Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Paper woke up in a cold sweat. He stared at the ceiling as he tried to slow his heartrate, clutching the blanket on top of him. It was just another nightmare. Fourth time this week. He turned to his side to face OJ, who was thankfully still asleep. Paper reached out to touch his arm - not hard enough to wake him up, but just light enough to prove to himself he was real.

He let out a soft sigh and pushed himself out of bed. The floor creaked under him, as if every step was taunting him, reminding him how unstable the world was right now. Every step forward felt like a mile, like the room was so much larger than he was used to.

He didn’t mean to, but he couldn’t keep himself from sparing a glance at the empty bed - Paper’s bed - on his way out. It had been empty for a week now, ever since OJ came back.

Paper was sure to leave the door open as he went down the hall. He needed some air, but he wanted to be sure he could come running back if anything happened.

He trailed a hand on the wall and the doors it connected as he walked. The walls were currently painted with bright orange stripes, and a white trim all the way around, but painted in a way where you could tell it had been painted over a few times. He and OJ had repainted the walls last Thursday, three days before the Hotel OJ Party. It was the fourth time the hotel’s walls have been repainted, be it either for a major event, or fixing the place up, or just OJ deciding something didn’t feel right. OJ and Paper had talked for hours about paint swatches and colors and shades on the days leading up to the party, and they ended up agreeing on the colors “tree poppy” and “west side” that currently adorned the walls.

After the party disaster, he would never argue about paint colors again. He’d give anything to agree with OJ about anything, knowing that any moment they ever shared could be their last.

He sighed. Maybe he was a little on edge-

“Aw, can’t sleep, Baxter? Hey, don’t look at me like that. I’m sure Painty and the gang will be back here any minute now. Yes siree-bucko, in fact I bet they found Pointy and Suitcase and they’re all having a big pizza party and that’s why they’re taking so long.

…A shame they didn’t invite me. I love cookie pizza parties.”

-but maybe he wasn’t the only one.

He looked at the names on the door he was currently standing in front of. This was Paintbrush and Fan’s room, both of whom were still missing ever since…since…

“Paper. You seem stressed. Am I correct in that assumption?”

“Ah! Oh, hi MePad.” Paper crinkled the corner of his page with his fingers, something he only ever did when he was really nervous (all of his corners being far worse for wear as of late). He had gotten used to MePad roaming the halls within the last week, how could he get so lost in his head that he didn’t even notice him?

“Did you have another nightmare?”

“No,” he lied, ignoring that he didn’t know MePad knew about his nightmares in the first place. “I just need some air.” That was true.

MePad gave him a look that said he wasn’t buying it. “My apologies, then. I will leave you alone.”

Maybe that was all he needed. To be alone for a bit. He walked the rest of the hallway alone (save for a quick glance at Taco, who fell asleep still sitting outside Pickle’s door), he rode the elevator to the ground floor alone, and he made it all the way outside alone.

He wasn’t the only one outside alone, though.

“Oh, uh, hey Paper!” Balloon said as he shifted himself on the front lawn. “Sorry, I’m just - I’m just worried about…everyone.”

Paper sat down next to him and pulled his knees up to his chest. “Yeah. I’m worried too.”

One week ago (or, it would be one week when it was midnight, which Paper was pretty sure it already was), Fan, Paintbrush, and Test Tube left to investigate a mysterious noise, Knife and Suitcase left to ‘defeat’ Cobbs, and five former contestants turned inanimate. Six hours later, all five former contestants were recovered, but the five who left Hotel OJ never came back.

But something about those recovered contestants just felt…different. Paper would know, tonight was the first time he had left OJ’s side in a week. There was just something slightly off about him. He didn’t talk quite the same, didn’t argue quite the same, and even just the way he carried himself felt a little different. It was all only little details, though. Things that only someone who was as close to OJ as Paper was would notice, like how the cadence in his voice when he talked about the hotel sounded less proud than usual, or how he hadn’t said anything to Taco since she parked herself in front of Pickle’s door, or how he didn’t really bounce when he walked anymore, it was all more of a straight line. There was no spin, no flair to it. It almost felt…

But these were all just little details, small things only OJ’s partner could notice or care about. Truth be told, he kind of felt like he was losing it.

