Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somewhere in Yoyle City, there’s a laser with the power to enhance anything its beam hits. Like everything in Yoyle City, it’s abandoned, a fine layer of dust draped over it. And like everything in Yoyle City, the building it resides in is overgrown and unstable, on the verge of collapse or overbalance or eroding entirely.

In one world, the building stands long enough for four eliminated contestants to traipse through it, firing the laser with wild abandon. In another, though, a few strong winds, a handful of unluckily placed bricks, and some uneven supports prompt something to happen a little bit sooner.

The laser is jerked and goes tumbling down a few floors, the trigger being jerked in the process and firing through a window frame whose glass had broken many years ago.

The beam goes flying through the air, a harsh color cutting through the rich blue. And somehow, it ends up on a remote island, the fields sparse and isolated. One day, it’ll be populated with a small community, a tall hotel and a haunted mansion and scattered structures along competition grounds all framed by mountains and oddly shaped striped towers, but today, the only sign of life there is the long, stretching line labelled auditions.

Currently, one MePhone4 sits sprawled out in a director chair, a clipboard propped in his lap and a bored expression on his face as he moves a ballpoint pen between his fingers. The person currently auditioning is someone by the name of Fanny, a simple yellow stationary fan whose teeth can usually be found grit in a snarl as an exclamation of some sort bubbles on her lips.

…Judging from the bored expression on MePhone’s face, it doesn’t seem to be going well, but honestly, what is Fanny supposed to do about that?! It’s obvious that he only has a few things in mind for his beloved show, and if she doesn’t fit that, she’s just out of luck. It’s annoying, and even worse, there isn’t anything she can do about it. She hates this powerless feeling. It makes her want to dig her teeth into her body, but there aren’t any limbs for her to reach. MePhone seems insufferably smug, and she doubts she can do anything to change it.

Just as she opens her mouth to say something harsh and scathing, figuring she’s going to burn her bridges either way, she feels herself struck by something. There’s a blinding light that erupts in the room paired with a sudden redistribution of weight that sends her toppling to the floor. There’s a pounding pain behind her head, and it’s all she can do to whisper a harsh curse under her breath instead of groaning in disorientation.

“Woah!” calls MePhone, and she winces, curling deeper into herself. She hears him walking, and she slides an eye open to see him looking through the ajar window with a wide eyed expression. “What the heck was that? It hit you and made you look…” He presses his lips into a thin line, although his expression is thoughtful rather than disdainful. “...different.”

“Different?” she grits out, forcing herself to sit up. It… doesn’t take as much strength as it usually does, and realizing that is all the more disorienting. “Different how?”

“Well…” He taps his cheek, his lips pursed. “Look for yourself.” He opens his camera app just as she manages to stagger to her… feet? There’s something weird about that, and something even stranger about the adjustment of weight, but she doesn’t get the chance to finish the thought before he flips the camera to selfie mode, and she feels the breath escape from her lungs, escaping into the air with a strangled huff.

It’s… not her. She knows what she looks like. She’s a big, yellow stationary fan, with a fan in the center that spins and stops with the ebb and flow of her emotions. She doesn’t have any limbs, just eyebrows that furrow deep lines atop the grates of her fan. It’s inconvenient, and her bulky appearance isn’t something she’s exactly fond of, but it’s hers.

But the person reflected on MePhone’s screen is a stranger to her. She’s sleek, a royal blue base with a fan blade and grate rooted in the center of it. She has legs, of all things, but still no arms. One pair of limbs feels a bit more manageable, at any rate. A cord trails behind her, and she could plug it into an outlet, if she wanted. But what would be the point of that…?

Uncertainly, she walks in an awkward semi-circle, a general impression of knowing how to move her legs from memories from watching others. The feeling of weight against her new legs is heavy and awkward, and she feels like she’s going to fall flat on her face at any moment. Her warped reflection on MePhone’s camera mirrors her motions, and it feels like a grim confirmation that this is really her. She doesn’t hate it… it’s just a bit disorienting.

“Wh-” Fanny sputters. “What the heck?! Why do I have legs now? I hate legs!” Her new cord lashes behind her like a tail, and even though she’s aware of its presence she’s not sure how to move it on its own. It’s like the thing operates on instinct and emotion rather than conscious thought.

MePhone stares at her and there’s practically stars in his eyes as he makes a frame with his fingers, grinning widely. “Perfect!” he crows. “You’re just what I’m looking for! You’re hired! Welcome to the show!”

Fanny stares at him, startled. She’s silent as she tries to digest that, and then, bereft of anything else to say, growls out “I hate the show!”

MePhone is too busy writing down something with a cheery grin to pay much attention to her. She feels… small. She hates that. Puffing out her cheeks, she stalks away, her new cord dragging behind her. Her new legs aren’t fazing her, easily able to stomp against the floor and the grass as she leaves the building. She can get around a lot faster like this.

For all her change in appearance was sudden, somehow it just feels right. She only lets a smile cross her face once she’s miles away from MePhone, though. That feels right too.

And making it onto Inanimate Insanity… that feels the most right of all.

“But I think I might close the window,” he says, offering her a sly smile as he moves to close it. “Don’t want any more drastic changes happening, right?”

Fanny’s so busy staring blankly at her feet, she forgets to respond at all.

— — —

There’s a lot of coins waiting in line, Nickel muses. He counts dozens of pennies, a handful of dimes, a few quarters, a dollar coin and two coins he thinks are a pound (with an exaggerated British accent and all) and a yen. The other coins seem to make a game out of sticking a limb through the hole in the middle of him while he silently fumes.

Out of the wide variety, the amount of nickels fall right down the middle. He doesn’t feel special, especially when all of the other nickels seem good at falling into the background. Honestly, the guy waiting in front of him looks nearly identical, and the few words Nickel was able to get out of him was enough to confirm that they had the same voice, oddly enough, even if Mr. Short and Grouchy seemed to linger in the lower, gravelly side of the register while Nickel likes to think he could go both high and low if he wanted to.

He’s never felt more like a dime a dozen his entire life. Or, um, a nickel a dozen, maybe…? Point is, he doesn’t feel like anyone at all. Which is pretty bad, considering that he’s auditioning to get onto a reality show!

Nickel’s had plenty of time to contemplate his approach to the audition and try to figure out some way to stick out, but he has yet to figure out anything. He figured it wouldn’t be so bad if he was just earnest and answered every question in a way that felt right to him, but the longer he spends waiting in this sprawling line that moves at a crawl, the more frazzled he becomes. He’s resorted to rolling back and forth on his heels for the sake of easing his nerves.

Above all else, though, what he really wants is to talk. He wants to feel his lips move, his eyes wrinkle with a smile. He wants to take his mind off of his stressful, circular train of thought however he can, but even as he was walking to the line, he found it difficult to strike up a conversation with anyone.

It was like anyone he introduced himself to simply turned their noses up at him, as if they were sizing him up in their minds. As if they were already in the competition, and they skipped right past the cooperation of it all to all out hostility. He was sure there were some nice people in the line. Maybe they were just sitting quiet, suffocated by their own thoughts. Like him.

But that changes now! Or, well, so he hopes. He turns his attention to the coin standing ahead of him, the one functionally identical to him, which is a cute little coinky-dink they could bond over, right? Nickel bets that coin can be one of the nice people, if he’s just given the chance for it! Maybe they’ll come out of this audition as best of friends, regardless of how he did!

Emboldened by this train of thought, Nickel leans over to nudge him. The other coin startles and looks over to shoot him a dirty, expectant look, like he thinks Nickel had crashed into him and is now expecting an apology. Huh. Okay, well, not the most approachable impression right off the bat, but, uh, maybe he’s just in a bad mood! Nickel’s sure there’s someone kind and friendly underneath that sour glare.

“Hiya!” he says brightly, his grin sunny. “Are you auditioning for Inanimate Insanity too?”

The other coin’s face turns unimpressed as he looks away with a scoff. “No, I’m just waiting in line for fun,” he deadpans, rolling his eyes.

“Oh!” he says, blinking. He wasn’t expecting that… “You could do that in a lot of other places too, though. Like grocery stores, or amusement parks, or-”

“I was being sarcastic, you idiot,” he growls out, cutting Nickel off.

“Sar… casm…?” he uncertainly echoes, the word unfamiliar.

“Never mind,” he huffs, looking labored. “Did you want something?” His glare is piercing and expectant.

“Just wanted to talk!” he replies, making a noble effort to rally even as he finds himself flagging at the other man’s hostility and cold disinterest. “Since you’re auditioning, or, um, probably auditioning…? I figured we can talk about that! We have so much in common!”

“Other than us waiting in this line that really can’t move fast enough,” he begins, muttering the last few words under his breath with an annoyed expression. “Not really.”

“Well, I think so!” Nickel insists. “We’re both gray coins, the light shines on us the exact same way, our voices are similar, and we’re both here! I’m Nickel, by the way! It’s really nice to meet you!”

“How could I have guessed?” he drawls, drawing out the words with a sort of significance Nickel can’t parse. Is this that sarcasm thing? He’s not really sure… He doesn’t say anything else, though. Not even a name?

“What’s your name?” he prompts, even as his voice wavers with nerves and uncertainty. “Since I, uh, gave you mine, you should give me yours! It’s like a trade! Pretty fair, right?” He offers the other coin the widest grin he can muster, and the other man shrinks away with a grouchy, annoyed expression.

“It’s Nickel,” he growls. “You probably could have guessed that too. Do you mind leaving me alone?”

“Well-” he begins, his face scrunched up.

“Ugh, you really don’t get subtlety,” sighs out Nickel. Or, uh, the other Nickel. There has to be a better way to distinguish the two, but his only suggested nickname of “Nicky” probably wouldn’t go over well. “How about this?” He turns to face Nickel fully, his eyes narrowed and his mouth set in a scowl that feels pretty harsh… “Leave me alone. You’re annoying.”

“O-Oh…” he says quietly, deflating as the other Nickel turns away from him, his annoyance melting into disinterest, as if it’s that easy to forget Nickel exists.

Maybe in another world, Nickel was put off by the hostility and daunted by the competition, stammering through an awkward audition and inevitably turned away.

But in this world, he wants to compete more than anything, and he really wants to talk to someone! The penny in line behind him has struck up conversation with… not him, so he only has one option for a friend! Besides, he really needs to figure out an angle of attack here, and getting advice from someone else in his situation is as good an idea as any.

“C’mon, Nicky!” he whines, pressing his cheek against the other coin’s despite his growl of objection.

“Don’t call me-” he begins, his expression irate.

“We don’t have to be friends, and I know I’m the competition,” he begins, a pout on his face as he trains shiny eyes on the other Nickel. “But it wouldn’t hurt to chat, would it? We can pass the time!”

“Please,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Why do you really want to talk to me?”

Nickel winces at the knowing tone in the other man’s voice, but he supposes his understanding of the situation isn’t wrong… He just also seems like he’s trying to think the worst of Nickel, which is mean! “Well, you know, I thought we could compare our strategies for the audition!” he says determinedly, puffing out his chest. “We have to stand out somehow, and Nickels should stick together!”

“How do I know you’re not just gonna steal whatever I come up with before I can do it?” he says in reply, looking skeptical and unimpressed.

“Because… you’re ahead of me?” he says slowly, blinking a few times, the motion dazed and lazy. “And, uh, whatever you’re gonna do probably has something to do with that prickly, mean thing you’ve got going on… I don’t think I’d pull it off nearly as well as you do!” He tries to offer the other Nickel a wobbly grin, trying to pour all of his earnest intent into each line of his face. Instead, though, he just shies away, an exhausted grimace on his face. He feels his grin falter slightly, and he looks at the ground as a pout makes its way back into his lips.

“Sure, that’s a word for it,” he says, not even looking at Nickel as he replies. He’s staring blankly at the person in front of him as they go in for an audition, his eyes lacking any focus. His words are flat and lack any inflection, like he’s just trying to get the conversation over with without any additional thought.

“So, that’s my type cast for you,” Nickel says slyly as he nudges the other coin, who shoots him an exasperated look. “Do you have anything for me? What do you think I’d work well doing in my audition, huh?” He’s really hoping the other coin decides to open up to him sooner rather than later; he gets the whole aloof act has its niche in an audition, but it can’t work that well in making friends! Maybe if he just keeps trying, he’ll have some luck.

“Gee, I don’t know,” he says, doing that sarcasm thing again, Nickel thinks. “You just have such a charming personality. I bet if you went in there and said random nonsense, you’d still be able to get the part.” He turns to Nickel and gives him something that… looks like a smile, maybe… But it also seems kind of mean, feeling more like a grimace than anything.

“Random nonsense?” he echoes with a furrowed brow.

“Now you’re getting it!” he says with a roll of his eyes, turning on his heel back to the door just as another coin leaves with a downtrodden expression and someone calls “Next!” The other Nickel straightens, looking relieved. “Oh, wow, look at that. I’d love to keep talking, but it looks like it’s my turn to audition.” He practically runs off to the door. Is he that antsy and eager to get things over with?

“W-Well, um, good luck!” Nickel calls, kind of frantically, as his eyes follow the other Nickel’s retreating frame.

“Save your stupid luck,” he scoffs in reply. “I don’t need any of it.”

And then he’s gone, disappearing through the doorway, and Nickel’s the one standing in the front of the line, with only an interview with a fickle host being the one thing standing between him and his dreams. Without someone to talk to, the nerves are back… He can’t help but squirm in place as he stares down at the grass, the weight of the stares trained on him feeling overwhelming.

He tries to smile, tries to be himself, tries to feel any kind of confidence. He stares down intensely at his feet, his breathing uneven, and desperately racks his mind for something that will calm him down. The conversation from before echoes in his mind, and he blinks a few times.

“C’mon, focus…” he mumbles to himself, puffing out his cheeks. “Getting bogged down in your thoughts is just… so stewy stooby stupid!” Huh. That random nonsense thing… It feels pretty good. He blinks before hesitantly continuing. “Gooby jeeber weebers, I’m way too rattled by all of this… It’s not going to be the end of the world if I don’t make it in.” He rolls back and forth on his heels, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Somehow, these random strings of words feel like the only way to express the suffocating swirl of emotions clawing at his chest, overlapping and dizzying, and there’s a sort of passion to it all that he can’t help but feel gratified by, his lips stretching into a grin. He lets out a giggle; somehow, the other Nickel’s absentminded advice seems to have been more than helpful.

All too soon, the other Nickel leaves the audition building, shooting Nickel a disdainful glare as he stomps out. Nickel just waves at him, smiling widely. He may be a big grouchy grumpypants, but he helped Nickel a lot, so no way he’s going to return that sour, grumpy energy! He’s going to keep smiling at the other Nickel, and hope that his boundless positivity will rub off on him someday!

“Next!” calls a voice from the building, and Nickel startles, the breath knocking itself from his lungs for a moment.

For a moment, the nerves swell all over again, but then he grits his teeth, mumbling under his breath. “C’mon, you can do this… Don’t let yourself get scared… Just be bibby bobby brave!” He jumps up, just once, and he psyches himself up well enough to stride into the building.

There’s a phone sitting in a director’s chair, one hand propped against his cheek. There’s a clipboard resting on his lap, a ballpoint pen laying on top of the paper and slowly bleeding ink onto the paper. He raises his brows at Nickel with a frown. “I said next, not for you to circle back,” he says dryly, rolling his eyes. “Can’t you actually bring the next person in here?”

“I am the next person!” he insists, jutting out his chin as he pulls his lips back in a pout. “I know me and the other Nickel look the same, but we are different!”

The phone squints at him, tapping his pen to the clipboard. “If you say so,” he says skeptically. “Name?”

“Nickel!” he gladly replies, grinning widely. “Really-mealy nice to meetcha!”

His brow furrows deeper, mouth pressing into a thin line as he tilts his head. From there, the two of them exchange questions back and forth, and Nickel tries to be as genuine as he can. When there’s too many emotions welling up, things that can’t be described with words other people would be able to understand, he happily blurts out bouts of nonsense that makes the other man look at him with an unreadable expression as he scrawls something down on his clipboard, angled away from Nickel’s point of view.

When the interview draws to an end, the phone–MePhone, he thinks?–looks at Nickel with a furrowed brow, tapping his ballpoint pen against his temple for a beat or two. After a moment, he straightens. “Huh,” he says. “I’ll be in touch. Next!”

Anyone else would take it as a rejection, or at least not as anything encouraging. Nickel isn’t anyone else, though (and it’s part of his charm!), and he’s an optimist by trade. He doesn’t give up hoping, and when his phone buzzes with a call a week later, his smile remains stubbornly affixed to his face.

When he’s told he made it onto the show, his exclamation of nonsense is so loud and long it would make that other Nickel proud, if he hadn’t long faded into the recesses of Nickel’s mind.

— — —

If Fan knows anything about himself, it’s that he loves reality shows.

Or, well, maybe saying that he loves one reality show in particular would be more accurate. Anything else he tries to watch doesn’t hold a candle to it! He honestly doesn’t think he has to say it, but unfortunately his favorite thing in the history of anything is… maybe a little bit underground. It just hasn’t had its time in the spotlight yet! But it’ll be hard for anyone to figure out what he’s getting at if he doesn’t say it outright.

Inanimate Insanity is the best reality show ever made, in Fan’s opinion (and people are given his opinion whether they ask for it or not), and his dream, from the moment he watched the first episode with wide eyes as he rested on the edge of his seat, was to compete on the show one day.

Hey, to be fair, it's a more obtainable goal than some people try to aim for! He’s probably not gonna ever walk on the moon or become a millionaire or whatever, but that doesn’t matter to him. All he wants is to be there as MePhone starts an episode with a hearty “greetings and salutations!” and to be groaning alongside the other competitors at some challenge that’s not very fun to participate in but will be amazing to watch, and to plead his case to the viewers so he can live his dream for just another episode longer.

God, even the thought makes a squeal bubble up in the back of his throat. It’s the only thing he wants! He rolls back and forth on his heels with nervous energy as he becomes caught up in his mind, his own idle fantasies carrying a rose-tinted hue.

But, somehow, no matter how passionate and eager he is, despite the fact that he’ll always be II’s biggest fan, it’s not enough. He auditioned for season one and was tragically struck down. That’s fine, obviously. If he had started playing in the first season, he wouldn’t have been as knowledgeable and passionate about the game.

The real issue comes from… well. So maybe he’s gotten into a habit of sneaking onto the set so he can see the episodes live in the making (the editing definitely helps with pacing, but the character moments that end up cut out are more than worth seeing for himself), and maybe he’s been caught by MePhone more than a few times, and maybe he used the opportunity to beg to be let onto the show’s next season (because with a show this good, stopping at the first season would be a crime), and maybe his begging did piss off MePhone, who according to Fan’s numerous character analyses is famously moody and a contrarian…

So, maybe, possibly, perhaps, he might’ve shot himself in the foot a little bit. He looks back at the memory with an awkward cringe, having the ability for self reflection but not the ability to stop himself from getting caught up in his whirl of excitement and sticking his foot in the mouth. 

“I mean- I’m such a big fan- I’ve watched all the episodes like, a million times-” he had rambled excitedly to a stonefaced MePhone, a wide grin on his face as he stared at the host of the greatest thing ever with shining eyes.

“I know,” MePhone had interjected, cutting him off with a deadpan expression. “Every time I’ve had to kick you off set, you’ve said the same thing. Constantly. Over and over.”

“It bears repeating!” Fan had insisted, raising a finger to waggle it.

“Can you leave?” he sighed out, running a hand over his face.

“No! Or, well, I will, don’t worry!” he had awkwardly stammered, waving his hands in the air as he smiled nervously. “I just had a question! About season two!”

“Who ever said anything about a second season?” MePhone had scoffed with a roll of his eyes.

“Are you not going to do one?” he had slowly asked, his voice rimmed with nerves as he rolled on his heels. MePhone had pressed his mouth into a thin line and hadn’t responded, which was… almost as good as a confirmation! “Right, I figured! S-So, uh, when do you think you’ll open auditions for it…?” He had offered MePhone a wobbly smile as he kept his eyes wide, hoping… well. He just wanted to look like someone who would be perfect competing.

“You auditioned for the first season,” he had pointed in response with a roll of his eyes.

“Well… maybe…” he had relented. “But it definitely wasn’t my best work. And now that I know a ton about II, I also know that you should totally let me onto the show! I’ll do great on it, I just know it! No one is as passionate about your work as me!” He had leaned forward, his hands clasped together and his smile hopeful.

“Do you really think passion’s gonna get you anywhere?” MePhone had asked with a sigh, and Fan had hesitated. That question, unlike any of his other interjections into the conversation, sounded genuine. Uncharacteristically genuine… That wasn’t the MePhone4 he was familiar with.

Mentally taking notes to add that to his MePhone analysis megathread at a later point, he had cleared his throat and tried to muster up a response. “Well, I hope so!” he had insisted, his eyes flaring with determination. “Do you know how amazing it would be to be a part of your favorite thing in the whole world?” MePhone looked unconvinced, so Fan decided to add the thing that would definitely sway him: “Besides, if I’m on your show, then you don’t have to worry about me sneaking onto set! Because, uh, I’m supposed to be here, and… yeah!” Maybe not the most rousing speech, but surely MePhone can see the benefits.

