin could do nothing but stare at Firey as the flame took a few ragged breaths in and out. He opened his mouth to speak, but Firey kept going. “If you really want to make sure that I never forgive you, then.. just go back to being you already! Because no matter how hard I try, I can’t possibly find myself being mad at some fake version of you! Seriously, stop it! There’s nobody with us and we’re stranded inside of this cave! The least you could do is be a little more honest!”

“What are you talking about? I’ve been honest with you throughout this entire conversation. In fact, I haven’t been pretending to be anything at all.”

“Oh yeah? Then how come YOU’RE STILL USING THAT STUPID FAKE VOICE?!”

Silence. Gelatin slightly raised his eyebrow, stunned for several seconds before finally whispering: “I am?”

“Y-Yes? Did you.. seriously not notice?”

“No.” The jello admitted, saying it with such sincerity that Firey instantly believed him.

A fond sigh escaped the other. “What am I going to do with you? You’re totally lost on how to rediscover yourself. I bet that if I asked you how you felt right now, you wouldn’t know how to answer. Or even if you were truly certain, chances are that you wouldn’t answer, because you’re afraid of telling anyone the truth.”

“You don’t have to do anything.” Gelatin pointed out. “I may not be able to convince you to go away, but I still think that it’s more beneficial for you. You don’t need to waste your time on me.”

“Nonsense! Nothing would make me happier than seeing you feel comfortable being yourself again. Your comfort.. would be more than beneficial to me, whatever that word even means. It would make me feel better knowing that you’re alright.”

“I have to be careful about it, though. Even the smallest slip-up will cause the viewers to grow suspicious of me. I.. don’t want to disappoint them any more than I already have.”

“Don’t worry about that! If things get bad, I’ll take care of it. Anything to make you feel safe.”

“You.. want me to feel safe around you?”

“Of course! I already know that I feel that way around you. If I was still terrified or angry, I’d probably stay as far away from you as possible. Yet seeing you here.. brings nothing except a smile on my face. Even if I never properly showed it before, you.. mean the whole wide world to me, Gelatin. I want you to consider me a “safe space” from now on. Okay?”

“Sure.”

…

“Can I hold your hand?” Gelatin asked.

“No.” Firey replied. “I may feel comfortable talking to you, but.. I don’t know if we can ever go back to doing that sort of thing. Not right now. Not in this weird little cave.”

“..That’s alright. I understand why. That aside, however, what are we going to do now? Sit and talk some more?”

“Nah. I’ve had enough conversations about my feelings for one day. Right now, I could really go for a nap.”

“Seriously? I thought you had trouble sleeping. Did.. that change?”

“No, of course I still have difficulty with that, but.. I dunno. For some reason, I think that.. it’ll be easier now that you’re here beside me. Might as well give that idea a shot, right?”

“Makes sense. I’ll keep watch, then, and see if the rain starts to show any signs of stopping. If it does, then I’ll wake you up. How does that sound?”

“Sounds great, Gelatin.”

With that, the conversation was resolved. The jello continued to watch the soft pitter-patter of the rain as Firey slowly started to fall asleep beside him. He’s such a loud snorer, it’s almost unbearable. Gelatin doesn’t hate loud sounds, per say, but they can often be a bit overwhelming. It’s why he liked those headphones from BFDIA so much, because they drowned out all of the yelling and bickering that you’d see unfold. When Firey shouts or does something as obnoxiously nosy as that, however, Gelatin doesn’t feel emotionally strained by it. If anything, hearing that sort of thing from him was oddly.. comforting. Maybe that’s part of what Firey means? A ”safe space” where one can be their truest self without judgment.. hm. Gelatin supposes that he can find that with Firey. Even after knowing who he was truly talking to, the flame hadn’t fully abandoned him. Within days, he had come back, professing that he would help Gelatin no matter what. That sort of attitude isn’t common. Gelatin tries to imagine someone like Donut doing that, but the visual imagery is so ridiculous that he can’t. Donut is stubborn, sure, but in a different way. His determination is through his perseverance and not through a desire to help others. He shouldn’t be judging Donut for that, though. It’s not like he’s been helpful either, and he’s been far more mean at times, but before his thoughts can run wild, he is interrupted by Firey mumbling in his sleep. It seems like whatever he’s blabbering about is a bunch of nonsense, but Gelatin smiles at him anyways.

I don’t think I can “go back” to who I was before. That’s just not possible, but.. with the help of Firey, I can be my own person again. My “truest self.” It’s funny, though. Who would’ve known that this all would’ve happened because of me joining BFDIA?