“I feel like I’m losing it,” Balloon sighed. “I keep hearing things in the middle of the night. Footsteps, I think. But then I open the door to check, and nothing’s there.” He put a hand up against the orange brick of the hotel behind him. “It almost feels like this place is haunted.”

Paper let out a nervous chuckle. “Heh, I think ghosts are the last thing the hotel needs right now.”

Balloon smiled. “And you would know. You’ve been working harder on the hotel lately than I think OJ ever did.”

Paper crumbled his edge between his fingers again. “I’m just trying to keep us all…afloat. We can’t fall apart. Not now.”

Balloon put a hand on his shoulder, breaking Paper out of his own head. “Well, I think you’re doing a pretty good job.”

Paper smiled, and then couldn’t help but laugh. “When did you get so…friendly?” He caught himself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

Balloon held a hand up. “No, it’s ok. I get it. I think we all changed a little between Taco, and MePhone going to jail, and the Cobbs stuff, and, uh, now.”

“Yeah…” Paper stared at the indigo sky above them. There weren’t a lot of stars out tonight. It was like they were toying with him. He knew they were toying with him. He knew they were there, and yet they hid themselves away. It was like one more thing he couldn’t just grab and fix. “...now.”

Before either of them could say anything more, they were interrupted by a sound coming from inside the hotel. Footsteps. The two shared a glance before Paper slowly went to open the door.

The lobby seemed empty. No one at the couch, no one at the snack table (although Paper made a mental note to later clean up the mess that Cherries and Yin-Yang had made earlier), and no one in the kitchen either.

Balloon led the way around the corner and down the hall, Paper fidgeting with his hands the whole time. Nothing seemed off, and footsteps around the hotel didn’t necessarily mean anything (twenty-one people live there after all), but both Balloon and Paper couldn’t shake the feeling that something was just wrong (especially after a particularly bad nightmare had just struck a chord with Paper).

Paper paused when they passed by the old eliminated contestant closet that MePhone locked himself in a week ago. He hasn’t interacted with or spoken to anyone since he went in there, and refused to open or even unlock the door. The only way anyone knew he was still in there was because every so often Lightbulb would leave a few cookies under the door (“If anything’s gonna brighten him up, I’m betting it’s one of these thingamaroos”), and every so often they would disappear.

Paper was lost in thought staring at the door when he noticed its marks. Heavy dents and scratches blanketed the door, especially at the bottom. Sure, it had always looked pretty rough, but this felt different. These weren’t the normal cracks in the stone that have always been present on the eliminated contestant closet, these were marks.

Or maybe he really was just losing it.

“Hey Paper! I think I just saw something dart into the pool room!” Balloon called out from up ahead.

Paper shook his head and followed Balloon. He caught up to him turning on the lights to find none other than Nickel sitting in the hot tub.

“Nickel? What are you doing here?” Paper asked.

“Oh, hey - uh, I mean - uh, doy? I’m taking a spa bath. Am I not allowed to take a spa bath?” Nickel smiled an innocent smile.

“Oh come on, Nickel. What’s your game here?” Balloon rolled his eyes.

Nickel shrugged (to the best of his ability). “No game. Just got bored.”

Balloon paused. “Have you been taking ‘spa baths’ every night?”

“Nope, never thought it was my thing. Just, uh, bored today is all. What are you two doing up so late anyway?”

“Just…chasing ghosts I guess,” Paper muttered. He didn’t stick around for Balloon and Nickel’s proceeding conversation. He had already wasted enough time down here.

Later, when Paper was back in bed with OJ, and Balloon was back outside waiting for someone to come back, Nickel stepped out of the hotel pool, dried off, and resumed kicking down MePhone’s door.

Chapter Text

“You have to talk to her.”

Microphone covered her head in her hands. “Ugh, I’m not ready yet.” She was sitting with Soap on her bed, finally talking about the elephant in the room.

Or rather, the taco in the hallway.

“Come on, Mic. It’s not like she’s going anywhere,” Soap said.

“But why is she even here in the first place?” Microphone shouted, shooting up from the bed. She began to pace around Soap’s room. “Why is she even here…” she mumbled.