“Yeah, but then I’ll have to deal with you being a nuisance every day,” he had retorted. “Like you are right now, sneaking onto the set of my show and then trying to talk my ear off.”

“I’m just-!” he had begun to protest with a whine.

“You want to compete on Inanimate Insanity, don’t you,” MePhone had interjected, and his voice was flat. In other words, it wasn’t really a question in the slightest, which was its own kind of hurt… It kind of felt like MePhone was only saying that to get Fan’s attention.

Still, he wasn’t immune to bait. “Yes!” Fan had practically squealed as he bounded forward, waving his hands in the air as he grinned widely. “I want it more than anything!”

“Well, it’s not happening,” MePhone brusquely retorted with a roll of his eyes. Fan had frozen mid-movement, letting out a squeak as his eyes widened.

“Wh- Why?!” he had indignantly squawked once he had recovered from the haze of shock.

“Because you obviously can’t take no for an answer,” he had said dryly as he began to examine his nails with a bored expression. “What am I supposed to do with you once you get eliminated and refuse to take no for an answer then, either? A contestant who doesn’t want to be eliminated is pretty bad for business.”

“Who says I won’t win?” he had sputtered, hands on his hips.

MePhone had let out a bark of laughter. “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” he had said curtly, and Fan had puffed out his cheeks. He felt the same way, sometimes, but hearing it from MePhone stung in its own way. “No. I’m not letting you onto the show.”

“But I want to compete!” Fan had whined as he lurched forward to grab MePhone’s wrist, staring at him pleadingly. Of course, he had been quick to rip his arm away, a sneer on his lips.

“If you want to compete on something, go audition for something else,” the phone had said with a dismissive scoff as he began to stride off.

“Like what?” Fan had whined in complaint as he determinedly followed after MePhone, hot on his heels. MePhone had an overall lack of urgency and a lack of speed, while Fan had boundless enthusiasm and a goal. “None of them are II, so what would even be the point?”

“Figure it out if you’re so good at thinking and research,” MePhone had groaned with a roll of the eyes, leaning his head back as he let out an exasperated sigh. “Either way, there’s no way I’d let you onto my show. You’re way too annoying.” He waved a hand dismissively, a mean smile on his face, and Fan remembers deflating in the moment, wrapping his hands around his chest. That felt… bad. He knows he can be a lot, but he’d rather be passionate than boring, jeez…

But he hasn’t spent hours combing over each frame of Inanimate Insanity for nothing! And obviously MePhone as the host gets the most screentime, so Fan was more than familiar with his tricks by now. He was obviously just trying to make a joke, albeit a kind of meanspirited one. But that’s how he always is with his contestants, throwing jabs at them as they fight the uphill battle of whatever challenge he’s set out for them. Plus, there’s the whole lack of understanding social norms from being a robot, not that Fan is any good at them himself.

“Fine,” Fan had sighed out, lips pulled into a pout. Even in the moment, he had known full well that MePhone had been throwing a jab his way in good fun. With all the time he’s spent hunched in front of any screen he could get his hands on, he and MePhone might as well be friends for how well Fan knows him, heh… He had come to a stop, crossing his arms. “I’ll… I’ll get onto another show and win! And then, you’ll have to let me onto II!”

“Whatever you say!” MePhone had called with a shrug. “And, hey, stop sneaking onto set, will you? Otherwise I’ll have to have Adam hire security just to keep you out!” He had walked away with a bark of laughter.

“N-No you won’t!” he had protested, brandishing a finger at MePhone’s retreating frame even as it became all the more obvious he wasn’t all that interested in what Fan had to say. “I know you don’t have the budget for that!”

His voice had echoed uselessly across the plain, and his lips had pulled back into a grimace. If nothing else, it felt good to get the last word. But it doesn’t matter, not when he still lost. Worse yet, he’s been banned from the set of Inanimate Insanity! That, somehow, feels like a far greater travesty than just being denied. What else is he supposed to do with himself, now that he can’t watch episodes of the greatest reality show ever? It’ll be really bad for blog traffic…

Even now, a day later, he’s still frustrated. And do you know how hard it is to be angry in this situation? He’s sitting in a small library, tucked into a corner as he sits in front of a computer that’s older than he is. Or, um, he thinks so, anyway. How old is…? N-Never mind.

Fan can’t help but indignantly puff out his cheeks at the memory, silently sulking as he drums his fingers against the keys of the thick keyboard connected to the even thicker computer. MePhone was mean. Predictably mean, yeah, but even with his effusive knowledge of how MePhone operated, it was hard to deal with such overt, outright rejection. Especially when it came from the host of the show he idolized.

In the end, though, it was what it was. The odds of getting onto Inanimate Insanity, at least right now, were… painfully low. MePhone is spiteful, and can really hold a grudge when he wants to. If he doesn’t want Fan on the show, he’s not getting on, which just isn’t fair at all! Fan’s probably half the reason the show’s still going in the first place. For a phone, MePhone really can’t do social media management.

He’s found himself brainlessly scrolling through YouTube for a while now on this computer, just to do something to pass the time. Another show, huh…? MePhone’s words echo in his ears, and while he’s sure the man just meant it sarcastically, using any excuse he could to get Fan out of the way (which, ouch, by the way), it does make him think.

So what show could be better to look into then the show Inanimate Insanity is supposedly ripping off to begin with? That’s what half the people in the reality show fanbase write off II as, anyway, and it’s been a real uphill battle to fight those assumptions. It’s made Fan nurse a bit of a grudge against the show that’s apparently being ripped off. MePhone isn’t the only one being unfair. Strange, huh?

The show is called Battle For Dream Island, or BFDI for short. He begrudgingly admits the acronym flows a bit better than II’s does, but II also gets points for alliteration, so who’s really winning that battle?

He plugs in wired earbuds he found hanging from a trashcan, and other than the issue that the left side doesn’t work, they’re fine enough. Not like he can afford anything; promoting II is a fulltime job, except he doesn’t get paid… so maybe it’s more like a volunteer kind of situation. BFDI has a full season under their belt, with open auditions for the next having been ongoing for a while. He can’t imagine how many people will have tried their luck at competing on a gameshow, one that’s pretty popular within its niche. A lot more popular than II, which is unfair… Even if the first few episodes are definitely a bit more palatable.

Fan could audition for BFDI. MePhone’s definitely a fan of the show, which would earn him brownie points if he was accepted, or even just featured on an episode for a second or two. He kind of thought his greatest strength in terms of being accepted onto II was his knowledge for the show, though. He doesn’t have anything like that for BFDI, and somehow he struggles to comprehend the idea of mustering up nearly as much passion for something non-II.

To be completely honest, he doesn’t think that anything in BFDI’s first season, complete as it is, could ever compete with what he’s seen of II. He wouldn’t be able to say why he thinks that, exactly, which he knows is unacceptable. If he was a real fan, he’d be capable of defending his opinion and propping up his favorite show.

But his adoration of II just feels… intrinsic. Like it’s something baked into him, rushing through his veins just as much as blood. Sure, people online are quick to dismiss it as something childish, amateurish, messy, and he’s just as quick to fight them, fingers blurring as he taps away at a keyboard or his phone. Because people can say anything they want about Inanimate Insanity, but he’ll always defend it. The show is like his closely guarded secret, his carefully guarded treasure. And his passion for it is overflowing, even if he wouldn’t be able to say where that passion had exactly come from.

Passion just isn’t going to be enough, though. The host of the show has to practically beat him back with a stick, no matter how insistent he is in his begging. Even now, there’s still parts of him that want to keep going. If he was just persuasive enough, loud enough, stubborn enough, surely that would be enough to join the one thing he loves with all his heart.

Still, MePhone’s never gotten closer to accepting Fan. If anything, he seems to grow more irritated with every push Fan makes. Maybe things would be better if he just watched, cheering from the sidelines but never playing a part in anything himself.

…Or maybe, if he built up his portfolio a bit, prove he can be a good actor, a good competitor, then maybe MePhone will be more interested. If he can net a competitor from his favorite show on II, that would definitely be enough to boost the show’s reputation and ratings, and Fan will have a chance of winning his favorite show in the world. Yeah, this is definitely a good plan.

Well, looks like he’s gonna audition for BFDI. Grinning, he moves back to the start of the playlist he found, hands clasped together. If he wants to have a chance, he better study up.

— — —

Nickel auditioned for some stupid reality show with an even stupider name (honestly, who even uses alliteration these days?) and if anyone were to ask, he'd say he did it because he was bored, nothing more.

Not that anyone does ask. He thinks the prickly sarcasm throws people off, not that he’s too into self reflection. That’s beside the point, though.

Writing off the audition as nothing more than boredom wouldn’t be right, though. He doesn’t remember hearing about the show, exactly. He just remembers walking through a field, spotting a sprawling line, idly flipping through an informational brochure on the show, and just wordlessly deciding that was where he had to be.

Even now, he’s clueless about why he was so passionate about it. Somehow, the idea of competing just felt right, an odd sort of comfort that he found in his harsh, barbed words.

But, well, here he is, without anything to tether him other than his own frustrations and regrets, and he feels empty, like a part of him has been carved out with a knife. No, worse yet, he feels as if he’s always been missing a part of himself, and he doesn’t know how to fill it.

Nickel wants to compete. He wants to win. He wants the tentative, shaky cooperation of working with others even if he can never put his trust in them. He wants to betray and be betrayed, because even if he’s terrified of being hurt, ironclad walls around his heart, the pain would be better than this vast, hollow nothingness that’s sunk into his chest, numbing and nauseating.

It’s so unfair. None of those people who were waiting in that line would make it one day in a competition. They probably just think it’s some fun game, where they can make friends and give trust freely. Like they can follow behind whatever idiot wants to take the lead without a second thought. Like they can get away with letting their guard down, as if they won’t get stabbed in the back for it.

Meanwhile, Nickel knows exactly what a competition like that entails. A lot of people would do anything for a million dollars; plenty of people show who they really are. He isn’t naive or obnoxiously friendly like… like that idiot! The guy who talked to him in line, with smiles too wide to not be fake no matter how warm they felt, with nonsensical ramblings and ideas would get eaten alive in a show like Inanimate Insanity. He’d take things too personal, get taken advantage of by someone cruel. Nickel is far better than that.

And yet, drama is the thing that makes the world go ‘round, isn’t it? It’s the thing the cameras train on, the viewers pounce on, the ratings soar from. At least Nickel would be aware of that. That childish, inconsistent, friendly jerk, who thinks he can just go and steal what should be Nickel’s, would be clueless the entire time. He has to imagine the other man, eerily identical to him in all but temperament, to be in tears just so he can feel better about himself.

He’s in some city, he doesn’t really know. He found himself awkwardly trailing behind a group of dejected auditionees, trying to act like he knew where he was going, all confident-like, and eventually he ended up in some massive city that instantly left him overwhelmed. He had ducked into an alleyway to catch his breath, gasping and panting heavily. There was just something about the suffocatingly tall buildings and the shadows they cast, the acrid smell of smog that clung to the inside of his mouth, the loud roar of cars, the scattered trash and muddy water that he trampled underfoot in his messy scramble…

All of it just felt like something he was never meant to take in, that’s all. Practically all of the other idiots waiting in that line handled the city better than he had; none of them had darted into an alleyway to hyperventilate for over half an hour, at any rate. Not that he did that or anything, heh…

There was something simplistic about the island he had done auditions on. It was flat, with very little vegetation. The grass had a fake quality to it–the color was too monotone, the length was too consistent, the texture of it felt odd and plastic-like underfoot… Something like that. And yet, Nickel had felt right there, just as he had felt right performing for cameras and under the watchful eye of his would-be host.

The fields, the cameras, the game… All of it he could handle. He could thrive in it, even. At least he knew what that kind of competition entailed. At least he knew what to expect. Stuff like that. But peering out of the alleyway entrance, seeing the crowds of people walking down the streets, the flashing signs and rushes of sounds… This isn’t anything he can digest.

It’s wrong. It’s all wrong. He wants to go back. He wants to compete. He wants to feel whole.

Nickel has to stop himself from hyperventilating again, even if he begins to feel lightheaded as his heart hammers in his chest. He takes his panic and does what he always does with emotions; grip them tight enough for them to morph into anger, like coal becoming diamond under enough pressure… or something.

Either way, anger is far more empowering than panic. It’s a flame licking within his chest, scalding hot and stubbornly alive. It burns his heels whenever he stays in one place for too long, dwelling on all of the unpleasant things that would be better fed to the flames. The anger is a constant, persistent reminder for him to keep going.

This, he decides, feels as good as anything. If he can’t have the only thing he can remember wanting, he can have this: his own anger, his own wits, his determination tied into a knot in his chest, as nauseating as it is emboldening.

He storms through the streets in a huff, like he could get more than used to for however long he’s stuck in this awful city. He’s nothing and nobody, with nothing to go back to. Even though that should bother him more than it does (...it should, shouldn’t it?) he’s too caught up in the injustice of being denied what should be his. It’s so unfair. He’d fit the part as much as anyone. Now what is he supposed to do with himself?

As the thought crosses through his mind for the fourth time and settles there for the first, he’s smacked in the face by a flyer that had come loose from a telephone pole. Sputtering, he manages to untangle it, and he idly scans it before stopping and reading it closer.

The flyer details auditions for another competition-based reality show, and this one seems much more put together, if nothing else. It’s actually professional, and the title isn’t painfully stupid, and it wasn’t something he just stumbled across on a random walk through a sparse, practically abandoned field.

“...Huh.” he mumbles, bemused. “Well, it’s not like I have anything better to do…”

Chapter Text

There isn’t anything better in the world than being able to compete on Inanimate Insanity.

That’s what Nickel thinks, anyway, and that’s a really high bar to clear. He’s had ice cream and chocolate, which are really yummy. And somehow, Inanimate Insanity manages to be even better than that!

He hadn’t been competing for long, which is real unlucky. He’s honestly glad he made it further than he should’ve. He hopes people always spell his name wrong, so he can keep having all kinds of fun!

But the sad part is that he was eliminated pretty early, in the grand scheme of things… It makes him sad. He supposes he prefers Lightbulb still being in the game–what is their team supposed to do without their brighty fight gitey leader, after all? But he wanted more screentime! He… supposes he wants an actual reason as to why he ended up eliminated. He wasn’t that mean or boring, was he?

It’s so unfair that he spent less time playing the game, which was as awesome as a holy roly poly on guacamole, but that mean, bossy Balloon, constantly mumbling under his breath about manipulating his teammates, made it longer than him! Well, not that much longer, and they were on different teams, so maybe it was a double standard, but it was totally unfair anyway.

Nickel misses his friends, though. Sure, he’s on Idiotic Island with Baseball, who’s his best friend, but he had fun competing with Painty and Marsh! They were the trio, meant to go to the final three together! Or something like that… just ‘cause people couldn’t get his name right didn’t mean it was reason enough to trade him out for Lightbulb.

Still, he looks back at getting to play at all with fondness. He liked feeling like he had something to do, no matter what was happening. He liked feeling like he had a purpose, like he belonged… fun, easy stuff like that!

Even before the game started, things were already getting super fun for Nickel! All he’s ever wanted is to make friends, but for some reason people are always making faces at him whenever he tries to chat with them. He can’t help but rely on his random strings of nonsense, because he knows that’s what got him onto the show to begin with. If that’s what MePhone wants him to be, then surely everyone else will think the same! The host has the final say on this sort of thing, after all.

But the only person who would ever give him the time of day was Baseball, and even he seemed kind of hesitant about it at first. He seemed put off by his nonsense, like most people are, but he slowly began to warm up to Nickel! That seemed like enough reason to stick at his side, and MePhone seemed pretty pleased by it, too, making a frame with his fingers at them, writing something down, and walking away.

In his mind, he just managed to endear himself to Baseball, and if he managed to do that, surely he’d have no problem doing the same to everyone else! All of the contestants are just people he hasn’t managed to make friends with yet! He thinks he was getting there with Painty and Marsh, before he was eliminated so suddenly, which was very berry carry unfair, if you asked him. Hmph. It helped that the three had something to bond over, in some sense of the word.

Knife was real scary. He was a bully, sullen and sharp, who didn’t hesitate to push around anyone he thought was weaker than him. His grins were sly, his eyes were keen, and he was just mean. Nickel was just glad he was durable enough to not be considered a target by the man.

Poor Marsh, though… She was always getting pushed around by him, and it wasn’t fair at all! Just because she looks sharp and squishy doesn’t make her someone to be picked on without impunity. He knows she has a sharp tongue, a sharper mind, and a tendency for holding grudges. He honestly feels bad for Knife for feeling like he has to pick on someone, and for deciding to pick on Marsh. It would come back to bite him someday, Nickel just knows it. He believes in his trio buddy!

Honesty, it felt like Knife was picking on Marsh for his own satisfaction as much as he did so to impress the other competitors. Every time he would torment her, he would always look over his shoulder with a sleazy smile toward the rest of them, and it was like he was always expecting laughter or attention or something. Nickel knows what it’s like to want to have eyes on you, but he doesn’t think Knife needs to do all that…

He likes to think Marsh appreciates it. Nickel being on her side with everything, he means. Maybe enough to consider him her friend? And if he’s her friend, he’s definitely Paintbrush’s friend. Maybe it’s a stupid thing to worry about, but he wants to have plenty of friends! That’s what the competition is perfect for, if you ask him. Getting to work together with people is like proof that he’s worth something! Not that he’s worried about his worth. He knows it’s five cents.

And now… he’s eliminated. It’s been a while, and even the chance of rejoining had been enough to get him excited, but it didn’t happen. He supposes it doesn’t matter if the other competitors love him, because all he has to do is get the viewers on his side and he can coast through the game no problem. But what about what comes after? Are all of them just gonna part ways, just like that? If they’re gonna stick together, he wants to have friends, and plenty of them! Even if people think he’s weird or random or annoying, he doesn’t want to be left behind.

And yet here he is on Idiotic Island, alone and forgotten, and it’s not fair at all. At least he has two balls to keep him company–Baseball and his awesome rubber ball. But even bouncing that has started to get old. He wants to do something. Wants to play again, mostly…

Luckily for him, MePhone has called everyone back to the competition grounds for the finale. Which isn’t playing again, actually, he doesn’t think he’s doing anything other than watching. But it’s exciting! He loves excitement! And getting the chance to stretch his legs beyond that cramped cage (whose bars he could actually slide between, but he didn’t, because he was nice… and didn’t want to end up on his own) was fun on its own.

…Okay, so maybe his definition of fun is a little bit skewed. He thinks as long as he’s surrounded by other people he can figure out a way to have some kind of fun in it. He just really doesn’t want to be all alone, alright? That’s not a bad or weird thing! Well… he thinks it isn’t. He supposes from the perspective of most people, he’d be considered weird, so everything he does automatically becomes weird. But! Paper could also slip between the cage’s bars and he didn’t, which means that Nickel wasn’t the only one who chose to stay there instead of at least trying to run free.

Granted, Paper was there longer than anyone, and the longer he was stuck there, the… weirder he got. But he seems all normal now, mostly. As normal as anyone can get, right? Nickel wouldn’t know what that’s like, ‘cause that sounds boring and all. But he seems better, like a huge weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. Plus he seems super close to OJ and Pickle now, all because he got to compete again.

If Nickel got to compete again, would he have those same bonds?

Well, there’s no use worrying about that, he supposes, even though he is kind of jealous. The game’s practically over by now. That’s why he’s back on the competition grounds after an eternity of boredom! He thinks he might make a complaint about the elimination system to MePhone, it seems way too harsh. That’s something to think about before things start, he supposes, because the travel time anywhere is cut short by MePhone teleporting them everywhere.

He’s sitting on the bleachers, leaning against Baseball’s side, to watch the final challenge, OJ versus Taco. Nickel doesn’t care that much–for one thing, neither had been on his team, and so he hadn’t known either of them well at all. To be honest, he had kinda wanted to sit on Taco’s side, because she was nice! Well, they hadn’t talked, except for that time they had taken turns exchanging nonsense and non sequiturs, which he had found very productive even if Baseball had watched with a confused expression the whole time, but he likes her more than he likes OJ.

But Baseball had gone to sit on OJ’s side without even thinking about it, and so had everyone else! Well, everyone who wasn’t Pickle, anyway. Nickel didn’t want to feel like an outcast, and he and Baseball were best friends! If Baseball wants to take the initiative, Nickel will happily go along with it, and he hopes when he has to take the initiative, Baseball will back him up. They’re buddies like that, right?

Plus, he might not be friends with people who aren’t Baseball, but he likes to hope he’s friendly with people! He and Painty and Marsh don’t talk anymore, but they still have a bond as the trio, right? Even though they don’t need to care about him anymore, they still do, right? Even though it’s hard to have a conversation with them, and they look at him like a freak, he’s still… their friend… maybe.

(Nickel remembers the last challenge he competed in with them. When he saw the tub of guacamole, he had gasped excitedly, bouncing on his heels. “That’s the guacamole they put the roly polys in!” he had whispered reverently.

“Um, yeah, sure, one-hundred percent,” Paintbrush had replied, shooting him a wobbly thumbs up. “Whatever keeps you motivated, buddy.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” Marshmallow had whispered as she leaned in close to them.

“Just go with it, Marsh-”)

Y-Yeah. Friends. Definitely.

But other than them, there’s people he doesn’t know as well that he’d like to try to be friends with. Lightbulb is totally easy to get along with, with bright ideas and even brighter smiles, and Paper is nice, if a bit jumpy, and Knife is gruff but seems to tolerate Nickel since he’s not marshmallow-shaped, heh. He doesn’t have the same bond with them that he has with his bestest friend, but the more people he’s friendly with, the better, right?

It’s pretty fun. The final challenge, he means. It’s actually a compilation of all the previous challenges, most of which… he wasn’t there for. Ugh, that thought makes him feel all sad and small and left out again, no thank you. Still, OJ and Taco handle it all like champs! Which makes sense, he supposes, considering they got this far.

They make their way closer and closer to the finish line, each challenge slowly being overcome, and now Nickel’s getting really into it. Don’t get him wrong, he’d rather be out there competing anyday, experiencing the thrill of it all for himself, but watching comes in a pretty distant second. He can see why viewers keep coming back to this show, although to be honest it is pretty shoddy in terms of filming and planning and quality and…

His eyes are blown wide as Taco’s airheaded persona shifts so abruptly it leaves him with whiplash. She goes from erratic and nonsensical, someone Nickel can feel a real kinship with, to cold and calculated in an instant. Her voice gains a new accent to it, and all at once a faint memory is called to mind of that one coin from the Inanimate Insanity auditions, Pound, and their British accent.

It’s not the only thing he remembers. But thinking that far back makes his head spin, and it hardly takes much effort to force his mind back to the present.

Pickle rears back as if he had been struck when Taco turns to him and declares that the two had never been friends with a cruel sneer. There’s a heartbroken expression on his face, as if the world is collapsing all around him. Taco says a few more things, calling him a naive idiot who was so easy to manipulate, and Pickle sinks to his knees. Knife rushes to his side, murmuring something in his ear, but it’s clear the damage has already been done.

Taco’s whole vibe instantly makes Nickel stiffen, his eyes narrowed. It reminds Nickel way too much of Balloon. And it makes him stop and wonder–if Taco could string along Pickle with a ditzy exterior and the barest offer of friendship, what was Balloon capable of doing? What had he already done? Nickel doesn’t want to look anything like Pickle is right now! That look of horror on his face as he sits, trembling, on the grass, an unseeing look in his eyes…

Yeah, Nickel never wants to get hurt like that! Nuh uh, no way! Oobly goobly wheezer beezers, that’d be awful! He knows Baseball would never string him along like that. As the man’s best friend, he knows him to be earnest and kind and a good friend. If Nickel sticks with him, he’ll never have to grapple with the paranoia of his friend turning on him and shattering his heart into a thousand pieces.

Maybe… maybe this is just part of the game, though. He didn’t play long enough to feel the pressure of having to win, even though a million is oodles and noodles of cash! He wonders if he could’ve gotten MePhone to give it to him in all nickels… Wait, no, besides the point! He also did play for long enough to not feel stung at his elimination, figuring he did a good enough job even though he definitely could have played better… Still, there was always next time.

But here’s Taco, all too happy to burn all bridges and to enter the game a liar and a cheat for the sake of this million. She bolts toward the suitcase supposedly containing the cash, a wild look in her eyes that makes Nickel whine and press himself against Baseball’s side. She looks more like a wild animal than a person, and the awkward scuffle she gets into with OJ just proves that. She claws at his glass like a wild animal, kicking at him with her knees and causing bits of his juice to spill over his rim. She bolts off as OJ futilely calls for her to come back, shoving Pickle as she runs. The man flinches so violently that Knife has to stop him from falling over.

Sure, it’s a lot of money, but it can’t be worth this, right? Nickel would never do that. He doesn’t think the thought would ever cross his mind, and if it did… Well, he adores Baseball, and the man doesn’t mind tolerating his clinginess when few of the other contestants do, and he’s the greatest friend Nickel’s ever had. Even if he came into the game with the same mindset as Taco, he’d lose that motivation quickly.

Not only is there the sudden sting of Taco’s shift in behavior, but there’s also some more chaos going on that he’s just barely aware of. MePhone seems to have lost control of… a lot of things, judging by the fight he ends up in with a new, super-duper advanced MePhone. Nickel quickly grows overwhelmed with everything happening, his head still spinning with Taco’s abrupt shift and betrayal, and he just presses himself into Baseball’s side all the tighter, his stomach tying itself into knots.

He screams as MePhone falls into the ravine, tumbling down alongside the other evil MePhone and a feral Bow. He’s the only one to. Everyone else just looks on with wide eyes or raises their hands to their mouths or looks away entirely. But it’s startling, the sight of their host, the one who accepted Nickel onto his show, who gave him a purpose, short circuit and explode. Worse yet, they take Bow with them, and Marshmallow, the one who had sent her flying in the first place, cringes but doesn’t look sorry.

“Cold,” Knife remarks, smirking at her. “I like it.” In response, her face balls up and she shoves him.

“Shut up!” she cries. “She was my friend! I-I didn’t want to… But…” She stares down at her hands, her expression numb.

“MePhone!” Paintbrush yelps as they move toward the edge of the cliff, overpowering the quiet, heated exchange between Marshmallow and Knife. Their eyes are wide and panicked, flicking side to side like they don’t know what to do.

“Oh, no!” Baseball says, letting out a hiss through grit teeth as he rolls back and forth on his heels. “How could this happen? Now we can’t…” There’s a dawning, heavy realization on his face, but Nickel can’t figure out his train of thought.

“And there’s no way to bring him back…” Marshmallow murmurs, rubbing at her arms. “That means there’s no way to bring us back.” Her expression is sick as she stares listlessly in front of her, and in an instant, Nickel gets what Baseball was so worried about.

“Maybe there is a way,” says the gruff voice of MePhone4S, piercing through the grim, foreboding silence pooling in the air.

From there, things move pretty fast. 4S gives up his body to allow MePhone to live on, which is pretty brave of him. MePhone says that the cash wasn’t in the briefcase that Taco had run into the horizon with, which Nickel is kinda put out by, and in sync, everyone turns to OJ and asks what he’ll end up using the cash for. Nickel has to admit he’s more than a little curious, himself.

He gives a big speech about making something that will help everyone, tries one of MePhone’s cookies, which are apparently awful, much to Nickel’s disappointment, and then Paper asks the question of “So where are we going to sleep tonight…?”

“Huh,” OJ says slowly, his face scrunched up. “Uh, MePhone, listen, can you make the hotel now with your whole, uh, creation thing? I think we’re all pretty tired of sleeping on the grass.”

“Ugh, I’m not good at making things that big,” MePhone grumbles in reply. “If you have a design in mind, though, I can figure something out, so long as you let me take some of your cash. For the costs.”

“What does a robot need all that cash for?” Nickel prompts, his face scrunched up as he tries to think.

“Uh, cookies, duh,” he haughtily retorts, arms crossed.

“Yeah, ‘cause yours taste horrible,” OJ scoffs, dusting off his lap. “Here, MePhone, I have some stuff in mind. Let’s talk business.” He grabs the man’s arm and drags him a good ways away from the rest of them, even though MePhone looks reluctant and more than a little irritated.

Despite the two’s distance, their voices still carry through the sparse clearing, especially because very few people are talking. Sure, Salt and Pepper seem happy to chatter to each other, but both Marshmallow and Pickle are silent, a different kind of grief reflected in their dark eyes. Still, it’s enough to make Paintbrush and Knife move toward their respective friends and wrap an arm around them, Paintbrush saying something quiet and reassuring while Knife elbows Pickle, mutters something, and then stares out onto the horizon.

The air is tense and awkward, and Nickel’s not quite sure how to break it in a way that won’t net nasty glares his way. He knows he should say something. Or… he wants to say something. There has to be the perfect combination of words that will diffuse the tension, call laughter to everyone’s lips, to ease the divisions that had been built during the game, to make everyone want to be his friend.

But if any of those words exist, they aren’t being called to mind, and he juts out his lip in a pout, leaning against Baseball. For someone who had no part to play in today’s action, he can’t help but be exhausted.

He doesn’t manage to fully doze off. If any more excitement happens, he wants to be awake for it, so he really doesn’t want to fall asleep! But he can’t help but wonder if it would be the good kind of excitement or the bad kind. The good kind of excitement would be… Oh, he knows! Another season of Inanimate Insanity, right here and now! That would mean Nickel would get another chance to have all kinds of fun! Schmoggly, his heart’s pumping just thinking about it!

The bad kind of excitement, though… He doesn’t know if he can handle that. Someone else shedding a mask to reveal someone as awful as Taco. Or worse, everyone revealing they were using the same strategy as Taco, lying and manipulating and hurting. And like always, he’d be the odd one out, stuck on the outskirts but never able to break through the middle of anything. And that would be worse, because everyone being like Taco would mean that he never had a chance of making friends with anyone.

He doesn’t want anyone else to end up being awful. There’s already Balloon, loud and vindictive and never trustworthy, and even if he apologizes Nickel will never let his guard down around him. And obviously there’s Taco, putting on a silly, brainless front to make everyone dismiss her as anyone, only to shed her mask and reveal daggers, just waiting to be drawn and hurt whoever gets too close. This time, that person ended up being Pickle. But who’s to say what’ll end up happening next time?

All of the suspicion and paranoia and mind games… Nickel really is rotten at all of it. He doesn’t have that kind of foresight, and no walls around his heart. He wants everyone in the world to be his friend–that sounds amazing! But he shouldn’t be friends with everyone. Some of them can be real meanie beanies, like Taco or Balloon! And he has no defense if he or one of his friends ends up hurt. Jeez, all of this is real scary.

After an hour… or maybe an hour and a half… Either way, a lot of time passes by the time MePhone and OJ reach an agreement. MePhone moves a bit further away and makes a building! A really big, mutli-story, OJ-shaped building! Just with a press of a button and a bit of focus from MePhone!

“And there we are,” MePhone declares with a satisfied smirk, wiping his hands together like he constructed the hotel personally instead of just creating it. “Fully furnished and everything.”

“Fully furnished?” OJ echoes, expression dubious as he raises a brow.

“W-Well, the rooms all have beds!” MePhone cries, looking flustered. “Shut up! You don’t know how hard I had to work! Now for my reward…” He creates a cookie right into his outstretched hand and bites into it with a satisfied expression. He catches OJ staring at him and says, sending crumbs flying into the other man’s face “What? Why’re you looking at me like that? Do you want some or something?” He tears off a chunk of the cookie and offers it to OJ, one brow raised.

“I’m probably going to regret this, but sure,” OJ grumbles, leaning forward and taking the offered chunk. He chews on it with a dubious expression for a few seconds before his expression melts to something disbelieving. “Wh- This is good!” he sputters. “Where was this with the cookie you made me?!”

“Well, I baked that cookie, remember?” MePhone stresses. “With, like, a recipe and all. And I’m really not good at baking. Way too many rules and attention to detail and boring stuff like that. That cookie I gave you was the best one of the batch.”

“I can’t believe this,” OJ cries. “If you can just create cookies that are actually edible, why didn’t you just do that for me?!”

“Makes it less special,” he says, tapping a finger to his temple. “And besides, you just won the best reality show ever! You have a hotel for you and all of your friends!”

“Friends and acquaintances,” OJ corrects, eying Salt warily. She has been gradually drifting toward him the entire conversation.

“Semantics,” MePhone says dismissively. “Anyway, enjoy your hotel, and enjoy the check that will be mailed in 3-5 business days.” OJ begins to groan again, but MePhone raises a finger. “Hey, I’m not done! I’m going to be away for a while. I have to… think about things.” His expression goes far away for a moment before he shakes his head to refocus. “So that means be careful, got that? Good. See you, then!”

“Wait, I had a question about-” Paintbrush begins, raising a hand, but before they can finish, he’s already pressing a button on his screen and teleporting away. “Every time!” they hiss, pressing a hand to their forehead.

OJ mutters something under his breath, turned away from the majority of the group, before quickly turning back to the rest of them with his hands clasped and his smile strained. “Alright!” he declares. “Well, you all heard him. Be careful and all. But other than that, I think we’re all good to head to the hotel, pick rooms…” As the crowd begins to shuffle to the nearby building, OJ jabs a finger at Balloon, stopping him in his tracks. “Except you.”

“Wh-What?” he stammers, his eyes narrowed and arms awkwardly half-raised.

“Yeah, no, you’re definitely banned,” he declares, spreading his hands in a “what can you do?” motion. “We don’t need anyone else going around trying to manipulate people.”

“Wait, I was just-” Balloon begins, his eyes wide as he takes a step forward, only to freeze again when OJ raises his arm.

“Save it,” he says dryly. “We don’t need another Taco, alright?” Pickle flinches at that, but everyone else mumbles in agreement. Emboldened by all of it, Nickel can’t help but stick his tongue out at Balloon.

For a second, he looks tempted to argue, but instead he just grits his teeth, his hands balled into fists at his side. “Fine,” he snaps, turning away from them. “I guess I’ll just… figure something else out!” He throws his hands into the air as he stalks away.

“Good riddance,” Knife says with a smirk, saying the quiet part out loud. It’s not like Nickel disagrees, though, after how paranoid all of that Taco business got him.

From there, they make their way into the hotel and pick their rooms. All of it is so cozy! Well… the rooms don’t have windows, so they kinda feel like prison cells. Balloon would deserve to be stuck in a prison cell, but he’s also banned from the hotel, him and Taco both. Good riddance, Nickel thinks, even if the idea of them skulking around makes him nervous.

The hotel has four whole floors, wow, and half of them have over a dozen rooms, so it’s not like they need to share. That’s a good thing, probably, but Nickel can’t help but be a bit disappointed by it… Idiotic Island wasn’t the best, but he did like how it was just a big sleepover for all of them! Once Baseball was asleep, he slept like a rock, so it meant Nickel could climb on top of him and feel on top of the world! Well, he can do that while Baseball’s awake, too, even if the other man isn’t as happy about it.

All this to say, Nickel doesn’t hate his room, but… it’s a little bit lonely. After the whirlwind of today, the drama and betrayal, the room feels just a little too big, and definitely too empty, and his attempt to push the two beds together to have one big bed… could have gone better. He’s really not that strong. Knife and Baseball would be more capable of moving the bedframe around. All Nickel managed to do was nearly knock the mattress on the floor.

The walls feel vast and yet too tight. Sometimes he feels like he’s in a massive room and he’s just… a speck of dust, or something poetic like that. Most of the time, though, he feels like the walls are moving in closer… and closer… and he’s just gonna be crushed! The walls would have to be really close to crush him, considering he’s a coin and super thin already. Ugh, that thought just makes him all the more rattled as he hovers in the doorway with a whine. If the walls do start moving, he wants to be prepared and all.

Either way, he feels anxious in this room. Not really conducive to the best night’s rest, in his mind… But good news for him, he knows exactly where Baseball is staying, and he knows the man well enough to know that there’s no way he’d be adverse to a sleepover! Um. Probably. Nickel can’t stay here, though, he’s way too rattled. Please let Baseball be awake, or at least not asleep enough to be mad at Nickel when he barges in…

Sneaking down the hallway kinda makes him feel like he’s in a stealth movie! All of the lights are on, because it is a hotel and people are coming and going from the hallway often enough to make the fluorescents painting everything in sickly yellow–no, not yellow, orange–nothing less than a staple of the hotel.

Luckily for him, Baseball forgets to lock things! Like his door! Nickel doesn’t even have to watch a quick tutorial on how to pick a lock, pretty lucky. He throws open the door, grinning widely, only to catch sight of Baseball, who was successful in pushing the two beds together. Sigh, he really should show Nickel his ways. He’s trying to get himself comfortable under the bed’s comforters (heh, try saying that five times fast) but falters when he catches sight of Nickel.

“Wow, your room is so big,” Nickel says enviously before he can say anything, happily inviting himself in. He jumps up and down on the bed a few times, prompting Baseball to groan as he sits up.

“We have the same room,” he points out. “And what are you doing here? I’m trying to sleep.”

“Oh, yeah, me too!” Nickel readily agrees with a grin. “I was just having a hard time getting to sleep, and thought maybe you were having a hard time too…?” He trails off as he looks at Baseball, who squints at him.

“I was working on it,” he says, shrugging. “The beds on their own are a little small for me, so I pushed them together.”

“Mega bed!” Nickel says with a squeal, jumping up and down. The mattresses aren’t all that bouncy, feeling more like giant pillows rather than anything really springy, but it’s fun anyway. Baseball’s eyes follow him up and down, his expression deadpan. “Y’know, I was trying to do something similar, but I’m not as strong as you are. But I knew it would be a good idea! Glad you had the vision to see my idea through.”

“Uh huh,” he says tiredly. Aw, usually Baseball would at least try to argue, which is always oodles and noodles of fun! He must be really tired! Nickel can emphasize… but he’s not sleeping alone. His room is way too scary for that.

“So, uh, I dunno if I’m in the mood to sleep alone tonight, after everything,” he begins, cutting to the chase. “And we’ve never had a real sleepover, with a roof and blankets and everything. So I thought, maybe, to, uh, cement our friendship, we have the best sleepover ever! Uh… emphasis on the sleep. I’m tired too.” He smiles hopefully at Baseball, whose expression briefly does somersaults.

“We’re friends already, with or without the sleepover,” Baseball points out, one brow raised.

“Right! And of course, y’know, I did know that,” Nickel continues, not hiding his relief at the overt confirmation. It feels… nice, to be told that. To know that he’ll always have Baseball at his side, no matter what the future holds. “I just thought what better way to confirm it than-”

“Get under the covers,” he says flatly.

“Roger!” he says brightly, bounding to Baseball’s side and wiggling under the blankets as he shoots the man a conspiratorial grin.

He expects Baseball to say something else, but instead the man just nods sagely, shifting a little bit until he gets comfortable and his eyes flutter closed. Nickel can’t help but hold his breath, feeling kind of nervous. And he knows there’s zero reason to feel that way, he’s just staying the night with his friend, but… He remembers Taco’s cruelty, Pickle’s heartbreak. So maybe his too-empty room wasn’t the only thing keeping him up.

“Hey, Baseball?” Nickel whispers, curled into the man.

“Go to sleep, Nickel,” he tiredly replies.

“You’re never gonna betray me like Taco betrayed Pickle, right?” he stubbornly asks, ignoring Baseball’s words entirely. “Because… you’re the only friend I have. I dunno what I’d do if you suddenly got a British accent and started saying all those mean things to me.” He sniffles, his eyes watering as he presses himself against Baseball.

The other man is silent for a moment, the only indication that he heard Nickel being the way he shifts in place and his eyes, strange in the dark, lightless room, stare at Nickel. “I…” he begins, his voice loud in the near-silent room. “C’mon, Nickel, what kind of question is that?” he says after a moment. “We’re best friends. I’d never do that to you, and you’d never do that to me.”

“Y-Yeah,” he agrees, a relief he didn’t know he needed to feel settling in his chest at the confirmation from the other man. “I don’t have a mean bone in my body.”

“Or a British one,” Baseball adds with a huff of laughter. Nickel’s startled into laughing, and if Baseball, whose voice had been a few degrees south of a whisper, had felt loud, Nickel’s laughter is as sudden and grating as change clattering against the floor. But Baseball doesn’t seem to mind, because he continues between snickers. “I mean, c’mon, I can’t do a British accent! Can you?”

“Uh,” he says, taking that as a challenge. “Aw, schmogily, that’s a hard one! What do British people even say? Um…” He balls his face up, brow furrowing as he thinks. “Bloody hell…?” he tries, hesitantly opening one eye to see Baseball’s reaction.

The other man just laughs again as he shifts some of his weight, leaning tighter into Nickel. “Yeah, there’s no way you could be like Taco,” he says, his voice breathy and edged with exhaustion. “And I’m not anything like her, either. We’re friends, so we should trust each other, especially if we’re both sticking around. So…” He cuts himself off with a yawn before continuing. “Don’t worry, Nickel, I’ll still be… here for you…”

The last few words are mumbled as his eyes drift closed. Nickel finds himself holding his breath, but there’s nothing else. Just the lingering imprint of those words as they hang in the world, faint sensations of warmth delicately ghosting across his skin.

To Nickel, the idea of being left alone terrifies him more than anything in the world. The idea of being surrounded by people but all of them are strangers, or even worse, all of them hate him. He knows it isn’t like that on Inanimate Insanity–sure, some people aren’t fond of his streams of nonsense, and things are definitely going to be awkward around Pickle, whose smile had once been fond as he said that Nickel’s gibberish reminded him of Taco. Now, it’s… a touchy subject.

It isn’t like that, not here. He has friends, or maybe just the one friend, and that’s something he’s infinitely grateful for. And all he wants is reassurance that he’s not going to lose that. He doesn’t want the sting of betrayal, the shock of realizing he was just a pawn, the suffocating loneliness of losing what he had, the infuriating bite of the pity of others. The game is fun, but when people get too swept up in it, when he fears getting hurt from it, maybe it’s better to distance himself, treat it all like something different entirely.