“Well, she’s been outside Pickle’s door all week. Maybe she’s finally ready to apologize to him. And if she’s ready to apologize to him, then maybe…” Soap tried offering with a gentle look. Microphone wasn’t taking it.

“But it just doesn’t make any sense!” she screamed, throwing her hands in the air. “It’s…it’s too soon. How could she change that quickly?”

“Didn’t you hear what happened at the fifteenth competition? How she begged everyone to leave the show so it wouldn’t ruin them? What if she feels ruined? And besides, MePad said she went through some sort of loss. What if that loss was you?”

Microphone was about to say something, but then stopped herself. She gave Soap a skeptical look. “Weren’t you the one telling me just a week ago that ‘Taco could go jump off Crappy Cliff’ and I ‘was stronger without her?’”

Soap shrugged. “A lot can change in a week.”

Microphone put a hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to go there. “I’m - I’m sorry, Soap.”

“Mic, I’m your best friend. You trust me on stuff like this, right?”

Microphone sighed and sat back down on the bed. “Yeah, I do.”

“Then you’ll talk to her and maybe even get her out from in front of Pickle’s door? I won’t lie to you, it kind of freaks me out when I pass her in the hallway at night.”

“Heh, I can try.”

Soap smiled at her. “That’s the Mic I know.”

Microphone practically all but dragged her feet on the way to Pickle’s room. She had become good friends with Pickle. She missed him. They played video games together when she wasn’t hanging out with Soap, and sometimes even Cheesy would join in (they didn’t have any three player games though, so they would just give him an old broken controller, and he seemed to have a blast pretending to be able to control the background). He was a good friend, but a part of Microphone always felt bad that the reason they started talking in the first place was what they both had in common: being used by Taco. Mutual hatred.

Well…maybe not hatred. Microphone wouldn’t have agreed to talk to Taco if she hated her. A part of her (a small part of her) wanted to know why she begged the contestants to leave at the fifteenth challenge. Why she even came to Hotel OJ.

…Why she reached for that portal in Test Tube’s lab.

Microphone was so wrapped up in her head that she didn’t notice she was already at Pickle’s door until she almost tripped over Taco.

“Oh…hi,” she said.

“Hello…Microphone,” Taco said, looking down.

Microphone looked around. She was already starting to regret this. It probably wasn’t too late. She could go back and join Soap on one of Trophy’s photography sessions, or attend one of Paintbrush’s art classes, or play a game with Pickle, or-

No. Soap told her to come here, Paintbrush was missing, and Pickle hadn’t come out of his room since Taco started sitting in front of it. There was no getting out of this conversation.

So, she sat down in front of Pickle’s door, right next to the talk of the hotel.

“‘Microphone?’ How formal. When did I become less than ‘Mic’ to you?” she asked, semi-playfully.

“You’ve never been less than- ugh. I can only imagine that I’m the last person you’d want to be seeing right now. I suspect someone put you up to this?” Taco sighed.

Microphone almost said something, offended of the question, but stopped herself. She made the decision when she left the show that she was done with lying.

“Soap.”

“Figured as much. I wouldn’t want to talk to myself either.”

“Well,” Microphone said, sighing, “you were kind of hard to miss.”

And that, for a moment, caused Taco to smile. It was only a moment, but it meant something.

“So, why are you here, anyway?” Microphone asked.

Taco refused to make eye contact again. “You could say I have…unfinished business.”

“Unfinished business? Like a hotel ghost?” Microphone asked, giggling to herself.

Taco hugged her legs to her torso. “Like being a bad friend.”

Microphone’s smile dropped. She couldn’t help but feel bad for her. “I see that your crack healed.”

Taco shot a look at her. “Not healed. Recovered.”

Microphone rubbed the back of her head. “Oh yeah. I, uh, heard about that. Baseball said you looked like you weren’t expecting to be recovered. Is that…is that true?”

Taco looked up at her. “You talk to Baseball now?”

“You’ve always been good at dodging the question,” Microphone mumbled, before “Yeah. We’ve had a lot to catch up on. But, uh, don’t worry. I didn’t tell him anything about us, or, I guess, uh, you.”

Taco threw her hands down. “You shouldn’t feel like you have to protect me,” she huffed.