Nickel thinks he’ll be whatever anyone wants him to be, so long as it means he doesn’t have to be alone by the end of it.

— — —

Fan didn’t really know what he was expecting, to be fair. If he couldn’t get onto Inanimate Insanity, a smaller, more underground show (but no less amazing for it!), he’s not sure why he had been so confident he could get onto a really big show, with a fanbase bigger than him and the dozen subscribers to his blog.

But when BFDIA starts up, he doesn’t make the cut. The viewers are the ones who get to vote on who ends up on the show. Which, as a viewer himself, he’s obviously big on. He loves voting! He loves weighing the options of which characters are up for elimination and deciding who deserves it more. He loves looking at which competitors might get an arc, or would be affected by a character getting eliminated, and the general interpersonality of it all. He… doesn’t have a lot of friends, so maybe it makes sense that he latches onto people that do. Ugh, he admires the competitors on II so much…

Anyway, he’s not exactly surprised that he was turned down, because he didn’t have enough time to nail his audition in a way that would make viewers want to vote for him, from the perspective of a viewer himself. He sold himself as a fan of reality shows, mentioning Inanimate Insanity to maybe make MePhone grateful for the advertising. If he had enough time, he would have built himself up as being a viewer stand-in, as being just like them, but as things were, he just barely had enough time to get across that he was a fan.

Fan the fan. Memorable, right? Not enough to sway the viewers over, though. Agh, BFDIA looks so fun, too! At least from what he’s seen in real life and from the recordings of the spottily archived episodes. It’s a shame auditions went sideways for him. He supposes it’s a theme with him by now…

The LOL is cramped, painfully so. He supposes he’s grateful that with TV swiping the key, there aren’t even more people being crammed in there, heh. There aren't a lot of things to do in there, but he has his ways of keeping himself occupied. Like his blog! A lot of people started paying attention to Inanimate Insanity after the finale aired, so he’s been busy running a pretty tight ship on his blog, because he’s pretty sure MePhone doesn’t know how public relations work.

It’s a lot of fun talking about II. But hidden away from the world, crammed into a small, flying box, it’s hard for him to visualize the idea of competing. BFDI definitely feels within his grasp–he’s not spending all of this time stuck in the Locker of Losers for nothing, he’ll say that much–in comparison. He feels like he can compete there. Maybe he wouldn’t make it far, but he’d manage something.

Inanimate Insanity is… hm. Obviously it’s still his favorite show. BFDI is its own sort of investing, but II will always have his heart. It’s just that he struggles to imagine himself being an actual competitor on the show these days. If he couldn’t even be chosen by the viewers to even get the chance to compete on a show, how far would he get in II? He doesn’t want to have his heart broken the moment he gets to live his dreams.

So for now, he’s taking things one day at a time. He would rather prioritize making it out of here, and then competing on BFDI, and maybe, if he does well, he can make the plunge into II. If he feels confident enough. Maybe. Season one of the show is over, though, and he doesn’t have any chance of making it onto the rumored season two, since he’s all cramped in here.

But not competing has never stopped him before! He’s still armed with a laptop, a shaky internet connection, and the ability to watch II as often as he wants. Just because he’s not a part of the show doesn’t mean his passion fizzles and dies outright. He has pages and pages of blog posts, all written during his time here, to prove that.

Humming, he grabs Remote and points her toward TV, pressing a combination of buttons he knows by heart to find the next episode that had been on his II rewatch docket. Of course, this prompts a round of groans from everyone in the LOL, like it always does. Of course, he tries to talk over the groans, like he always does, and he fails, like he always does.

He’s not exactly the most liked in the LOL. Previous competitors already have their cliques, and most people have some kind of friend group figured out. He knows Cake, Clock, and Eggy are at the very least friends because they’re all Loser fans, and they sometimes commandeer TV from him to watch performances and interviews and fancams and a pirated version of Loser Cake: The Movie that made TV very nervous about getting viruses.

But Fan’s on his own. Not that he isn’t used to that, by now. He has plenty of online friends to fill in the gaps, and Lightning is nice enough to charge Fan’s laptop with an errant zap whenever Fan begs hard enough. Thinking of it like that, he supposes that makes him the closest thing to a friend. If Lightning didn’t care about Fan, he wouldn’t indulge him and keep his laptop charged. Or does he do that despite not caring about Fan, rather than because of caring for him?

It’s times like these where he really wishes all of the people he’s crammed in this small, flying box with had gotten a chance to compete properly, for just an episode or two. He does his best analysis when he has a base to work off of. A recorded base that he can rewind again and again as he thinks over all of the possibilities. 

That’s how he understands people like Match and Teardrop and Donut. The early BFDIA episodes were actually archived–the new ones, not so much, much to his despair–and between those and the first season, he’s fully typed out comprehensive analyses of all of the people who have competed, including some of his fellow LOLers. He doesn’t go around bragging about that, because he’s learnt from experience that people find that “weird” or “invasive” or something like that. But it’s nice to have.

People… don’t make sense sometimes. Or maybe they do make sense, and he’s the odd one out. But with this, rigorously scouring through frame after frame to understand every nuance, every thought, everything that makes people twitch, he can make them make sense. His keyboard is his sanctuary, helping him vocalize every passing thought, every dawning realization. The world makes as little sense as people do, but with a few episodes, a web page buried under hyperlinks and images, and just a little bit of thought, he can make it.

Which works well for people who have competed before, and people who are competing right now, even. But for people like him, who failed their audition before they had a chance to show what they could do, what kind of player they are, how they interact with others, and all of the things that are vital to him being able to understand them, they’re practically blank slates in his mind. He doesn’t know a thing about them, how could he? So he eyes all of them warily in the same way they stare at him with flat, annoyed expressions. It just makes sense in his mind.

Sure, if he wanted to know about them, he could try talking to them. But that’s scary, and could backfire on him in an instant. He’d rather watch, watch, and keep watching, because in his mind that’s the only real way to learn. And watching how people behave in a competition setting tells him everything he needs to know about them. Not being stuck here in this cramped box, where everyone’s tempers are short and where it’s grown increasingly common for people to use TV to play nature videos to imagine the feeling of the grass or the sun.

But right now he’s the one with Remote, so he’s going to use TV to watch Inanimate Insanity, which he does… every few days, give or take. He won’t be satisfied until he has every single episode memorized and he’s able to finalize all of his character analyses with examples from each episode they’re in. He’s having a lot of trouble pinning down Taco, given the events of the finale, and there’s a bunch of other characters he can’t quite figure out either. So yes, Match, it is necessary to watch the same episodes over and over, thank you very much.

Given how things have gone, it’s not like his opinions of his fellow LOLers can go any lower. Once the competition starts and they all get a chance to compete properly, then he’ll be able to understand all of them. Then, maybe… he can be their friend?

For now, Fan just mutters “Greetings and salutations” under his breath, not realizing that he’s further from his dream than ever.

Chapter Text

Nickel doesn’t need Inanimate Insanity. He doesn’t.

After all, here he is on a much more popular, much more professional reality show. He got some of the most votes to join the season. He’s doing great here. 

…Sure, no one on his team seems to like him that much, or each other, for that matter. There’s Coiny, smug and clueless, and there’s Pin, bossy and limbless (well, these days she doesn’t even have a face, which doesn’t help things), and there’s Needle, quiet and resentful, and there’s Bomby, jumpy and obnoxious. He’s not even thinking about the handful of teammates that have been eliminated. Their team gets by more on luck than anything these days, or so it feels like.

BFDI just… doesn’t make a lot of sense, at least in his mind. Things just happen without any rhyme or reason to them. People get swept up in their fervor for a prize that sucks. He doesn’t get how someone can just lose literally every part of their body and still be considered “alive” or “competing”. In his mind, Pin should be put out of her misery and eliminated already, but the viewers don’t seem to agree, so whatever. Votes from pity aren’t exactly long lasting, so he’s sure his position in the game is just fine.

It’s hard to get along with most of the competitors. He’s already said his piece about his teammates, but he’s not too big on any of the people on other teams, either. And he’s not out here trying to make himself likable. He’s trying to win. So his isolation doesn’t bother him, really. It’s just… complicated, he supposes.

Despite what he said about Bomby earlier, he has found himself getting along well enough with the man. Out of all the options, he’s the… least bad of all of them. He has to pass the time between challenges somehow.

It’s during that time that he finds himself talking to Bomby with no small amount of irritation about his tendency to let himself get ordered around by Fries.

“C’mon, Bomby, you have to learn how to stick up for yourself!” Nickel lectures in exasperation. “Fries is just going to keep pushing you around if you let yourself be such a big target!”

“I know, I know,” Bomby grumbles with a wave of the hand, his brow furrowed as he huffs out a sigh. “He’s just so pushy. You try to get him to take no for an answer.”

“I’m not the one who keeps helping someone who isn’t even on our team,” Nickel flatly retorts, rolling his eyes. “For someone so loyal to WOAH Bunch, you sure seem determined to sabotage us.”

Bomby gasps as he straightens, an offended look in his eyes. “That’s not fair!” he cries, crossing his arms over his chest as he puffs out his cheeks in indignation. “I love the Bunch.”

“Looks like you love letting yourself get pushed around by Fries, too,” Nickel mutters. In response, Bomby turns to him and pushes him onto the grass, and all he can manage is letting out a strangled yelp as he lands flat on his back. “What, did I hit too close to home?” he wryly prompts as he limply kicks his legs in the air.

“You’re a jerk,” he sniffs as he raises his chin. “If you’re so worried about it, help me out the next time Fries decides to pick on me.”

“But it’s so funny to watch you squirm,” Nickel says slyly, snickering at Bomby’s groan.

He doesn’t really care if Bomby likes him or not. He doesn’t care if anyone likes him or not, for the record. But seeing the man’s fond smile and put-on frustration, traded out easily as they trade jabs and teasing back and forth, makes him grow comfortable in this dynamic. Bomby can take things as easily as he gives them… so long as the person in question isn’t Fries, anyway.

Time passes, and things change in a whirlwind of events and challenges. For one thing, he’s kicked out of WOAH Bunch. He knew the team’s time was limited after Bomby was eliminated, because for better or worse he was one of the better people on the team in Nickel’s mind.

He wasn’t expecting he’d get along with the other man so well, but he supposes his options have always been kind of limited. People aren’t too big on cross-team friendships, and even the teammates he does have are annoying or aren’t exactly partial to the idea of Nickel trying to befriend them for his own benefit.

Being close with Bomby hasn’t benefitted him yet, but he’s sure it will. Eventually. He doesn’t do anything if he doesn’t think it’ll affect his chances in the game. He’s not friends with Bomby, and he certainly doesn’t care about him. He just views the other man as a stepping stone. A stepping zone who also coincidentally makes for good conversation. He doesn’t need to justify himself to anyone, okay?! Jeez…

Either way, he focuses on the competition, determined and single minded. It’s not that he wants the prize, which is crap at best. Rather, he wants the glory that comes with winning. Proof that he’s worth something. And to prove that he’s focused on the competition, Cake at Stake is currently happening. He was safe after the last challenge, so he’s obviously not worried, but seeing who’s eliminated gives him a good chance to size up his remaining competition.

The instant Ice Cube’s eliminated, Pencil and Ruby are already dead set on replacing her, even though Book seems a little bit deflated by her friend’s elimination. After getting their swap token fixed, which is decidedly unfair, they begin to scan the remaining competitors for potential new teammates to add to their alliance. Their alliance, which is girls-only other than that thing with Gelatin and Firey that one time. To Nickel, their options seem limited.

“Oh, boy, I wonder who’s going to end up on your team, it’s a mystery,” Nickel says with a scoff, rolling his eyes.

“Like we were considering you,” Pencil says with a scoff, crossing her arms.

“Like I meet your criteria anyway,” he instantly retorts, lips quirked in a grin. By criteria, he means girls, preferably hot ones, but judging from the flush of Pencil’s cheeks she doesn’t need him to clarify.

“You’re just jealous,” she decides. “And annoying. I’d rather have…” She falls silent for a beat. “That thing with the nickname,” she declares, raising the swap token in the air and dragging Needle to her like a magnet.

“Don’t imply me Needy,” the woman says firmly, slapping Pencil before her expression eases to something more friendly, something curious. “But sure.”

Jeez, she could at least sound less enthusiastic about it… But that also means WOAH Bunch loses a member when they really can’t afford to. Now it’s just him, Bomby, and Coiny. Oh, Pin’s still competing too, he supposes, as much as anyone can be considered “competing” with her… in the state she’s in. Can she just be eliminated already?

He’s already made how he feels about Bomby clear. He’s… useful, but definitely naive. As for Coiny, Nickel is more than mixed. He has a sneaking suspicion that most people just view him as some kind of knockoff, not good enough to warrant distinction from Coiny. Not good enough to be remembered, to be truly seen as he makes his worth known. Annoying. And although Coiny has done very little to Nickel, good or bad, that resentment transfers over to him, too. All he wants is to be unique, memorable. He needs to be more than just another damn coin.

So that’s his remaining team. Dead weight in the form of Pin, someone casting a harsh shadow Nickel struggles to escape from in the form of Coiny, and one of the few bearable people around in the form of Bomby. Needle, objectively useful in terms of speed and strength, definitely hurts to lose. Even when her required time on Freesmart ends, Nickel has an inkling that she’s going to stick around. Damn Pencil and her magnetic charisma.

After the whole thing with the bugs, Pin of all people ends up winning the prize, and she gets everything back. Well, not everything… She gets her size, her face, and a mech suit to make up for the lack of limbs. “Oh, wait, they got my face on the wrong side!” she gasps… while facing away from all of them.

“I guess a face isn’t much good without a brain,” Nickel instinctively snarks, and she shoots him a dirty look as Bomby turns her around to face all of them. Please. That mech suit may be scary, but she’s only getting power through a cable. The moment she needs to go anywhere further than a few feet away, she’s dead. Is that a bad thing to think about his teammate? Maybe. But the teams will come to an end anyway, won’t they? No point in getting attached.

The next challenge has them working in duos, and obviously his and Bomby’s first instincts are to turn to each other, but then Nickel has an idea. “Wait,” he calls. “Maybe we shouldn’t team. If we end up losing, one of us will definitely be booted from the show. But if we’re on another team and end up losing, then it’s just a fifty-fifty shot, and between us and who’s left?” He eyes Fries and TB before smiling conspiratorially. “I think we’ll be fine.”

“Oh. Uh, that makes sense, I guess…” Bomby says awkwardly, fidgeting with his hands. He does look disappointed though. “It just would have been nice to get to team with you, just the two of us.”

“C’mon, don’t get too caught up in it,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes. “We’ll have plenty of chances for that. And I like having options. I don’t want to get boxed into one team forever. So, between our options…” His eyes flit between Fries and TB, before a devious smile crosses his face. “I call dibs on TB. Good luck, Bomby!” He scrambles off as Bomby realizes what he did and shrieks after him, looking indignant.

He stops in front of TB and eyes him, but the man’s face is flat and disinterested. “What do you want?” he sighs out, looking rather put off by having to do a duos challenge without Golf Ball. Talk about codependent.

“Well, who’s least annoying? Me, Fries, or Bomby?” he prompts, raising a brow as he offers him a lazy grin.

“...Fine, I get your point,” Tennis Ball huffs with a roll of his eyes, although Nickel thinks he should be offended on Bomby’s account.

The challenge doesn’t actually go that bad. TB tackles the first island without problem, with his nerd mind, and Nickel gets pressured into doing the second island, because apparently TB is just too good to eat an island and not complain the whole time. Apparently, it’s beneath him. He should lower those standards of his, for his own sake, really. And that bit about having a mineral allergy is so obviously a lie that it makes Nickel want to put his fist through his face. Uh, metaphorically.

It takes them so damn long to eat the stupid island that Evil Leafy ends up hunting them down as a result. If Tennis Ball would just suck it up, they’d be done already. But for a man who likes to innovate, he sure likes to make his life harder.

Bomby and Fries, and maybe the former took Nickel deciding not to team with him a little too personally, kill both Tennis Ball and Nickel, and it’s annoying. It just puts their life in all the more danger. And then they end up falling off the island, and Nickel expects them both to die and to be condemned to elimination right then and there, but instead, they…

…bounce. Right. It’s strange, but he had it in his mind for some reason that if he had a ball-shaped companion at his side, he wouldn’t be good at bouncing at all. But that’s obviously not true, because they end up on the same island they had been knocked off of, and although Nickel is dizzy, he’s more than a little relieved, too. Looks like they aren’t out of this just yet.

“Good going,” he says idly as he shakes off the adrenaline from being flung through the air. “Looks like more than a few parts of you are hollow.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” he sputters, tone arch as he bristles in defense.

“Nothing,” he says, drawing out the word as he makes his way along. On Teardrop’s island now, he’s quick to figure out that she wants them to shut up the annoying people hassling her family, so without much fanfare, he makes his way to the bomb chattering away, annoying and unrepentant. He’s a lot more obnoxious than Bomby, that’s for sure.

“What are you going to do?” Tennis Ball calls warily as he trails behind Nickel. For as hesitant as he is, he still remains on Nickel’s heels. Does he just come to anyone who calls? He lacks a spine to the point where Nickel has no patience for it.

“Just watch,” he irritatedly returns, having no time for Tennis Ball’s wheedling nor his lack of faith. Tapping the bomb on the shoulder, he waits until he turns around. “Wow,” he says, drawing out the word for several seconds. “What an interesting conversation that everyone wants to hear.”

“Isn’t it?” they return, grinning.

“Sure,” he says flatly. “In fact, I think I saw someone else who really wanted to hear everything you’re saying right over…” He leads them to the edge of the island before shoving them off with a huff, deciding to ignore the distant explosion he hears a few seconds later. “...there.” he concludes with a smirk. He walks back just in time to see Teardrop’s cousin shoot them a thumbs up and give them angel wings to the next island.

Their final challenge is to sing Puffball the perfect bedtime lullaby, and Nickel, upon hearing this, immediately prompts “So if it makes you fall asleep, does that mean we’re guaranteed to make it up?”

“I don’t see why not,” says Puffball, who doesn’t know what to come.

Smirking, Nickel immediately turns to Tennis Ball. “Alright, start reciting the periodic table or some other nerd thing, will you? Prattle on for long enough and she’ll definitely fall asleep. Anyone would.”

Tennis Ball glares at Nickel but obligingly agrees, although he tries to put the words to a strained tune that sounds awful. Of course, Puffball instantly falls asleep, like Nickel knew she would, because no one can stand hearing TB’s nerd shit for long, and they end up winning the challenge.

Not that he’d admit it to anyone, but Nickel feels strange around Tennis Ball. It’s not like a crush or anything (god, could you imagine?) but it’s a strange, wordless feeling that rolls around in his gut like… well, a tennis ball, for lack of a better descriptor. He feels drawn to him, magnetic and sharp, and the ball part of his name resonates strangely in the back of his mind.

Every time Nickel looks at him, he expects to see someone else standing in his place. He doesn’t even know why he expects that. It’s something entirely subconscious, as if it were built into him. But it makes him drawn to Tennis Ball, oddly set on being the man’s friend despite the fact that he has a laundry list of things he finds infuriating about him.

Somehow, it just makes him hate Tennis Ball all the more. Funny how that works out.

He mulls over that until the next challenge. Ruby is eliminated, they have to split into teams of three, and Nickel walks over to WOAH Bunch without a second thought only to see three pairs of eyes staring back at him.

“Guess you don’t know how to count,” Pin jeers at him as he makes his way to Fries and Tennis Ball, and he’s so flustered he can’t even come up with a response to that. Jeez, Pin is just the worst.

Ending up on a team with Pin and Book is… strange, especially when Pin seems more preoccupied with picking fights with Book instead of doing anything useful. One of WOAH Bunch’s main traits these days is that they hate Freesmart, a hatred Freesmart gladly returns. Nickel… doesn’t really get it, because Pin and Coiny are the ones most focused on it. He misses Bomby, he decides, and hopes they can compete together soon.

He doesn’t feel like anything he does during the challenge has any real impact. For one thing, they lose, but not until they end up shrinking down to the subatomic level in pursuit of fitting in some birdhouse. (“This was stupid,” he had dryly declared at some point after the fighting had died down, and no one could do anything to refute him.)

For another thing, Pin doesn’t seem to like him. Which is fine, he’s not too big on her, either. But he’d like to be at least cordial with one of his teammates, if that’s an option. He, um, is still a WOAH Buncher, right…? He just wasn’t included in the teams they thought they were forming because it was three to a team. But Pin doesn’t like him, and she has the most say on the team along with Coiny, and so he can’t help but be nervous about the potential longevity of the team he’s been on the longest. And no, he’s not going back to Team No-Name, because Tennis Ball’s an asshole.

For yet another thing, Book barely even realizes he exists. That’s how he views it, anyway. For two people on two rival teams, he just doesn’t care about Freesmart. The level of cattiness to it, turned on their own teammates instead of just other competitors, is daunting. He could navigate it, if he wanted to. But he thinks he prefers the simplicity of WOAH Bunch, even if it’s boring. Even if he has a creeping suspicion his time on the team is coming to an end. He’s going to ignore that for now, because he knows if he’s kicked from the Bunch, he’ll still have Bomby with him.

Nickel doesn’t like to be willfully ignorant, for the record. He prefers to think of himself as a realist, and that means considering all possibilities, good or bad. But just this once, he’ll ignore what’s staring him dead on, because it’s easier that way.

They float at the atomic… or, maybe subatomic level for something like a few months. Kinda hard to count. He’s bored, painfully so, and his sarcastic barbs grow all the more cutting with his boredom. It definitely doesn’t make him all that popular, but when has he ever been that?

Eventually, though, Cake at Stake happens and they all die. Maybe in another life, it would bother a Nickel who wasn’t used to it, but he’s died nearly a dozen times by now. Even if the idea of death is still horribly disturbing to his mind, he can’t let himself be slowed down by it for long. Otherwise, he’ll fall behind. Because honestly, when has sense ever been a factor in this game?

There’s a few benefits to dying and coming back, like not being stuck at a microscopic scale forever, but there’s also one he finds much more pertinent to him, such as…

“Heh, look at that, the ugly hole’s gone,” he says smugly as he pokes and prods at his face. He can’t help but turn toward Fries, a challenging grin on his face. “Do you want to keep trying to learn your shapes? What do you think you’ll do next, a triangle?” His voice drips with mocking blitheness as he glares at Fries, who doesn’t even react to his teasing.

Instead, he walks forward, and with a crack of his knuckles, punches another hole between Nickel’s eyes. “There you go,” he says boredly as he stalks away without even another glance.

Nickel fumbles around on his face, groaning as he traces the outline of a triangle on his face. “I was joking, you jerk!” he snaps at Fries’ retreating form, but he doesn’t even give any sort of acknowledgement that he heard Nickel. The lack of attention makes him bristle, but the eyes on him, the wrong type of attention, makes him flush red as he glowers down at his feet. He thinks being laughed at is worse than people ignoring him entirely.

At this point, he should know better than to antagonize Fries. The man is the perfect combination of spiteful and nonchalant. It makes it hard for someone to ever feel like they’ve won. But he always pokes and prods at people. It’s practically his thing at this point. And he wants to be able to come out on top against the man at some point, just to prove to Bomby that it isn’t that hard. But even if he does manage it, would Fries have anything to say that isn’t a flat whatever?

It’s fine. Nickel doesn’t have a reason for why Fries’ flat disinterest gets under his skin so much, so he shouldn’t be so worried about it. It’s just something irrational. It’s not like he wants to get to Fries so he’ll stop treating Bomby like a doormat or something dumb like that…

Bomby’s eliminated, and he’s… annoyed. He’s not sentimental enough to admit that he’s sad, and he knew it had to happen eventually. That’s just how the game is. And he’s not brainless, and he’s not naive, and he knows Bomby wasn’t ever going to win. So that means watching as he’s eliminated. Watching as… his only friend is eliminated.

Ugh, where’d that come from? The word friend has way too much weight to it, enough to make him wrinkle his nose in distaste. Caring about someone enough to think of them as a friend… It makes his heart jackhammer in his chest, kicking and bucking in a panic like a spooked horse. No, not spooked, he’s not scared… He just feels like a sap caring about someone when he knows what it opens him up to. Befriending someone in a game like this is a fool’s errand, because everyone will choose to save their own skin rather than thinking of other people. If given a knife, they’ll drive it into others before even being told what to do with it. Nickel’s not any better, but at least he admits it.

He and Bomby aren’t friends. They’re teammates, acquaintances, BFDIA competitors. He’s someone to while away the hours with, but Nickel isn’t sad to see him go, because it means he’s one step closer to winning. And even if he doesn’t get anything worth a damn, at least it’s proof that he’s worth something, that he’s someone substantial.

It’s just… unfair? Unfair, that’s it. What the hell did Bomby do to warrant getting voted off, and what the hell did Tennis Ball do to warrant staying? Tennis Ball is a whiny know-it-all, and Bomby is… probably one of the best people here, to be honest. That doesn’t mean much, obviously, considering how low the bar is, but… maybe it still means something.

Still, Bomby turns to the three of them, him and Pin and Coiny with a soft smile on his face, arms outstretched, as he says “I’ll miss WOAH Bunch–minus Needle–” He eyes her with a distrusting glare, and she just rolls her eyes. “–on the way out.”

“Oh, uh, okay. See you, I guess.” both Coiny and Pin say in unison, looking kind of disconcerted by Bomby’s words, and Nickel wants to scream. They don’t care about him in the slightest. They don’t deserve his attention.

But obviously he isn’t going to come out and say that, and it’s not like he cares anyway, really. Bomby can do whatever he wants, even if it means sucking up to assholes. So instead, he just swallows, shrugs, and offers Bomby a vague approximation of a shrug, his smirk wry. “Hope you don’t die from boredom out there.” Bomby shoves him, but he’s still smiling. Nickel doesn’t get it.

From there, he’s sent flying to the LOL, and Nickel swallows, his throat feeling dry. He’s not sad, he’s not attached, he’s not naive. Like this, he’ll never get hurt.

During the team swap phase, he makes his way over to WOAH Bunch with a lazy grin on his face. What’s left of them, anyway. He doesn’t want to admit the deflated feeling in his chest is rooted in anything, but he does miss Bomby. “Hey, fellow Bunchers,” he says, his voice wobbling with just the faintest edge of uncertainty as he wonders if he sounds too desperate. “Good to be back, huh?”

“Yeah, no,” Pin says flatly. “Nickel, go away.”

“Wh- Are you kidding me?!” he sputters in indignation, barely even able to comprehend the demand from Pin before he cries out.

“Uh, hang on, Pin, we barely have anyone left on our team,” Coiny points out. “We need all the numbers we can get. I’m not sure-”

“You can’t be kicking me out,” Nickel insists, cutting off Coiny as he juts out his chin. “I’ve been on this team for ages, and Coiny’s right, you need me.”

“Okay, I never said that-” the man begins.

“How’s it fair that you boot me off without any good reason?!” he continues.

“I have a perfectly good reason,” Pin says haughtily. “I don’t like you very much.”

“Oh, wow, so mature,” he sarcastically sneers. “Like you need to make any more enemies.”

“Hey, if Pin wants you off the team, you’re off the team,” Coiny insists, hands on his hips. God, what a doormat. “I think-”

“Who died and made her leader?” Nickel scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Not that you’d do that good of a job either way, you’d just listen to everything she says like some kind of trained dog.”

“Hey!” he cries. “And would you stop cutting me o-?!”

“Shut up!” he snaps, hackles raised.

“Don’t yell at Coiny,” Pin sniffs disdainfully, raising her chin in the air. God, Nickel wishes he could punch her, but he lacks the arms. “You’re just jealous of him.”

“Of what?!” he says with a loud, baffled shriek of laughter.

“My arms?” Coiny suggests, waving them in the air. “My amazing orange color? My perfectly gravelly voice?” The man preens and struts like a peacock, and Nickel just scowls.

“Objectively, I am worth more than you,” he muses, and Coiny’s smug air drops. “Is that why you don’t want me around, Pin? ‘cause I make him feel inadequate? All I’d have to do is paint myself orange and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

Pin gasps, and somehow that’s the thing that makes her show the most emotion. “That’s not true at all!” she protests.

“I dunno, maybe your eyes are still screwed up from the time you lost them,” he drawls, pouring as much acid into his tone as he can. “How would you know? It’s not like you’ve done anything worthwhile with them since getting them back. Everyone else liked you better than that, you-”

“Are you guys done?” Balloony interjects from the LOL, sounding bored. It’s then he realizes that the chatter in the clearing had long since died down and that everyone, competitor or not, is staring at them.

He stares at Pin and Coiny, tightly huddled together and glaring at him. They’re as far away as they can get from him without seeming like they’re just outright running away. It’s as much a confirmation as anything. He’s on his own, and he decides he hates those two more than he’s ever hated anyone.

“I guess we are,” he says stiffly, turning on his heel and storming to the other end of the clearing.

“I’m not!” Pin declares. “Needle, switch back to WOAH Bunch!”

Nickel tunes out the ensuing argument about whether Needle should be on WOAH Bunch or Freesmart. Now that he’s a floater, no team for him to be attached to, he has no stake in this argument. Whatever Needle decides, it doesn’t involve him.

…What she does decide is dumb, short sighted, and something that will inevitably lead to her elimination. She plays for both teams. Nickel knows he shouldn’t care, but… seriously? He knows full well she has about as much attachment to WOAH Bunch, which is to say… barely anything. She can lift cars without problem, but she bends to the whims of Pin and Coiny? She’s a walking contradiction of strength and weakness.

Again, though, not his problem. He has no reason to care, and so he scoffs but turns away.

The challenge is something called scavenger tag. Each team chooses a trinket deemed as valuable to them, and then have to hunt down the trinkets of the other teams. The last person to have their trinket tagged wins. Pretty simple. He can also see the benefit of having a teammate or two to help out. Damn Pin.

To be honest, Nickel doesn’t exactly have a trinket he can use for the challenge. As it turns out, competing on a reality show and being constantly on the move makes it hard to have much of anything. There’s his phone, but he doubts that would count, and it would be hard to hide…

As he thinks, his foot finds the hole in his face, and he startles at the reminder. Huh. Well, he supposes he has something to his name; the triangle-shaped chunk that had been knocked from his face. Better yet, it shouldn’t be that hard to hide it. Now there’s only the question of where.

His eyes scan the clearing, but nothing jumps out to him. His eyes keep catching on Tennis Ball, and he has to resist the urge to let out a groan of exasperation every time he sees him. He can’t stand the man and his whiny defeatist attitude, his stupidly big brain, and his resourcefulness when it comes to inventions. Honestly, Nickel wouldn’t be surprised if the jerk has something for this exact scenario, effortlessly tracking down Nickel’s chunk no matter where he ends up hiding it.

God, he can’t stand Tennis Ball. If only he had something to wipe the smug confidence from his face for good. Now that would be something worth his time. The realization that he was outsmarted by Nickel of all people after turning down his gracious offer of alliance… Now that would be something worth seeing.

Huh. Tennis Ball. Hey, what if he…?

It’s a completely impulsive idea, but the thought of Tennis Ball’s furious expression as he realized just what Nickel pulled–Nickel, sarcastic and prickly and pathetic–is enough to fuel him. When they hide their trinkets, Nickel tapes his chunk to Tennis Ball’s back and scampers off before the other man, muttering under his breath about obelisks and hiding spots, can realize what he pulled.

The man doesn’t realize even when the challenge starts and WOAH Bunch and Freesmart instantly begin their bickering. Fries begins to dig at the ground with a bored, detached expression, and Nickel feels a thrill of satisfaction at the fact that the man has to do his own dirty work instead of pressuring Bomby into it. Tennis Ball just looks vaguely smug, but two can play at that game. That annoying expression will be wiped from the man’s face the moment he realizes what Nickel pulled, and he can’t wait to see it.

Fries’ trinket, a simple red balloon, drifts into the air, and it speaks to the man’s indifference. He supposes the only thing he’s passionate about is digging, and peer pressuring people to do said digging for him.

He glares at the balloon, feeling irritation flare in his chest as it coasts along the horizon, a stark red against the vast blue. He doesn’t know why, but the sight of that balloon is frustrating in a way few things are. Maybe it’s the color, or the fact that it drifts through the air and becomes impossibly far away before he can even hope to be able to reach for it, but the sight of it fires him up, oddly enough.

It’s probably because it belongs to that total jerkwad Fries, though. He’s in a pretty lucky spot, going ignored between Tennis Ball’s boasting and the spat between WOAH Bunch and Freesmart, which Nickel himself is now… entirely uninvolved in, but Nickel won’t let him win just because his balloon disappeared into the skyline before anyone could think to track it down.

Maybe he should have thought of a better hiding place for his trinket, because with where it is, it means that he has to put his trust in Tennis Ball to carry him (or, well, a part of him) to immunity, which is quick to make him scoff in dismissal. Tennis Ball is clumsy, whiny, and unreliable, and has a chance of winning this game, which is more than a little annoying. But he also knows that if anyone notices and starts chasing him, his first instinct will be to scramble away, which is the best security Nickel can hope for, he supposes. At least TB is a predictable coward.

He doesn’t have a team, he can’t guard his trinket, and he’ll have a hell of a time managing to track down trinkets like WOAH Bunch’s clump of dirt or Freesmart’s van. And that balloon is really pissing him off…

With nothing better to do, he goes after the balloon.

Obviously, it’s not easy. The balloon seems to linger in wide, open places, with very little things for it to get caught on long enough for him to catch up and snatch it. But it lingers close enough to the ground for him to still be fired up about catching it, rather than dismissing it as a lost cause and moving on. Even with the looming storm clouds, he doggedly continues his trek.

Eventually, the balloon swoops low down enough for him to grab the string with his mouth, and for a moment there’s a brief second of elation rushing through his chest before he manages to remember that he’s far enough away from Balloony and the LOL for it to really count as catching Fries’ trinket. If he trudged his way back without it and claimed that he had grabbed it, he’d be laughed back to the mountains. He has to find his way back to the competition grounds with it, but it’s hard without any hands. Couldn’t he-

His thoughts are ground to a halt when the wind picks up again and the balloon flies back into the sky, balloon in tow. He can’t even yelp, because he’d go flying to the ground, and the higher up he’s sent flying, the more likely it becomes that if he lets go, he’ll risk more than being a little winded if he meets the ground. And he doesn’t fear death. He’s died enough times for that, and he would be a garbage competitor if he let death hold him back. But he would rather avoid it. The idea of flying down toward the ground, back slamming against the grass as the breath is rended from his lungs, sitting there for who knows how long waiting to die…

It scares him.

Besides, if he lets go of the balloon, who knows if the balloon would get low enough to the ground again, and it would be a guaranteed win for Fries. He thinks of Bomby being eliminated and grips onto the balloon’s string with his teeth all the tighter. He can’t let that happen.

So he’s pulled further and further into the sky, his heart thundering in his chest, and his fear grows all the more intense as the rushing wind guides him toward the cluster of stormclouds. Crap, crap, crap, he’s so dumb… he should have backed down when he had the chance.

But if he didn’t let go earlier, he’s sure as hell not going to let go now. And when the balloon drifts to the top of the clouds, hovering in the air, he spots blurs of other bright clusters of colors, all huddling together as they hang on the cloud tops, bottom halves obscured by looming, stormy gray. More balloons? Jeez, is this like a hot spot for them or something?

A nerd like Tennis Ball would probably say something about the lightning and static electricity in the air causing the balloons to cluster together, like how a fuzzy object’s hair sticks up when someone rubs a balloon or something all over them. But Nickel knows better than to look a gift horse in the back, and he manages to climb his way to the top of the balloons and tentatively tests his weight on them.

The feeling of static electricity crawling up his skin is… gross, but, good news, the balloons hold his weight no problem. He maneuvers Fries’ balloon to the middle of the platform and stands atop of it, making sure there’s no debate about whether he tagged Fries’ trinket or not.

When the wind picks up again, bringing the balloons back toward the competition grounds, he can’t help but smirk, the motion heady and empowering. No matter what happened while he was gone, his entrance is going to have weight. He’s going to have to be acknowledged. And maybe Pin and Coiny will regret ditching him, not that he’ll ever go back to him after how easily and unrepentantly they dropped him. They’ll just have to live with the crushing realization that he’s better than them.

Absentmindedly, his foot slams down on a balloon, and lightning crackles, striking the grass below with a loud crack. Nickel pauses before his eyes widen and a vindictive smirk settles onto his face. Oh, that will definitely work. Who will be first to be struck with lightning? Tennis Ball? Fries? Pin? Coiny? Surely there’s nothing long with getting a little crazy with things, heh. If he’s going to be underestimated, he’s allowed to prove it was a mistake to do so.

The moment he spots movement below him, he slams his foot onto a balloon, and lightning hurdles to the ground with a deafening crack. Distantly, he can hear panicked screams of alarm from below, and that just leaves him feeling all the more satisfied for it. He brings his foot down on balloon after balloon, the air humming with static electricity the longer he continues to scramble around. Even after the screams stop, presumably because everyone is dead, he still continues to scramble around for a few seconds, because he feels amazing doing this. Maybe that makes him a menace, but he’s having fun, and isn’t that strange?

Eventually, the storm clouds clear, and Nickel delicately lowers himself onto the ground–and by that, he means he jumps onto a tree, one eye balled closed as he grimaces, nerves clawing at his chest like a caged animal. Other than getting a bit scratched up and having some awkward landings on branches, he makes it to the ground fine enough.

In a clearing pockmarked by asymmetrical scorch marks stand a shellshocked Coiny and Pin, both of whom are singed, a blue smear along the grass that’s… maybe Fries? What did he end up getting up to? And, much to his satisfaction, Tennis Ball lays limply on the grass, probably dead if the way smoke wafts up from his limp body is any indication. Nickel really doesn’t mind either way. If he is dead, he hopes it’s not a death TB forgets in a hurry.

And hey, look, there’s his chunk, right where he left it. Maybe the metal served as a lightning rod or something? Either way, Nickel knew the idea he came up with on a whim would end up working out. He’s so good at this competition thing.

“Hey guys,” he says boredly, trying so hard to tamp down a smirk at the way Coiny and Pin blearily blink at him, their expressions stunned. “Just to be clear, I did win the challenge, yeah?” Slowly, Coiny nods, still looking dazed. “Huh. Guess I didn’t need you two after all.” He leans forward, smiling smugly, and is sure to hold it for enough time that the memory can be engraved into the two’s brains no matter how much the lightning fried them. “Well, see you. And good luck at the next Cake at Stake. You might just need it.”

Turning on his heel, he storms away with a satisfied huff, only letting his smile morph from a sneer to something wide and giddy once he’s completely out of sight. God, that was great. The uncomprehending looks on the faces of those two jerks… Who’s better off without who, huh?! Who doesn’t need who?!

…He kinda wishes he had someone to brag to. Maybe he could track down Bomby…

The next challenge comes around, and as usual, the first order of business is Cake at Stake, but not before they undergo another host change. He definitely doesn’t mind; those LOLers had been pissing him off even before Balloony took over hosting (because did that Fan guy ever shut up?), and the WTFers hosting means Bomby.

And Nickel’s excited because… Bomby hosting means he can rig things in Nickel’s favor, yeah! That’s all there is to that.

“So who won the last challenge, anyway?” Golf Ball prompts, her brow furrowed.

Slowly, everyone turns to Nickel, and he can’t help but smugly puff out his chest at the attention. “That would be me,” he says primly.

“You and the rest of WOAH Bunch?” Bomby asks proudly, but Nickel can’t help but make a face at that.

“No, just me,” he retorts as he looks away with a huff. Bomby cares so much about a team that could never do the same for him. It’s one of the few things about the other man that tick Nickel off. “I’m not a member of that team anymore. I won on my own.”

Ruby lets out a laugh at that, while Golf Ball rolls her eyes. “Funny,” she says flatly. “Now who actually won?”

Nickel can’t help but bristle defensively, gritting his teeth. Book is the one to come to his defense, shyly saying “No, he really did.”

Is he really that underestimated on his own? Is it the lack of arms, or the capableness of his former team, or… what? Either way, it’s really not fair, being treated with baffled bemusement at being able to succeed, whether or not he has a team at his side or not. He bets none of their new hosts would have thought twice if Tennis Ball or Fries had won. So why is he so worthy of being underestimated?

He’s sulking all throughout Cake at Stake, which ends in Pencil being eliminated. He pays a bit more attention to the team swap, though.

People fight over Needle, and it’s honestly growing predictable at this point. This is the trouble with allies, he thinks, especially when you have more than one group; things end up far too complicated far too quickly. Pin and Coiny think they have a right to her with her seniority, and Book is pathetic and pleading, having nowhere near the sway Pencil did over Freesmart members. Needle seems fed up with both groups, and now here’s where the argument starts.

Book bickers with Pin and Coiny, and for some reason that’s an invitation for Tennis Ball to get involved, like he and Needle have any kind of bond, like he was ever an option to begin with. Nickel feels resentment flare up for the man, and it’s not the first time he’s felt that but it’s never any less acidic. He hates the man and his self-assuredness, his incessant whining, the way he clings to Golf Ball like some kind of parasite.

It would be pretty bad if TB managed to sway Needle to his side. He’ll admit she’s probably the strongest player left in the game, with agility and strength that could effortlessly handle most challenges. And Nickel doesn’t want her on TB’s team! They’d be like… brains and brawn, or something. Covering each other’s bases. What chance does Nickel have, competing on his own with only his sharp tongue as a weapon?

Mostly to spite Tennis Ball, he gets involved in the conversation as well. “Hey, if we’re talking allies, it’s only fair she should ally with me,” he says, smirking lazily at Tennis Ball, whose face goes pinched and annoyed, and before he has a chance to plead his case, everyone starts yelling over each other. And, well, he might as well fit in. If he can do what everyone else does, would that make people like him?