“I’m not,” Microphone started, and Taco almost backed up. “I’m just…sigh...I’m just -”

“Finally coming into your own,” Taco finished.

Microphone looked at her. “Yeah…Why have you been here the whole week? If it was just ‘unfinished business,’ you wouldn’t be sleeping in the hallway every night.”

Taco sighed. She played with her hands, like she was working up the courage to say something. She was so…nervous. Out of control. “I don’t…this is it.”

“What do you mean ‘this is it?’”

“I mean…” Taco crossed her arms together. “I don’t expect you to get it.”

“Tch, like that’s a first.” Microphone rolled her eyes.

Taco glared at her. “I just- ugh! This is it! My whole life has been the competition, and then I got out, and then it was done, and now I’m here: three seasons too late to finally learn how pointless it was and what this was all really about.”

Microphone scooted a little closer. “So what was it all really about?”

Taco paused. “...I’m not there yet.”

Microphone grabbed Taco’s hand and looked at her. “Well, you’re here.”

Taco pulled away. Her eyes looked terrified. “I can’t leave. Every night, Pickle gets up, walks to the door, pauses, and then goes back to bed. If I just wait one more night, then maybe…” she trailed off.

Then maybe he’ll open it, Microphone finished in her head. She looked at Taco, the door, and then back at Taco again. Even without the crack, this was the most broken she had ever seen her.

“Hey,” she started, not quite confident in the offer she was about to make. “My, uh, roommate is out right now-” (“out” sounded better than “missing”) “-so maybe instead of sleeping in the hallway, maybe you could just…stick with me?”

“Why? Why do you care? You shouldn’t want anything to do with me,” Taco whispered.

“I’m…I’m glad you’ve had MePad to talk to,” Microphone said, shifting her eyes.

Taco raised an eyebrow at her. “Look who’s dodging the questions now.”

Microphone rubbed a hand over her face. Talking with Taco had always been a lot to keep up with, but, admittedly, a part of her had missed her quick wit. “All I want…is to help. And, I’m going to be honest with you, I might be the only person in the entire hotel willing to do something like this for you.”

Taco laughed. It brightened up her face in a way that told Microphone she hadn’t done that in a while. “My own words against me. I…Thank you, Mic.”

Microphone smiled down at her. She was glad Soap talked her into this.

Pickle slowly shoved himself out of bed. He took one glance at the window to double check that it was nighttime, and then carefully walked over to the door, hoping Taco wasn’t there anymore. Technically he could sneak past her while she was sleeping, but no chances could be taken.

He looked under the door. She was gone.

With no witnesses to stand in his way, he quietly walked out the door and down the stairs (couldn’t risk the noise of the elevator) and then through the lobby until he found the storage closet he was looking for. He paused, stood completely still for one moment, and then balled up his fists and began hitting the door as hard as he could. He felt the stone build pressure and begin to curve under his weight, making marks on both the door itself, and his own hands.

A figure began pushing from the other side, trying to prevent Pickle from coming in.

“Please, just leave me alone!” MePhone shouted, but his plea fell on deaf ears. Pickle couldn’t hear him, he only kept smacking the door as hard as he could.

And after almost two hours, the stone finally began to crack.

Chapter Text

————————

| Wednesday: Nickel |

| Thursday: OJ |

| Friday: Soap |

| Saturday: Nickel |

| Sunday: Pickle |

————————

“Bot, what am I looking at?” Goo asked, turning himself upside down as if that would make the note make more sense.

“It’s an investigation!” Bot cheered.

“Ok, but an investigation of what?”

That part was hard to explain. “I had a weird feeling and also felt guilty” wasn’t exactly the best reasoning for stealing a spare notepad from Fan’s dresser and stalking hotel patrons. Bot themself wasn’t even that confident that they were doing anything important.

They had come to the hotel with Cabby and a few other season three contestants for the Hotel OJ Party, and, like the other season three contestants, ended up becoming a temporary resident after the lockdown that ensued after five contestants became inanimate. The lockdown that was still in place thanks to the high anxiety still present, and the five who had left the hotel still being missing.