As everyone grabs onto a part of Needle and begins to pull at her, like they’re dogs fighting over a toy, Nickel calls out “C’mon, we’re metal objects with holes in our faces, that obviously makes us twins. What do any of you have in common with her?” Of course, his voice is swallowed by the arguing of others, but that’s okay.

(This will be important, later. For all that Nickel is eager to hold a grudge, he has a nasty habit of forgetting.)

After a few seconds of this, though, Needle pulls herself out of all of their grips and flings herself to Fries, declaring that she’ll team with him. That’s that, then. Nickel’s just glad Tennis Ball didn’t end up with another advantage in the game.

The challenge is to “be your truest self”. In other words, he has to get rid of the horrendously ugly hole in his face. His first thought is death, but he doesn’t exactly have a team to bring him back, so that isn’t a good idea. (Hey, is it a bad thing that he’s super desensitized to death these days…?) Actually, there is an easier way to go about things. He just has to pry his chunk from Tennis Ball’s back and he’ll be golden.

That’s easier said than done. Whether he’s doing it intentionally or not, Tennis Ball disappears practically as soon as the challenge starts. It does give Nickel the chance to watch weird blue Fries commit a murder suicide on him and Needle, which is fun, but it’s not exactly helping him win the challenge.

He finds Tennis Ball frantically scrubbing at his fuzz with a brush and a scowl, and he can’t help but snicker into his hand at the pathetic sight. The man turns a glare onto him, his scowl rigid and annoyed. “What?” he snaps.

“Just funny watching the brainiac do manual labor for once in his life,” he says breezily, still smirking. “Don’t you have an invention for this sort of thing?”

“Invention or not, it’s a pain to get all the cake out of my fuzz,” he hisses through grit teeth, his grip on the brush growing intense like he’s imagining throttling Nickel instead of scrubbing at himself.

“I know this is probably a foreign concept to you, but have you considered… taking a shower?” he says with a dramatic gasp, his eyes wide. Tennis Ball shoots him a truly furious glare, and Nickel has to resist the urge to preen.

“What are you doing here?” Tennis Ball says lowly, his voice wavering in a way that indicates he’s seconds away from snapping, whatever that means for him.

“Nothing much,” he says idly, rolling back and forth on his heels. “Just figured I’d help you out with the challenge a little bit and grab that annoying thing stuck to your back. To help you get closer to being your truest self, y’know?” He smirks lazily as he walks in a half circle around Tennis Ball, only for the man to keep shifting in a circle before Nickel can even get a glimpse of it. Frustrated, he comes to a stop, his face balling up. “What is your deal?!” he snaps in exasperation.

“If I take this chunk off my back, it’s going to end in a place far away from you,” Tennis Ball insists with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not going to help you win, we’re not even on a team!”

“Like it even matters if you end up losing, you’re not going to be eliminated anyway,” he scoffs. “But fine. If that logic isn’t going to sway you, I did swipe this from the auditorium.” He produces the shiny rock he thinks he remembers seeing TB and GB nerd out over a year or two ago, and much to Nickel’s satisfaction, Tennis Ball’s eyes widen to the size of dinner plates as he leans forward.

“Yoylelite!” he gasps out excitedly, but before Nickel can try to bargain again, Fries makes himself known. Wait, Fries…? Who revived him? He dies again, and both he and Tennis Ball watch with wildly different expressions as he revives himself. Tennis Ball mutters something science-y under his breath about algae properties, before concluding with “And if I combine that with the yoylelite, I should go back to normal!”

He takes a step toward Nickel, his face turning determined, but Nickel’s quick to take a step backward, waving the rock in the air tauntingly. “Ah ah ah!” he scolds. “I’m not a charity, you know.”

“Nickel!” Tennis Ball snaps, his face scrunching up in exasperation as he stomps a foot onto the grass. “Don’t you dare mess with that! Yoylelite is just as powerful as it is volatile! If you mess something up, I don’t know what could happen!”

“Please, it’s a rock,” Nickel says with a scoff and a roll of his eyes. “You just don’t want me to have it ‘cause you think it’s yours. Talk about possessive.” He smirks at the other man, who scowls at him in reply.

“That’s not it at all!” he whines, like he usually does. Honestly, is that all he’s capable of without Golf Ball around to advocate for him? “S-Sure, it might look like a rock, but it also has countless properties that make it a dream for any scientist to have!”

“Sure, and that’s why you traded Gelatin and Firey for it, right?” he says with a smirk, traipsing in circles around Tennis Ball every time the man tries to move toward the rock. “Here, if it’s so important to you, let me take my chunk back, and you can make out with your pebble or whatever. Otherwise…” He raises the yoylelite in the air, raising his brows evocatively. “I guess you’ll have to say goodbye to your countless properties, right?”

“No deal!” Tennis Ball snaps without even taking a second to think about it, which is surprising. Nickel would have thought that with that big brain of his, TB would have realized the deal was worth it, since the rock obviously means so much to him, the damn nerd. “With that chunk, you win, since you’re on your own. I’m not risking elimination!” He’s prideful, stubbornly so. Well, Nickel hopes he finds it worth it.

“If you say so,” he says dryly, throwing the yoylelite into the air and kicking it away, the rock bouncing across the grass and crackling with electricity. Tennis Ball lets out an alarmed yelp as he scrambles after it, and Nickel lazily sticks out his foot, the same one that had thrown the yoylelite, the one that feels kinda… static-y, to trip the other man.

There’s an electric feeling in the meeting of skin, as if one of them had shocked each other. But that electric feeling swells in the air as the world warps around them, the feeling oddly centered around the yoylelite. Just as Tennis Ball goes careening toward the grass, losing his balance, the world warps-

And abruptly, instead of the alien landscape of Yoyleland, the world shifts to green grasses, yellow trees, and a clear sky in a warp so abrupt and nauseating that he can’t help but let out a groan, going tumbling to the grass just a few seconds after Tennis Ball does.

While he tries to get his bearings, Tennis Ball quickly regains his balance after bouncing along the grass–he’s probably used to having to do that, the damn clumsy tennis ball–and turns around to glare at Nickel. “You idiot!” he hisses, bristling with indignation. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?!” Nickel just blinks dazedly up at him and stays silent long enough for his irritation to ebb into begrudging curiosity. “No, seriously, what did you do, where are we?”

“How am I supposed to know?” he groans as he forces himself to his feet. “You’re the one who’s obsessed with some rock and knows everything about it, so why don’t you figure it out?”

“I don’t know anything about yoylelite, that’s why I want to study it!” he hisses in reply.

“Less talking, more figuring,” Nickel retorts.

With a roll of his eyes, Tennis Ball scans the clearing, his attention catching on the triangle of forks constructed a little bit behind them. “Hm,” he muses. “Based on the region and the highly advanced architecture, I’d say we’re in the future. As far as three years into the future, in fact.”

Huh. Who would have thought that a rock would have been capable of that? Could he travel back in time and make sure he ends on-? Never mind. “Cool,” he says wryly. “Since you’re the brains of the operation, how do you think you’ll get us back?” Back to the present, he means. He’s not sure he wants to know what the future holds, really… Uh, no spoilers?

“I don’t know!” he cries, expression stressed as he begins to pace in a circle. “Yoylelite is so powerful and so unstable, and it’s not like we did anything specific to end up here, other than…” His expression sours as he turns on his heel. “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t thrown the yoylelite, or better yet, didn’t trip me,” Tennis Ball says accusingly, training a dark expression onto Nickel.

“Huh, did I do that? Doesn’t sound like me,” he says blithely, shrugging the best he can. “C’mon, did you really think I’d let you get your rock after you refused to give me my chunk? I like my trades to be fair. And if it causes problems for you, all the better.” He smirks, his grin dark and sharp. He hopes it’s jagged enough to draw blood.

“Are you really that spiteful?” Tennis Ball grits out. Nickel takes in a breath. “No, don’t answer that. Let’s see…”

Tennis Ball begins to pace, mumbling nonsense under his breath as he furrows his brow. Nickel leans back, watching him with a bored expression, only to spot the tape he had used to stick his chunk to Tennis Ball’s back peeling, and with no chunk in sight, either. He has to resist the urge to groan as he scans the clearing.

“Okay, I think I have a way to get back to where we’re supposed to be,” says the other man with a long suffering sigh. “Now get in close and don’t touch anyth- Do I want to know what you’re doing?” He cuts himself off, his tone going from lecturing to accusing as he stops Nickel dead in his tracks from where he’s standing at the base of the fork triangle.

“Uh, grabbing my chunk?” he says boredly, looking over his shoulder and raising a brow.

“Are you seriously still worried about that?!” Tennis Ball hisses as he storms toward Nickel. “After that stunt you pulled, you’re lucky we’re not dead! We’re going back to the present, because I’m not letting you risk knocking this over for a stupid chunk that’ll be back next time you die and come back!”

“You just don’t want me to win the challenge,” he scoffs. “Besides, science boy, if you’re so smart, wanna run the odds on if anything bad will happen if a chunk from the past ends up in the future? Doubt it’s anything good.” He eyes Tennis Ball slyly, trying hard not to smile.

The other man’s face goes through a variety of expressions in an instant before finally settling on exasperation. “...I hate that you made a good point,” he growls out. “Fine. Grab it, but be quick about it. And you better not knock anything over.” He trains a severe expression into Nickel, and he’s never smiled innocently a day in his life, so instead he offers his sleaziest smirk and looks away.

Nickel doesn’t reply with anything as he turns back to the fork triangle, shifting his weight just enough to be able to settle onto it but without causing it to overbalance. He moves up the structure as quick as he can manage, and pops the chunk back into his face once he reaches the top. He doesn’t need to look down to know that Tennis Ball is clearly bristling with indignance, waiting for Nickel to come down, but he looks toward the ground anyway just to take pleasure in the other man’s clear antsiness.

After drawing things out for a moment, and it’s just a moment, he makes his way back down to the ground and strides toward Tennis Ball with a spring in his step. “Alright, science boy, do your thing,” he drawls.

“Uh… When did you two get here?” says a voice that decidedly isn’t Tennis Ball, and the two whirl to the source only to find Donut and Bottle huddled over a pile of forks, the former confused while the other is idly curious in an airheaded way that makes Nickel think she probably won’t remember the two being here in a few minutes.

Tennis Ball begins to sweat, and Nickel refuses to be any help. He just takes pleasure in the way the man awkwardly stammers for a moment before forcing out “Nothing, it’s nothing! Er, I mean, we’ve been here the whole time, everything’s completely normal, nothing going on here!” As he finishes stumbling his way through that pathetic display, he grabs Nickel and pulls him close, expression severe. “Let’s go,” he hisses, and Nickel doesn’t even have the time to respond with a token protest before Tennis Ball raises the yoylelite and the air crackles again-

-and the world morphs once more, vast skies giving way to drywall and fluffy grass giving way to hardwood. Nickel manages to keep his footing this time, and Tennis Ball only winces, curling into himself, for a brief moment. The two are united when, after the electricity in the air begins to clear, they begin to scan their surroundings.

At least the previous area was recognizably Goiky. Even Nickel could be confident in that. But the two of them ended up inside an entirely unfamiliar building. Are they in Yoyle City? One quick glance out of the nearby window is quick to disprove th-

Something sharp is stabbed through the wall, faintly resembling Needle’s point, and he yelps as it makes contact with him. Instead of pain, though, there’s a whoosh of air, and he already knows what happened. Still, he raises his foot up and only feels irritated when he traces the triangle hole on his face. “Damn it,” he curses. “Alright, brainiac, sooner we get my chunk the sooner we leave,” he declares as he drags Tennis Ball after the bouncing piece of metal, and he’s surprised that Tennis Ball actually follows, just grumbling under his breath rather than starting an argument.

The interior of the building is strange and winding, and when they reach a staircase, there’s several flights, towering up to the very distant roof. He thinks it’s a hotel, actually, just based on what he’s seen. It’s a hunch built off of the hotel he had stayed in before he made it onto BFDIA. That one was a lot seedier, and this one is a lot nicer, but by any distant chance, if this ends up being his future, he supposes he can just be glad he ends up with a roof over his head. Does he have to pay for a room here, or…?

Maybe he’s worrying about the wrong thing here, he muses as he goes scrambling after the stupid chunk. When it goes bouncing up a staircase, he stops at the bottom, squinting up at the stairs before turning to Tennis Ball. “Let’s say you kill me and then bring me back and we call it even,” he proposes.

“And leave something from the wrong time period here? Not a chance,” he retorts as he scrambles after the chunk. Dang his own opportunist logic coming back to bite him. And Nickel knows full well that if he gets his metaphorical hands on it, he’s going to make sure Nickel doesn’t, which would make this whole stupid adventure for nothing. No thanks. He’s going to get his chunk or die trying.

As the two rush down the hallway, as unified as they are competing, they run past the doorway of an elevator, where a rubber spatula is crouched and saying something. “Anything for my best mate Nickel!” they earnestly chirp.

Given that this is the future, he’s probably talking to Nickel’s future self. And even though he knows it’ll come back to bite him later, he can’t help but call out “Best mate? Yeah, in your dreams!”

“Don’t mind us, just passing through!” Tennis Ball adds, his voice strained.

(He was right, for the record. It does come back to bite him.)

Finally, he manages to corner his chunk, and presses it back into his face with a huff. “Damn annoying thing,” he mutters.

“Just as annoying as you,” Tennis Ball absentmindedly replies as he fidgets with the yoylelite, missing Nickel’s affronted gasp entirely. “I think this will work this time, hopefully…” He mutters the last word under his breath, causing Nickel to straighten.

“Wait a sec, you don’t even know what you’re-?!” he begins to accuse, only for the world to twist again, and he balls his eyes closed on instinct.

When he opens his eyes again, he feels dizzy, but more importantly, confused. Because they’re still in the same hotel, but it does look different. A bit more rundown, more lived in, and the sounds of a roaring storm battering the nearby windows add some ambiance. Also, there’s a massive hole in the wall and bugs everywhere, but Nickel decides to write it off as a temporary thing. If his future self is able to tolerate these circumstances, though, he should really try to get those standards up.

“Darn it,” Tennis Ball hisses, his eyebrows knitting together against his forehead.

“Wow, you and your boundless confidence screwed things up yet again,” Nickel mocks. “Honestly, did you even try? Other than a few… minor things…” He eyes the hole in the wall skeptically. “This place looks the same as the last one.”

Tennis Ball lets out a growl, his teeth grit, but seems to relax when he notices that Nickel still has his chunk. It’s a fair thing to worry about, because apparently the thing is a damn escape artist. “At least we can leave without disrupting anything,” he concedes, letting out a sigh.

“We’ve come all this way, we might as well see some of the sights,” Nickel retorts, a challenge in his voice. Tennis Ball glowers at him and opens his mouth to say something, following after Nickel as he makes his way to the hole in the wall, where intense rain patters down and leaves the floor soggy. “Look at this storm. Remind you of anything?”

Before Tennis Ball can fully vocalize his objection, though, a bolt of lightning strikes him through the hole. Nickel would laugh, but he slams against Nickel as his legs buckle beneath him, and the weight is more than enough to send Nickel slamming to the ground, sending his chunk flying. What a pain in the ass. He can’t even blame Tennis Ball for this one; in his attempts to piss the man off, he’s just made things harder for himself.

Tennis Ball turns to Nickel with anger flaring in his eyes and his teeth grit. Still, though, his voice is admirably even as he forces out “Sightseeing, huh? Let’s get to it.” The two quickly move to chase his chunk up the stairs, but bugs are swarming the halls, and Nickel cringes as he sidesteps them, hoping he doesn’t end up getting bit. Tennis Ball, with his bigger size, isn’t so lucky, and he ends up getting bit at the top of a staircase. “Ugh, what is the deal with all of these bugs?!” he growls out. “Nickel, don’t you speak Bugese?”

“Very unwillingly,” he grumbles, shuddering as he remembers how he “learnt” it. “What, you want me to tell it to go away?”

“It’s the least you can do after making us come all this way to begin with,” he says haughtily, and while that’s something Nickel hates to indulge, he supposes it is only fair… or something.

“Whatever,” he mutters, before turning to the bug and saying something that approximately translates to “Go down the hall and bug off.” (He likes to think he’s funny.) “That good enough for you?”

He doesn’t respond to that, just squares his shoulders and continues to make his way up the stairs. So dramatic, honestly. Either way, Nickel does his best to continue to follow. Eventually, they make it to the roof, where he spots his chunk and pops it back in his face with a huff. “Now can we leave?” Tennis Ball says flatly, eying Nickel with a wary look. “Or are you going to try doing something dumb like controlling the storm or whatever?”

“We can leave only if you and your big brain figure out the way to get home, although I wouldn’t be surprised if you screwed it up again,” Nickel says sweetly, prompting Tennis Ball to make a face. “And you’re just mad that I control storms better than you. Who won the last challenge, again?”

“I got struck by lightning,” the other man hisses, his face stony.

“Maybe the lightning just didn’t like you. You do make it easy.” Nickel retorts. Before either of them can say anything else, though, a bolt of lightning strikes between them, leaving a scorchmark on the roof. “On second thought, maybe the storms of this era are just uncontrollable,” he says hurriedly, huddling in close to Tennis Ball. “Get us out of here!”

“Oh, are you sure I won’t just screw it up again?” Tennis Ball says flatly, his face scrunched up. Jeez, sarcasm really isn’t his thing.

“As likely as that is, it’s a risk I’m willing to take!” he returns, prompting Tennis Ball to make a face.

Instead of shaking the rock around in the air like a magic eight ball, as TB had done previously, he lets his face scrunch up in focus and traces the air with it, making a portal to a familiar purple landscape. “That seems promising…” he murmurs thoughtfully.

“Cool, let’s go then!” Nickel says insistently, shoving him through the portal. The two are thrown out onto the grass, and when they get a chance to look around, they spot the nearby superstore and machine to ensure you’re your truest self. It’s funny, but in all the chaos, Nickel had nearly forgotten about the challenge. Nearly. 

“Finally, we’re back home,” Tennis Ball says with a sigh of relief before looking down at the rock. “Now to combine this with the algae, and I can win.” Yeah, no. After all of that, TB doesn’t deserve to win, and he definitely doesn’t deserve his fancy rock.

“If you ask me, I think the yoylelite has caused more than its fair share of problems,” he says idly as he sidles up to Tennis Ball’s side, brushing up against the man’s fuzzy body. “I think it’s better for all of us if we just put it back where we came from, right?”

“Wait, no, Nickel, that’s my yoyle-” Tennis Ball begins to protest, but before the man can react, Nickel darts forward and kicks the rock through the crackling portal, and the portal sputters closed just a second later. “...lite,” he hoarsely finishes, falling to his knees.

“You snooze, you lose,” he says smugly. “Next time I try to make a deal with you, it might be a good idea to accept it. Just a hunch.” That completely and utterly crestfallen expression on Tennis Ball’s face? Now that’s what he wanted to see. It’s such a stark contrast to the usually confident, self-satisfied look he dons, as if he’s that sure of himself and his brains. He’s insufferable.

Like this, though, subdued and on his knees, slowly realizing that scrawny, sarcastic Nickel might be more than what he was written off as, Nickel can’t help but find the man attractive when he’s like this.

…Ugh, what the heck is saying?! With a scoff, he grabs his chunk and quickly shoves it back into his face, making his way toward the machine Golf Ball had set up in a way he hopes doesn’t make him look too desperate. From what he can tell, no one else is close to winning, or at least not as close as him. He squares his shoulders as he steps onto the machine’s platform, readying for the scan-

Only to be shoved off by Coiny, his chunk flying into the distance at the force he’s shoved backward. The other coin (the better coin, he bitterly thinks, because it isn’t fair he has arms, and friends, and a fanbase to boot), is carrying a mech suit-less Pin in his arms, and her scowl is dark and stormy as he waves his limbs around her body in an honestly cruel impression of her before she lost her limbs.

And somehow, the machine turns green in supposed recognition of Pin being her truest self, and WOAH Bunch wins the challenge. Nickel less sees the absolute bullshit and more so hears it from his position sprawled out on the grass, staring up at the sky in frustration. When he forces himself to sit up after far too long of soaking in the frustrating injustice, he meets eyes with a crestfallen Book, who seems to have managed to get herself back to normal after being roughed up at the beginning of the challenge. Was she just too slow?

…Wait, no. The longer he stares at her, he swears there’s something different about her, but it’s hard to say. She seems to notice his eyes on her as she trudges toward him, sitting on the grass and wrapping her hands around her legs. “The colors on my cover got flipped,” she says flatly in response to his unspoken question.

Ah. “I was knocked off the platform a second before I was scanned,” he grouses. “And I have no clue where my chunk ended up, not that it matters anymore.”

Book offers him a sympathetic smile, resting a hand on top of him for a moment before hesitating and drawing it back, expression uncertain. As nice as winning is, guaranteeing immunity and another day in the game, there’s something nice about losing, too, at least like this. There’s solidarity to be found in it, especially when they both got so close. When no one wants him for their team, when he’s going at things on his own, he takes these little moments of tiny understanding, of unity, where he can get them.

Slowly, she turns her attention toward Tennis Ball, who’s still standing in the clearing, on his knees, staring at where the portal had been, and her brow furrows. “What’s up with him?” she says quizzically.

“Oh, y’know, it’s some science thing,” he says with a dismissive roll of his eyes. “We’re just too unenlightened to understand.” Book giggles into her hand, and Nickel can’t help but puff out his chest, preening with pride. He likes the attention, the acknowledgement. It’s much better than being ostracized, ignored. And… he’d like to have a friend in the competition, with Bomby gone. “Hey, are you-?” he begins.

“Book, come look at all the awesome stuff we got!” Ruby chirps excitedly as she comes out of nowhere, throwing herself over Book’s shoulder as she grins widely.

“Okay!” she says brightly, getting to her feet and letting herself be led along by Ruby. She doesn’t even look back at Nickel.

Well, so much for that, right? He glares down at the grass with a scowl and storms away in a huff. Ostensibly, he’s looking for Bomby, but if he can’t find the man, he decides he doesn’t mind sulking until the next competition comes along.

That’s the plan, at any rate. But a week after the challenge, in which he’s aimlessly wandering around Yoyleland (he likes Bomby, but he doesn’t spend every second of every day with him, because he’ll be out of luck if the other man gets tired of him), he’s approached by Needle, of all people, her smile shy and strained as she rubs at her arms.

“Hey, Nickel,” she says slowly, her voice strained. “Um…” She falls into awkward silence, staring at the ground, all while Nickel stares at her expectantly. “Were you serious when you fought over me? Did you really wanna be a team?” she blurts after a few seconds of horribly awkward silence.

“...Huh?” he says blankly after a moment, squinting at her.

She seems disconcerted by his lack of recollection as she fidgets in place. “Y-Y’know, before the challenge started!” she blusters. “When you joined the fight over who would get me on their team… and you called us twins…”

“That’s what you remember?” he says dryly, squinting skeptically up at her. “I was obviously being sarcastic when I said that. Kind of my thing.”

“Right,” she says flatly. “Sarcasm. Because I had no idea.”

“Wow, you’re a natural,” he retorts, flashing her a sharp, sardonic smile.

“Ugh, whatever, I should have known this would be a waste of time,” she huffs, looking away from him as she crosses her arms, jutting out her lip in a pout.

Part of him is tempted to keep prodding at her, but another part is curious about why she even came here to begin with. So, narrowing his eyes, he looks her up and down before eventually saying “Well, spit it out already.”

“H-Huh?” she stammers, her brow furrowing as she stares at him.

“The reason you’re here,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Maybe you’ve realized this, but it’s not like everyone in the world is coming around to hang out with me. And you have some kind of ulterior motive. Everyone does. So what’s yours?” He pins a hard look onto her, feeling annoyed and impatient. He’d like some kind of answer, sooner rather than later.

“I already said it,” she snaps, rolling her eyes as she crosses her arms. “I wanted to know if you were serious about teaming up, or if you were just being sarcastic like you always are.”

“What, is teaming with Fries not working out?” he says, his tone wrought with mock-concern.

“Nickel!” she yells, looking frustrated.

“Jeez, fine, fine,” he huffs. “I mean… I don’t really know if I was being serious or not.”

“You don’t… really… know…?” she echoes, her eye twitching in visible irritation.

“The only reason I said something was ‘cause TB said something,” he explains with an irreverent shrug. “I didn’t want you on his team. He definitely doesn’t deserve that. So I figured I’d lessen his chances.”

“So you didn’t mean it,” she concludes with a whooshing sigh. “All you cared about was your grudge.”

“Hey, I never said that,” he protests in indignation. “It’s not like I would have minded you as a teammate. I knew my odds weren't the greatest, but if it ended up happening, I would have been happy.”

“Would you? Or are you just being sarcastic again?” she says skeptically, narrowing her eyes.

“No, I would never,” he drawls, only to squirm at her glare. “Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Listen, you’d be a great teammate, no matter the team. You’re strong, self-sufficient, and serious about winning the game. Plenty of people would want you on your side just so the others don’t benefit from you helping them. That good enough for you?”

He had expected his clear, calculated outline of things to help dispel that troubled look from Needle’s face, but if anything, her brow is furrowed even deeper. “Yeah, but that’s not really about me,” she points out with a scowl. “Just what I can do. You don’t really care about me at all, do you, Nickel?”

“Hey, don’t take it personally, I don’t care about anyone,” he retorts.

“Ugh,” she groans with a sigh, burying her hands in her hands. “I really don’t want to go back to Book, but she’s the least bad out of everyone,” he hears her mumble into her hands, her words muffled and on the verge of inaudibility. Suddenly, though, she raises her head. “Then what was the deal with the twin thing?!” she barks out.

“The twin thing?” he dryly echoes, raising a brow.

“When you called us practically twins,” she growls out, raising her hands in exasperation as she mimics him on the last two words, her voice falling into a lower, more growling register. Is that really what she thinks he sounds like? “I thought it was… I dunno, genuine? And don’t you dare talk about sarcasm again.”

She brandishes a finger to cut him off just as he opens his mouth, and he cuts himself off as he makes a face. “Well, I’m sorry you thought I was being genuine, but I wasn’t,” he scoffs.

“But you thought about it, didn’t you?” she cries, her voice taking on a plaintive edge. “What makes us similar?”

“Yup,” he says, popping the “p”. “Like our appearances. That’s about it.”

“I mean, other than the metal objects with holes in them thing, we do have a few more things in common,” she points out with a shrug.

“Yeah? Like what?” he says gruffly.

“We’re underestimated on our own,” she says grimly. “No matter what I do, people will always fight over me to be on their team, like I’m worth nothing on my own. And people don’t treat you seriously when you’re on your own, either! They laughed at the idea that you could have won a challenge on your own, like you’re not as competent as anyone.”

“You’re right about that,” he grumbles, glowering at the ground. Her words strike a chord with him for more than the obvious reasons, and he puzzles it out as he mumbles to himself. “Worth nothing… It’s funny. Sometimes I worry about that, too.”

“Just add that to the list, then,” she says slyly, tilting her head. “You know… you’re a coin, but you’re also a person, too. That gives you way more value than just five cents.”

He can’t help but do a double take at that. Not only did she read his mind, but did she have to sound so earnest about it, too?! It’s like she’s actually serious about all of this, but he can’t take this vulnerability seriously, really. She’s probably just saying what he wants to hear so she gets what she wants out of him. To prove himself right, he decides to test Needle a little bit.

“Screw all of those assholes on WOAH Bunch,” Nickel venomously hisses with a vitriol he didn’t think he was capable of. He supposes there’s a strong wave of bitterness to be felt by being abandoned, treated like he isn’t worth anything. He knows his worth. It’s… really not that much, no matter what Needle thinks, but it’s more than Coiny’s. God.

“You mean Pin and Coiny?” Needle dryly prompts, a hand on her hip as she raises a brow.

“Don’t waste time getting caught up in the details when we both know you agree with me,” he snaps impatiently. “You don’t like them either. Otherwise you wouldn’t have stayed on Freesmart for as long as you did.” 

He tries to be as accusing as he can, and expects some kind of reaction from Needle. He expected her to reel back or for her face to scrunch up in anger. Something real, something tangible. More than just the earnest show of good will that he doesn’t know what to do with. He supposes he wants hurt he can use to push her back, get her away. He’s not in the mood to open up his heart to anyone after losing Bomby and being so thoroughly rebuked by Pin and Coiny. Not that he cared about them, anyway…

He wasn’t expecting a nod, though. “Yeah,” she agrees. “They had to threaten me to get me on their team to begin with, you know, and it’s not like they cared about me like I was there. They just wanted me for the sake of another number.”

“They didn’t want me,” he hisses, hating the reedy, whiny edge to his voice. He wishes he could sound detached, matter-of-fact, but being pushed away so abruptly like that had stung bad. “Even if their reasons for wanting to keep you around are all the wrong ones, you should be glad that you’re wanted at all. That people look at you and see someone useful.”

“See someone they can take advantage of, more like,” she growls, looking away.

“That’s something with an easy solution too,” he points out, rolling his eyes. “All you have to do is not let yourself be someone who can be taken advantage of. And if you keep being that naive, then maybe you deserve it.”

Making a face, she shoves him. “You’re a real jerk, you know that?” she says archly.

“I’d rather be a jerk than an idiot,” he says airily, haughtily raising his head.

“I guess that shows your priorities,” she says with a roll of her eyes, arms crossed. “Having to talk to you makes it obvious why you ended up on your own, you know…” she mutters under her breath, rubbing at her arm with a pinched expression.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?!” he hisses, whirling around to glare at her. He knows it isn’t intimidating, not really, but he feels better standing as tall as he can, standing on the tips of his toes, as he tightly grits his teeth and bares them in a snarl. Like this, he almost feels like he’s doing something to be seen.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Nickel, but you’re kind of mean,” she explains with a whooshing sigh.

“So is Fries!” he protests.

“But he doesn’t care about what people think of him. You do. And people think you’re mean.” Needle says, a hand on her hip.

“I don’t care what people think of me,” he insists, but both of them can tell the protest is weak. Still, Nickel refuses to admit to something like that. It’s embarrassing, for one thing. And it feels like he’s conceding, for another. “Whatever,” he grumbles, looking away. “Think what you want. Do you want to work together or not?”

“As much as I don’t want to feel like I’m just cycling between teammates…” Needle begins, her face pinched as she taps at her cheek. “I don’t really want to stay on a team with Fries. He’s even more of a jerk than you are.” She shoots him a wry smile, one hand on her hip, and Nickel can’t help but make a face. “And I’d prefer to have a teammate that runs on a little more than just spite, anyway,” she muses.

He thinks of dragging Tennis Ball through time just because he liked seeing the man so frustrated and doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Well, I’m definitely more than that,” he stiffly replies after a few seconds of silence. “I have my pride, but I’m not useless. And I like to think I have a pretty good understanding of how this game works. If you want to team with me…” He has to stop himself from coming off as too smug. “It’s not like I’d say no.”

“So formal,” Needle teases, and he flushes, looking away. “But I’m glad we’re both all in. Let’s both prove what we’re capable of, together.” She goes from genuine to sly as a teasing expression settles on her face, and she wryly adds “...little brother.”

“Wh- little brother?!” he incredulously echoes.

“Sure,” she says, sounding amused. “You were the one going on about the twin thing, but if we were siblings, I’d be the older one.”

“Like I said, that was sarcasm!” he shrieks in indignation. “Besides, why do you say that, huh?! Where’s your proof to back it up?!”

“Well, I am taller than you,” she begins, placing a hand on her chest as she smirks.

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re a needle!” he squawks. “That doesn’t mean anything!”

“Alright, let’s prove it,” she says wryly. “How old are you, huh?”

“I-I’m-!” he begins, the picture of confidence as he puffs out his chest, only to falter, the words dying on his tongue. Wait, how old is he? That’s… that’s not normal. Age is just someone everyone knows, right? Mentally, he always saw himself as being the same age as most of the other contestants. Obviously he’s not the same age as Rocky, he’s like, a baby or something, but he’s around the same age as everyone else.

Or… he thought he was. He never put a number onto it or anything, but that was just what made sense to him. But he doesn’t actually have an idea of how old he is. He… doesn’t even think he has memories from before 2011! How goddamn weird is that? And how had he never noticed it before?

Seeing the distress beginning to creep onto his face, Needle drops her smile, tilting her head. “What year were you born?” she prompts, the beginnings of confusion beginning to crawl into her voice.

He shakes his head. “You’re right, you’re the older one,” he says just to shut her up, because she wouldn’t drop it if he tried to prove her wrong.

“Huh?” she says, blinking. “That’s not really an answer… And why did you look so scared when you were thinking?”

“I-I wasn’t scared, I was just… angry,” he huffs, feeling frazzled by the way he’s making things up on the fly. Lying like this wouldn’t have any weight if it were mostly anyone else–maybe he’d be bothered by doing it to Bomby–but for some reason, he’s hung up on lying to Needle. There’s hardly a difference between that and sarcasm, and yet lying is the thing that gets to him. Is it the stupid family thing sticking in his mind or what…? “That you are actually older than me. Because I know you’re going to be annoying about it.” He makes a face at her, hoping his hackles are raised enough for her to not question it anymore.

In response, she hums, tapping her cheek as she narrows her eyes at him, and he narrows his eyes right back until she eventually draws back with a shrug. “Alright,” she says, and she definitely doesn’t sound convinced, but when she next speaks, it’s her changing the subject. She better not expect him to thank her for that. “Since you admitted it, though, that does make you my little brother, right?” she prompts, her eyes twinkling with mirth.

“No way!” he insists with a growl, balling his eyes closed. He couldn’t imagine anything more demeaning, having her go around and calling him her little brother all the time. Ugh, he’d lose his mind. “If we were anything, we’d be cousins.” He looks away from her with a disdainful sniff, only for his attention to be brought back to her when she pokes him, meeting her shit-eating grin head on.

“You just as good as admitted you want us to be family,” she says in a teasing, lilting coo.

“Wh- I did not!” he shrieks in indignation. “I said if! If!”

“Don’t worry, Nicky, I got what you mean,” she says slyly, one hand resting on her chest.

“Don’t call me that!”

“You want us to be cousins,” she continues. “Which means we’ll be the best pair of cousins this place has ever seen.”

Groaning, he rolls his eyes. “Way too sappy for me,” he says flatly, eying her with a disdainful look.

“Fine, then how about this?” she says, raising a brow as she rests a hand on her hip. “We’ll kick all of their asses and prove they shouldn’t have underestimated us.”

“Now that’s more like it,” he responds. He’s not too jazzed about Needle taking the family thing and running with it, because it’s all just a bunch of sentimentality and attachment. If he starts feeling the same, he’ll get hurt.

So he decides he won’t care, like he always does. Easy, right?

For now, the two stand side by side. He rather likes the unity, not that he’ll ever admit that. At least he doesn’t have to worry about Needle kicking him to the curb in the near future. She came to him. She needs him, or thinks she needs him, more than he needs her. Things will be fine.

Eventually, the next challenge rolls around, and with it comes a change of scenery, courtesy of Ice Cube’s insistence, and the next Cake at Stake.

Tennis Ball wins a disbandment token as his prize. It makes Nickel roll his eyes, seeing the way gets continuously rewarded for… what? Being a whiny jerk? The voters do know they don’t always have to vote for Tennis Ball, right?

“Can I use this on Nickel so he can’t ever bother me again?” the man prompts, looking at Golf Ball pleadingly. Nickel can’t help but let out a snort at that, relieved to know he really did get under the man’s skin. Now that the two aren’t trapped in the future for the rest of their lives, he’s able to enjoy looking back on the two’s adventure and reminiscing over how he needled Tennis Ball.

“Is he actually on your team?” she says in response, narrowing her eyes in skepticism.

“Nope,” both he and Tennis Ball say in unison, only for the other man to shoot Nickel a dirty look. He dons his best innocent expression, although he can’t help it if his grin is a bit mocking, and Tennis Ball turns away, grumbling something under his breath.

From there, they go through the whole process of Cake at Stake, but his luck doesn’t seem to be great, because both him and Needle end up in the bottom two. Great, him and the person who he had plans to team up with. Needle had a pretty good run, though, he hopes she won’t be too bitter when she’s-

“Nickel’s eliminated!” declares Ruby, throwing her hands up in the air as she smiles widely. He startles violently at that, his eyes widening. Jeez, over 14,000 dislikes? What did he do to end up on the wrong side of the viewers?

It’s surprisingly painful. Elimination, he means. He got so damn far, only to be eliminated because the viewers decided he wasn’t good enough. How arbitrary. He thought he was playing the best he could, and yet here he is anyway. It makes him want to scream, or maybe just bite Tennis Ball. He thinks of the asshole getting the millionth undeserved prize in a row and only becomes all the angrier for it. He knows he’s not worse than Tennis Ball. So why, then, is that what the viewers decided?

He wants to run off somewhere to sulk, not giving anyone the satisfaction of seeing him getting so angry over a simple elimination, something inevitable. But he knows he should probably say something, react to getting eliminated in a way that isn’t gritting his teeth and trying desperately not to tremble from the weight of his fury and nothing else. He should find some way to cement his legacy before he disappears from the show entirely, find a way to stick in someone’s mind and prove that he’s worth more than five damn cents.

Letting out an even breath, he scans the clearing with a bored expression. If he had known the previous challenge would be his last, he would have tried a million times harder to make Tennis Ball’s life miserable. But now the man’s in the game and Nickel isn’t. Given how much the viewers like him, despite how pointless and annoying it is, he might as well have been given a ticket right to the finale. Would it kill the viewers to make good decisions? He would appreciate it, anyway…

Either way, sitting and stewing in his anger toward Tennis Ball isn’t doing him much good, and Tennis Ball definitely doesn’t deserve the satisfaction. Instead, he turns his attention to Needle. She has a pretty convincing expression of disappointment on her face, but he just knows she’s hiding relief somewhere. The woman’s privately glad she doesn’t have to work with him, he knows it. It’s buried somewhere. Buried deep down…

Somehow, though, out of all the assholes (and Book) remaining, she’s the one he’s rooting for. It’s strange, but… most viewers have a competitor they want to win above everyone else, right? If anything, he’s no different from anyone else. Emboldened by that thought, he finally manages  to speak.

“Fine. Guess this is the end of things, huh?” he says, sighing again. It’s not hard to play the part of moroseness. He really is upset about how things turned out. But he doesn’t want to be remembered as someone bitter. He wants to be remembered as someone biting. And when the cameras are always watching, all he has to do is put on the persona of how he wants to be viewed. That is a normal way to think of things, right? “If I had known that, maybe I wouldn’t have spent the entirety of the last challenge chasing after some smart-aleck jerk.”

He eyes Tennis Ball primly even as the man begins to sputter in indignation. “What, are you talking about me?”

“Who else?” he deadpans, rolling his eyes. “For someone so proud of his brain, you really are slow on the uptake.” There’s a quiet round of muffled chuckles, and he has to resist the urge to smirk and preen. Even though Golf Ball looks grumpy and Bomby is quiet, eying Nickel with an unreadable expression, it seems to be going over well with everyone else. Would that translate to the viewers, too? “Here, TB, since you were so desperate for it, have this. Let’s call it a keepsake.”

The moment he produces his chunk, Tennis Ball vehemently shakes his head, his expression sour. “No way! Nickel, you have to be out of your mind if you think I’d actually want-”

God, he’s so annoying. Rolling his eyes, he kicks his chunk toward Tennis Ball, and lets out a bark of cruel laughter when it lands in his mouth right as he’s inhaling to continue his spiel. The man begins to cough, his expression disconcerted. “Huh, that shut you up,” he comments. “I’ll have to remember that for next time.”

“Get out of here, Nickel!” Tennis Ball fumes, his cheeks flushed. Nickel can’t tell if that’s from the embarrassment or the coughing.

“Working on it,” he calls over his shoulder even as he walks over to Needle. He wrestles with what exactly he’s even doing the whole way; does he really want to be this vulnerable in front of the cameras? But he wants to give Needle some reason to keep her head up. Even when she’s wrapped up in the demands of others or uncertain of what to do next, he wants to leave her with something. Might as well, considering they never got the chance to be teammates. “Hey,” he calls, meeting her eye, and she straightens in response, blinking. “Show those assholes what you’re capable of, got it?”

He half expects her to be pedantic again when her eyes light up with recognition, but instead she smiles softly. “Got it,” she echoes sagely.

His message delivered, he knows he’s done here. He eyes Needle for a beat more, and then he makes his way past the crowd of competitors and hosts, so he can sulk away from the cameras in peace.

“Wait, don’t you want to come host with us?” Ruby wails, waving her hands in the air to try and get his attention.

“Go to hell,” he retorts, glaring over his shoulder just to watch the deflated way she crumples. He continues to stalk his way into the distance without another word. Golf Ball would get annoyingly pedantic if he tried to rig the challenge to make Needle win and Tennis Ball lose, and that would be pointless anyway. How would it help him, other than the vindictive satisfaction he would get from it? Huh, come to think of it, that would be pretty tempting…

Golf Ball probably wants him to hang around in the WTF like a good, brainless rule follower. And maybe it’s the closest to revenge he can get, annoying Tennis Ball’s best friend. He supposes as things are, he’s going where Bomby goes. Ugh, he doesn’t like the idea of being tethered to someone’s side like that, but wandering this unfamiliar landscape is ten times worse.

Things predictably get a hell of a lot more boring after that. He stays with the WTFers when Ice Cube insists they should leave Yoyleland for the sole purpose of helping Bomby bother Golf Ball, because it feels like the best revenge he can manage against Tennis Ball. If hassling his best friend is all he can do to get back at the haughty know-it-all… well, it’s not like he was doing much else with his time.

When Tennis Ball comes around with an expression not unlike one of a kicked puppy, Nickel instantly catches onto what the jerk is trying to do. “He’s trying to use us to get ahead in the challenge!” he spits, his tone dripping with accusatory hostility. “What are you trying to do, kill us?” He smirks sardonically at Tennis Ball… and doesn’t really expect the way the man produces a weapon and begins to kill them without another word, even as Golf Ball sputters out loud protests. Seems like her commitment to the rules supersedes her commitment to Tennis Ball.