Bot didn’t quite know where they fit into all of this. They weren’t exactly an object- and even then MePhone didn’t have the ability to recover them in the first place, so they felt guilty for not being able to truly experience the terror that plagued the hotel, and without that worry they ended up desperate for something to do.

So, when Nickel was acting weird as he passed by them chilling in the lounge room Wednesday night, they ended up with an investigation.

“I’m…not quite sure,” is what they ended up saying to Goo. “But an investigation is an investigation, right?”

“Yeah…yeah!” Goo cheered. “It’s like when you’re watching the insect channel and the ants all build their little hills, and there’s a picnic nearby, but the ants still bring back a sugar cube!”

“Exactly! So here’s the plan:” Bot whispered, carefully looking around to make sure no one else was paying attention, “this is a list of all the people I’ve seen mysteriously walking around at night, and all of them took the stairs. So if we hide out in the kitchen, we might be able to find out where they’re all going.”

“And then what do we do?” Goo asked.

“Then we ask them what they’re doing, I guess. The stakes aren’t super high here,” Bot shrugged. Truthfully, while it was fun to play detective, they didn’t think any of this was a big deal. Something just seemed off, and, lucky for them, it gave them both something to do and an excuse to hang out with a friend.

It was kind of perfect.

The rest of the day went on as per usual. Bot decided to chill in the lobby until nighttime. They had become incredibly active in the hotel’s social sphere, setting themself a challenge to make friends with every resident. They were currently at 12/20.

“OMG! You’re paint job is like, the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen!”

Make that 14/20.

“Thank you! Balloon and Nickel helped me out with it.”

“Oh yeah,” Salt said, “aren’t they like, besties or something now? I never would have seen that coming. From Balloon, maybe. But Nickel?”

“No yeah. Never thought he’d…open up like he did. He did open up, right?” Pepper asked Bot. The three of them were seated at a small table in the kitchen, sharing a few leftover slices of cake from the fridge.

“Uh, I guess so? I never really thought of him as ‘closed off,’ he just seemed kinda sarcastic,” Bot said, putting a piece of cake in their mouth.

“Now that sounds like the Nickel I remember,” Salt said.

Bot thought for a moment. “What was the Nickel you remember like?” That was one of the best parts of talking to the residents of Hotel OJ: learning their stories. Bot loved hearing about season one, season two, and everything in between, and these two seemed more than eager to discuss all of it.

“He like, threw a rock at me,” Pepper said, taking a bite of cake.

“Well, that was kind of the competition,” Salt corrected.

“Yeah, but he was still a brat for doing it.”

“What was the competition?” Bot asked.

“Throwing rocks at each other,” Pepper said.

The three laughed.

“So what was he like in your season?” Salt asked.

“I don’t know. He was a little rude near the beginning I guess? But, in the alliance I had with him and Balloon, I saw him as a good friend. And seeing him with Baseball here, it makes me think that…I don’t know. I don’t like assuming things about other people. I think he’s a good guy,” Bot said.

“Awwwwww,” Salt and Pepper said in unison.

“I’m happy for him,” Salt said.

“I still think he’s a brat, though,” Pepper added.

Bot smiled. They felt like they could gossip about other contestants with Salt and Pepper forever. And then, they got an idea.

“Hey, what were my- what were Fan and Test Tube like? In earlier seasons?” they asked.

“Kinda ugly,” Salt said.

Pepper elbowed her. “Salt!”

“What? I figured they wanted honesty.”

Bot laughed. “Was that it?”

“Well, we didn’t really know them. We were season one sweethearts, and they were season two contestants. We only really saw them when they cleaned the hotel that one time,” Pepper said.

“Oh yeah! I remember that. Fan’s singing was like, a solid four out of ten.”

“Oh, but I have seen them around the halls. Like that one time Fan woke everyone up just to get back to the competition. But I haven’t seen them since…well…”

Bot played with their piece of cake in front of them. They tried not to think about how Fan and Test Tube were still missing, and more importantly that there was nothing they could do about it. Though, they did suppose that they walked into this. They just wanted to know more about them.

Whatever. It wasn’t something they needed to worry about right now. “Have you two noticed anything weird around the hotel lately?” they asked, changing the subject.

“Yeah, Taco,” Salt said.

“Oh, but did you see? She’s finally out of the hallway. I think she’s been hanging out with that Microphone chick,” Pepper told her.

“For real? How did that happen?”

“I don’t know, but I kind of get it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I…uh…nevermind,” Pepper resigned, blushing a little.

“So what was Taco like?” Bot asked, feeling like they were interrupting something.

“She wasn’t really ‘like’ anything until she changed,” Salt shrugged. “And then she fought OJ, and then she was gone, and now she’s here I guess.”

“Oh, nuh uh! We talked about this, no talking about OJ when we’re with other people!” Pepper said.

“I was just stating the facts!”

“Oh please, you included that on purpose!”

“Maybe!”

Bot pushed their chair away from the table and got up to put their dishes away. Talking with Salt and Pepper was nice, but they were going to leave them alone for a little while. Besides, it was already starting to get pretty late. Everyone would be going to bed soon.

They went upstairs to find Goo in the room that the two of them were sharing while they stayed at the hotel.

“Hey, Bot! You ready?” he asked.

“Almost. Let’s wait a little bit for Salt and Pepper to clear the kitchen, and then we’ll swoop in and hide in the cupboards. Then when someone comes by…bam! We got them!”

“Sounds like a plan!” Goo said, saluting to the best of his ability.

Half an hour later, the two made their move. Once at the kitchen, Bot found two empty cupboards above the stove and unscrewed the knobs so they could see while the two of them were in there.

And then, they waited.

An hour later, footsteps rang through the hotel. Bot scrambled to put their eye up to the hole in the cupboard to see who it was. Bomb. They hadn’t gotten a chance to know Bomb yet. Why would he be out this late?

He passed through the lobby, and then past the kitchen. Bot knocked on the wall of the cupboard next to them. “Goo! Wake up!” they whisper-yelled.

“Ah! What is it? I think I missed it,” he whispered back.

“It’s Bomb! How about you take the ceiling, and I follow him on the ground?”

“Gotcha!” Goo whispered, carefully climbing out of the cabinet and rolling along the wall until he was safely secured to the ceiling.

Bot, meanwhile, gently opened the cabinet and stretched their legs out to the floor, trying to make the least amount of noise possible. They looked up at Goo and gave him a thumbs up. Goo nodded and pressed forward, the two sneaking down the hallway. That was when the loud THUD noise started.

Bot peered around the corner to find Bomb throwing himself at some stone door. His expression was blank, and his movements were almost robotic. He would take one step back, and then plummet his shoulder into the door. It was always the exact same movement, same amount of force and everything. His body was starting to be covered in scratches and marks. This couldn’t have been good for him.

Bot looked up to see that Goo looked about as concerned as they did, maybe even a little scared. And so, they took a step forward. They walked to the middle of the hallway, where they were unguarded, unprotected.

“Um, Bomb? Are you ok?” they asked.

Bomb paused what he was doing. His arms dropped to his side. He slowly turned around, locking eyes with them. “...You are Bot,” he whispered in perfect speech, as if it wasn’t his own.

Bot took a step back, suddenly aware of how close they were, and how everyone was asleep, and how dark this hallway was.

“Yep, that’s me!” they said with false confidence.

Bomb took a step forward. “You can’t be recovered.”

Bot barely had time to process what happened next. Bomb had lunged at them, only missing because Goo dropped from the ceiling to blind him. He fell and landed against the wall instead, causing it to crack. Bot tried backing up, but their legs wouldn’t stop shaking.

What happened after that, though, had them darting away and up the stairs in a heartbeat.

Bomb raised his hands up to remove Goo from his face, and Goo threw all his weight in one direction, forcing him to the ground. And then, Goo stopped. He fell to the floor, and Bomb stood back up. He resumed making his way towards Bot, stepping in the puddle on the floor that no longer had a face.

Bot was terrified. They pushed their body to its limits, their servers overheating a little as they scaled the stairwell. After what Bomb had just said, and what just happened to Goo, they were running on overdrive. They ran through the hallway until they finally collapsed at the door they were looking for.

“Lightbulb! Lightbulb! Auntie Lightbulb! Wake up! Please let me in!” they frantically yelled as they pounded at the door. They had the feeling that Bomb wasn’t going to stop his pursuit at the ground floor, and didn’t want to be there when he got up the stairs.