The moment he’s brought back to life, he’s deftly deposited in a basket and silently fumes. “Why do people keep taking me seriously?” he grouses.

“Dunno,” Bomby says, resting an arm on top of him. “But on the bright side, your hole is gone.”

Instinctively, he reaches up to poke at the spot where it should be, and doesn’t know how to feel when his foot doesn’t go through. Inanely, he thinks of Needle, and has to resist the urge to make a face. She’d probably say something sappy about them still being cousins whether he has a hole in him or not. She’s annoying like that.

But she also wins the first half of the challenge. He’s obviously not proud, or anything like that, but! It gives her a hell of an advantage. Unfortunately, he can’t watch to see what she does with it, because Tennis Ball, deciding that he hasn’t used other people to his benefit enough, gives all of them to Evil Leafy, for her to do… whatever Evil Leafy does to people. Ugh.

They end up wandering around… on her? Either way, it lasts for more than a bit, and Golf Ball seems to revel in bossing all of them around. Both when it comes to getting them out of there as well as reconstructing the bridge that leads from Goiky to Yoyleland. It’s only Bomby’s puppy dog eyes that keep Nickel from calling it quits and playing the odds in the wilderness.

It’s when he ends up in a junkyard, pinned to a metal crasher by the base of a pointy flag, that he has to stop and reassess his life. He just straight up can’t move, and he’s left thrashing in place for a while before Tennis Ball and Book eventually come around, the former grimly determined while the latter seems unsure, her lips pursed in a frown.

Tennis Ball tries to bring down the hydraulic press, and Nickel swears to everything that the man knows Nickel was there and didn’t care enough to stop. He was flailing his legs insistently in the air for a reason. In deciding to cry out the moment the sound of machinery whirled to life, though, Book stops the machine before it can crush him.

“Gee, thanks TB, like you needed another murder on your resume,” he drawls out as he eyes the other man. To Book, deciding to throw her a bone, he mutters a far more genuine “...Thanks.” Maybe she’s used to trying to determine what’s said in good faith or not from all of the Freesmart drama that he’s only gotten a peak into with Needle, because she smiles brightly at him where someone else would argue or accuse him of sarcasm. “What are you two doing here, anyway?”

“Leafy’s trying to make the challenge go on forever!” Book exclaims, waving her hands in the air with a panicked expression.

“Oh, and let me guess, TB and his weak nerd legs don’t have the stamina to last that long?” he boredly prompts, raising a brow.

“Nickel!” he snaps in indignation.

“Maybe,” Book acquiesces, shrugging, prompting ire from Tennis Ball toward her as well. “Still, though, we can’t just sit here and let the challenge go on forever, even if Coiny and Needle are fine with it. If we destroy all of Leafy’s flags-” She gestures toward the hydraulic press that had almost been the cause of Nickel’s doom. “-then the challenge has to end!” She places her hands on her hips, looking proud of herself even though Tennis Ball was undoubtedly the one to come up with the idea. “Oh, you should help us!” she says, turning her bright eyes onto Nickel as she beams, so earnest it’s overwhelming.

People in this competition bare their hearts entirely too much, Nickel decides. All it’s going to do is get them hurt. He’s not saying everyone should drape themselves in sarcasm like a cloak, but it would make them a hell of a lot easier to understand. “And what do I get from this?” he says flatly.

“The satisfaction of a good deed?” Book prompts with a sheepish smile, tilting her head.

“Getting the competition over with faster.” Tennis Ball says stiffly, his expression long suffering and his eyes knowing, as if he knows what to do to sway Nickel. He hates being so predictable, but it’s a lot more compelling than Book’s naive platitudes, that’s for sure.

“Fine, whatever,” he relents, rolling his eyes. “Not like I’m doing anything else anyway. What do you need me to do?”

From there, the three fall into a lull of crushing flags, the action monotonous enough to capture Nickel’s focus entirely. Or, it does, at least, until Leafy appears out of nowhere, casting an intense shadow over the scrapyard.

“What are you doing?” the woman coldly asks, the look in her eyes severe.

“Eep!” Book yelps, jumping in the air and ramming into Tennis Ball, who sways uncertainly in place as he tries to regain his balance. Both of them are cowering behind Nickel, and other than the fact that it doesn’t work conceptually, he also feels annoyed, because this was their idea! It’s like they want him to take the fall for it!

Given that neither of them can lie for shit, he realizes that he is going to take the fall for it if he doesn’t try to scrape something together. “It’s the funniest thing,” Nickel drawls. “These two sad sacks came to me desperate to get my help to win the challenge, so I’m giving them my advice.”

“Which is just fantastic,” Tennis Ball huffs under his breath, like Nickel isn’t helping the both of them twofold by breaking the flags and covering for their sorry asses.

“Hey, leave the sarcasm to me, will you?” he says with a huff and a roll of his eyes.

“And how are you helping them with taking me around and getting me to place flags for them?” Leafy says skeptically, narrowing her eyes as she rests her hands on her hips.

Oh. That’s the challenge? “Because I’ve seen a lot of the world, and I have plenty of good ideas,” he asserts, jutting out his chin. “There’s plenty of places they can go that they wouldn’t even think of if it wasn’t for me.”

“Hm,” she says dubiously. “If you say so. Well, TB, you are still in the lead, but Coiny and Needle are-”

“What?! He’s winning?!” he sputters in indignation, cutting her off. “You guys could have told me that!”

“Uh…” Book says slowly, blinking owlishly at him.

“I don’t want to help him! He’s the worst!” he snaps. “I was fine with helping you guys because I thought you were practically forfeiting the challenge! I don’t want TB to be safe! He shouldn’t have made it nearly this far! Just because you guys are pathetic doesn’t mean I’m going to pave the way for you!” Making a face, he turns away before he can hear Tennis Ball’s whiny voice trying to defend himself.

Nickel storms off and watches the rest of the challenge from a distance, because he needs Tennis Ball to lose.

The way the challenge ends… it’s horrifying. And he can’t help but stare at Tennis Ball, jaw agape, as the other man strides down the bridge with a flourish, his smile firm and pleased, in the minutes following the abrupt closure of the earth, crushing Needle with it. And it’s all his fault. That miserable, smug, two faced bastard-

“You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?” he can’t help but spit out as he glares at Tennis Ball, his body heaving under the force of the breaths he was taking.

“Good thing I don’t care about your opinion, then,” the other man replies, his smirk wide and sleazy. Nickel wants to fly at him, screaming in his face as he demands any kind of reason for doing that to Needle. He’s awful, so selfish and confident and annoying. And the worst part is that he doesn’t see any problem with how he acts. He justifies everything he does to himself and never stops for reflection.

But nothing Nickel says will make any difference to him, not verbally. If he wants to make any kind of change, he has to go about this another way. Not that he cares about what happens to Needle or anything. Their not-friendship (never friendship) was born from her own self-interest, the question of if he could benefit her. Needle means nothing to him. He just can’t stand Tennis Ball. If there’s anything he can do to put the man in his place…

Well, there is one thing. He sticks out his foot as the man goes walking away, and he goes flying forward, bouncing several times even as he tries to stop his momentum. Nickel wishes he could take some kind of pleasure at the sight, but even as he smirks he still feels empty and frustrated. Tennis Ball deserves worse than that.

Eventually, when the man manages to regain his balance after tumbling for an embarrassingly long time, he turns a glare onto Nickel, looking offended and indignant. So he can dish it out but he can’t take it? What a damn coward. “What was that for?” he cries.

“What was what for?” he says boredly as he storms past the man, slamming into his side with enough force to nearly unbalance him again. “You must have tripped and gone flying all on your own. You’re so clumsy.” He doesn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “Whatever you felt while you tumbled around is the same thing Needle felt when you screwed her over but ten times worse. If you were smart, you’d learn something from that. But you’re an idiot.” He looks over his shoulder, his smirk savaged and mangled into a sneer. “So you won’t.”

He storms away before Tennis Ball can say anything. He has no interest in the man’s flimsy justifications, his sweeping excuses. If he has to hear his whiny, nasally voice for a second more he’d lose his mind. Instead, he keeps walking and doesn’t stop for a long time.

When he does stop, though, it’s because he walked face first into the recovery center. He yelps in surprise, reeling back and groaning in exasperation as he rubs at his forehead. He squints up at the recovery center. He hadn’t even realized he had walked that far out, his mind preoccupied with thoughts of Tennis Ball, irritating and smug, and Needle, determined but somehow so naive.

Needle…

What, did his legs lead him out here for the sake of bringing her back? That’s stupid, considering he doesn’t care about Needle at all. No one does. No one wants Needle for her, they want her so they can benefit from her presence, her strength. No one wants Nickel at all. Between the two of them, they make a pretty pathetic pair.

But if no one cares about her, who’s going to bring her back? Coiny’s probably off with Pin, Book’s probably off with Freesmart, and Tennis Ball is the reason she’s gone in the first place. People in the competition don’t care, and most out of the competition don’t have a reason to.

Ugh, since when has he had to be the one to start caring? It’s so damn annoying. He’s not made for this kind of thing. But if he brings back Needle, he might be able to goad her into beating the shit out of Tennis Ball, which he would definitely like to see.

He types her name into the recovery center and quickly cranks her back to life. Needle goes toppling against the grass with an alarmed yelp, seeming dazed, and it takes her way too long to get up, gripping at the side of her head. “What…?” she mumbles as she scans the landscape, and then proceeds to ask the much better question of “Who…?” as her eyes flit around with a more focused quality to them.

“You’re welcome,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes as he looks away from her.

“Nickel?” she says incredulously. “You were the one to- Um, wait, how long has it been?” She cuts herself off as she gets to her feet, her head swiveling around as if she can get the answer to her question just by looking. God.

“Like, a few hours or something,” he says dryly. “Without me, though, it probably would have been a few months. Again, you’re welcome.”

“Yeah, yeah, thank you, Nickel,” she grumbles, arms crossed. “Still, I wasn’t expecting that from you… What do you think you’ll gain from this?”

“Is a guy not allowed to do something nice?” he huffs in indignation.

“Sure, but since when have you been the sort to do something nice?” she mimics, one brow raised in skepticism. “I think I know you well enough to know that isn’t exactly something in your wheelhouse.”

“Hey, I have a myriad of unseen depths you don’t know anything about,” he says with a sniff as he turns away from her.

“Oh, and one of those depths is you being sentimental enough to bring me back from the dead,” she says, her voice so sweet he could gag. Instead, he just settles with making a face at her, and she thankfully drops the front for her next sentences. “Fine, I’ll let you off the hook. Just so you know, though, I’ll be expecting you to revive me every time I die, since you’ve set the standard.”

“Jeez, shut up, will you?” he scoffs, rolling his eyes, and she responds by shoving him. Slowly, her eyes drift back to the recovery center as she furrows her brow. “What are you thinking about?” he says dryly, sticking himself into his field of view. “If you keep making that face, it’ll stay that way.”

“Now it’s your turn to shut up,” she says in reply. “It’s just… Leafy was down there too. And Book, for that matter. They both died, same as me. I just…” She bites her lip, looking away as she presses her arms against her chest.

“Don’t bring back Leafy,” Nickel scoffs, rolling his eyes. “She tried to make the challenge drag on forever, remember? Such a waste of time when you couldn’t even win. Plus, that would make you public enemy number one with all of the people who have reason to dislike Leafy, which is, like, everyone, and that’s the last thing you need.”

“And Book?” she says, a hand on her hip.

“I don’t know! What am I, an oracle?!” he says in exasperation. “She’s your friend.” When Needle makes a face at that declaration, he tentatively adds “Or… not your friend? How the hell am I supposed to know what your deal with her is? That’s for you to decide. And if you decide you want to bring her back, that’s fine. It’s fine if you don’t want to bring her back, I don’t care! I’m not your therapist, y’know.”

“It’s… complicated,” she says with a huff, rubbing at her arm. “It’s strange. She somehow has a better understanding of boundaries than Coiny does, and he’s… Coiny. You know what that jerk said to me today?!” Her head snaps to Nickel, her eyes fired up. “He called me a WOAH Buncher! Again! What’s it gonna take to get through his head that I’m not a part of his dumb team anymore?!”

“Try punting him,” Nickel suggests.

“You’re just saying that because you want to replace him,” she huffs in disapproval.

“Well, if I was Coiny, I wouldn’t call you a WOAH Buncher. That’s all I’m saying,” he says airily.

“Yeah, because you have tact,” she says dryly, flicking him on the forehead. “With Book, I just… Gah! I don’t know!” She throws her hands in the air in exasperation. “I know she really wants me to work together with her again. As, um, a Freesmart thing and all. But I want to carve my own path. That’s what I’ve been trying to do, anyway, but I keep getting fought over by people who just want to use me for their own benefit! I made the mistake of trusting Tennis Ball, and look where it got me! And even if I don’t think Book is capable of betraying me like that–she tried to save me and all–I just… I don't want to trust her.”

Arms wrapped around her chest in a hug, she looks away, her expression steely. And Nickel… feels like an idiot for even thinking this, but he wants to do something to make her feel better. Clearing his throat, he manages to warble out “Um. You can trust me. If you want.”

In response, her expression softens as she rests a hand on top of his head. “Yeah, I know.” she says. And he knows he’s just imagining the fond edge to her voice, so he refuses to even get his hopes up. “Hard for someone who’s eliminated to take advantage of me and all.”

“Oh, yeah, just rub it in, huh?” he deadpans. “Besides, little do you know, I’m playing the long game.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” she says dryly, looking away as she crosses her arms. “Here, let’s drop this for now. I need to think about it a little more, anyway.” Despite her dismissive words, her eyes rest on the recovery center for a long time.

Nickel really doesn’t care what she’s so preoccupied with in that mind of hers. As long as he’s not dragged into any of it, he’s more than happy. He has no real reason to care about Book, especially with her defeatist attitude toward the challenges grating on him. How can she act like it’s guaranteed the viewers will save her when their opinions are fickle and ever changing? How can she not even fear elimination? God, it’s cocky. Not as bad as Tennis Ball, but still annoying. Either way, Nickel has no interest in bringing her back. That’s all on Needle.

After several seconds of heavy silence, her eyes flit back to him and zeroes in on the newest part of his appearance. Eyes wide with curiosity, Needle crouches down to stick a finger through the circle hole in the center of his face, even as he jerks away. “Huh,” she says wryly. “Nice circle hole. Where’d you get it?”

“None of your business,” he snips.

“Yeah, but with it, we look more like twins than ever,” she says slyly, getting up to clasp her hands behind her back. Ugh, stupid Needle and her stupid height. He wants to bite her ankles. “It’s kinda cute. This hole’s my favorite, can you keep it?”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion, and the hole isn’t a dog!” he sputters. “It’s just as ugly as the others, if you ask me.”

“Hm, maybe you’re right,” she relents, stepping back. “I dunno if the hole right between your eyes is the greatest look. I think one right on top of your body is the better move, although…” She sticks her hands in front of her, tracing his silhouette with two fingers. “Maybe you’re too round to accommodate that.”

“Oh, whatever,” he grumbles, looking away. Coincidentally, in the same direction as the recovery center. Needle follows his eyes, and the smile slides right off of her face.

“So, have you thought about my… plight anymore?” she prompts, waving her hands in the air as she says the word plight, like she could be anymore dramatic if she tried. Her smile is as sardonic as it is strained.

“As a matter of fact, I have,” he says haughtily.

“Oh? And what conclusions didya come to?” she prompts, tilting her head. “You should tell me, I’m curious.”

“You care too much about what people think of you,” Nickel declares with a shrug as he plops down onto the grass, because it doesn’t matter if he’s sitting or standing, he has to crane his neck to meet Needle’s eye anyway, and he was walking for a while.

Luckily for him, Needle matches the motion. Even better, she sprawls against the grass, putting Nickel in the very rare position of being taller than her. This is great. “Like you don’t,” she returns with a scoff, rolling her eyes.

“I’m aware of my very few flaws,” he retorts with a sniff. “The question is if you’re aware of your many.” Making a face, Needle shoves him face first onto the grass, and he sputters in alarm, because his mouth is full of grass. Problematic. Sitting up, he glares at her. “What was that for?” he accuses. “Are you that jealous of me, or what?”

“Of you? As if.” she scoffs dismissively, rolling her eyes. “Quit playing at being a jerk, will you? It’s not a good look on you.” Her expression turns teasing as she sits up to pinch one of his cheeks, only for him to quickly swat her hand down with a glare. “I know you have to care,” she points out with a shrug, her smile sharp. “You wouldn’t have bothered to bring me back otherwise.”

“I was just in the area!” he snaps, his cheeks red. “Shut up!”

“Yeah, of course, it’s all just one big coincidence,” she says wryly, leaning forward to poke him with an amused smile.

“Touch me again and I bite you,” he warns, and Needle quickly brings her arms close as she lets out a laugh. God, he doesn’t understand her at all.

“But maybe you’re right,” she continues with a shrug.

Aw, he kinda wishes that could have been recorded for posterity’s sake. Not often someone realizes he’s pragmatic and smart. “About…?” he says leadingly.

“Caring too much,” she says with a wistful sigh, propping her elbows on her knees.

“Okay, there was more to that sentence-”

“I mean, you hardly seem to care at all, and you seem to be doing just fine,” she teasingly continues, eyes flitting over to him even as her head stays facing the horizon. Nickel sputters, his face flushing as he remembers chewing out Tennis Ball and subconsciously coming this way for… what? Out of some pointless sentimentality? God, he thinks he’s just being stupid.

“Fine is a relative term,” he mutters, head ducked.

“Hm,” she says with a hum. “Either way, I think Book is going to be fine staying dead for a bit longer. I… don’t want to figure out how I feel about her right now. And focusing on myself until all of this is over…” Staring out at the horizon, she nods sagely. “I think it’ll be fine.”

“Wow, you got room for anyone else in all that selfishness?” he drawls, eyebrows raised.

“Since you’re so worried, I might be able to fit you in,” she says slyly in response. Making a face, he looks away, but finds he can’t bring himself to break the silence and say something mean in a way that easily comes to him. It’s just not an idea that sits right in his mind.

Nickel can’t bring himself to say that he actually enjoys Needle’s company. If he couldn’t work up the nerve to say it to Bomby, why should she be any exception? Instead, he just swallows and curls ever-so-slightly into Needle’s side. Not too much, he doesn’t want to give anything away, but it’s… nice. Sitting close to her. And maybe it’s a bit nicer when he moves closer. But theories like that are for spineless, whiny nerds like Tennis Ball. So he supposes he’ll be better off soaking up the moment instead.

He and Needle sit next to each other and are quiet for a long time, staying there long after the sun disappears into the horizon.

So, BFDI’s treated him pretty well. He’d hesitate to say he’s made friends, because that means attachment, and the last time he let his guard down and relied on something wholeheartedly he was kicked from his last team, but he did make it to the final seven of BFDIA. Given he’s always had a disdainful disinterest in the prize, something he could go with or without, it’s not like he’s all too bitter.

And still, he can’t get Inanimate Insanity off of his mind. Annoying, right? He should be happy. He should feel satisfied, like he’s finally managed to scrape together the feeling of worthwhileness he’s always dreamed of. It’s not belonging, but why does it have to be? Why can’t he just look around and be happy with what he has?

He clings to the idea for a long time, as if telling himself over and over again that he’s happy will be enough to convince him. And he can distract himself from his dissatisfaction in a few ways, seeking out Needle and Bomby to bother, and there’s plenty of trouble he manages to get into even as an eliminated contestant that gives him plenty to worry about. And there’s the anticipation of who will finally win BFDIA, of who will get the prize that’s somehow managed to become even more worthless. All of that is something he can get swept up in, but… it never lasts long.

Eventually, though, he cracks. He has to. He stares down at his phone, feeling an instinctive groan well up at the back of his throat when he catches sight of his own gaunt expression. He types in Inanimate Insanity to his browser and scrolls randomly through some random episode. The camera is blurry, the grass looks fake, the clearing is barren, and still, there’s discontent in his stomach as he watches the episode, barely comprehending the words.

Nickel doesn’t mind being here. He’s glad he got to befriend Bomby, and he’s begrudgingly attached to Needle in a way he’ll never admit, and of course he loves annoying Tennis Ball. All of it makes for a home of his own, in a way.

And still, he still feels out of place here. He feels too grounded, too distant, too stoic. He feels like he lucked out, getting as far as he did, and he’ll have a hell of a time trying to replicate it. He lets the nonsense stimuli of the episode wash over him like a wave of static, comprehending none of it but still feeling the emotions, sharp and bitter.

He glares down at a nickel identical to him in every way down to the voice babbling out enthusiastic strings of nonsense as he clings to the side of a baseball, desperate and naive and everything Nickel can’t stand. A game like Inanimate Insanity, with heavy stakes and more grounded competitors… god, he really hopes it chews him up and spits him out worse for the wear. If not now, then one day. He wants proof that even if the other Nickel got what he wanted, what he deserved, Nickel is still better than him.

It’s what that idiot from the audition line, somehow getting everything that Nickel should have gotten and clueless about the whole time, deserves.