“Woah, what’s going on-” Lightbulb said as she opened the door, cut short by Bot tackling her to the floor with a hug. “Oh! I’m happy to see you too, champ, but what’s the-”

“Not now! He’ll hear you!” Bot shushed, rushing to get up and close the door. When it was shut, they frantically looked around before darting to sit in the corner. Their whole body was shaking, and their breathing was heavy.

Lightbulb sat down next to them. “Hey-”

“No! I don’t want him to know that I’m with you. I don’t want you to…” Bot could feel themself tearing up.

Lightbulb gave a slightly concerned look, but obliged, opting instead to hand them Baxter to hold so they could calm down. Bot held the crab, feeling the way it crawled around in their hands, and started crying. Lightbulb hugged them, and the three stayed there until morning.

Chapter Text

“I’m no good at this.”

“You’re fine. Just follow my lead.”

Paper tried relaxing in OJ’s arms. He had never been a good dancer, always two left feet on the floor. But this was different. This was special. This was their anniversary. And so, Paper took a deep breath, and tried to relax.

They had changed the lights in the hotel lobby just for this. A cool purple bathed the room, contrasting against the faint orange color of the walls (that they had agreed to repaint a few days earlier). The couch had been moved out of the way so they could dance, and the snack table had a beautiful cake that Paintbrush had made for them. Pickle had been DJing the event, and this was the first (and probably only) slow song.

Paper watched as everyone around them was slowly beginning to pair up. Salt with Pepper, Paintbrush with Lightbulb, Test Tube with Fan, and so on. They all danced together so well. They all seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Paper watched Test Tube and Fan specifically. Test Tube was holding Fan’s edge, and his hand was supporting the back of her glass. Was that how he was supposed to be doing it? He tried shifting his hand to match that of Fan’s. He felt weird, but maybe now he was doing this right?

“Hey,” OJ said, breaking Paper’s concentration and forcing him to look at him. “I don’t want you to focus on what anyone else is doing. I only want to look at you.”

Paper laughed. He felt so silly. This was their day. The fact that they were together was all that mattered right now.

As the song went on, Paper slowly found himself actually being able to relax. He had been so stressed lately (he didn’t quite remember about what, but he could feel how tired he was), and all of that slowly melted away in the face of his partner. He was able to lean into OJ, to step in line with him, to allow the rest of the hotel around them to fade away.

“I’m here for you,” OJ whispered, and Paper held on tighter.

“Please, just stay with me,” Paper said, half aware that he was saying it. The line felt rehearsed, like this had already happened before.

The heartache felt familiar as OJ let go. Paper fell to the floor, and then scrambled back to his feet to hold him again. OJ’s arm disappeared right as Paper grabbed it, slipping through his fingers.

“No…no…” Paper muttered as OJ’s smiling face faded away, leaving him just an oversized juice glass on the floor. He tried to catch him as he tipped over, but nothing was going to stop him from crashing to the ground. OJ shattered as his body shoved Paper out of the way to hit the floor, glass shooting out in every direction as orange juice filled the room.

He tried to swim away as the amount of orange juice in the room kept rising. The floor was gone. The beautiful cake was gone. The DJ was gone. The lovely new paint on the walls was being washed out. He made it to the door as the lower half of his body was falling apart, as he was dissolving. He grabbed the doorknob and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. He kept trying: again and again and again, but nothing he did was ever going to open that stone brick door. He held on past his final breath, as he felt his body and his mind all pull apart at once.

Paper gasped for air. He shot up in bed, putting a hand on his face to feel that it was still there. He was ok. Just another nightmare.

He turned to look over his shoulder. It didn’t matter how bad the nightmare was, just knowing that OJ was still there always made him feel better.

Except right now, he wasn’t.

Paper felt his heart catch in his chest. He threw the blanket off the bed, as if OJ could possibly have been hiding under the covers. He was gone. He was gone and he hadn’t said anything. He was gone and Paper had to find him.

He rushed out of the room, so fast he barely registered he was there when he was already out in the hallway. He looked around for some sort of sign for what way OJ could have gone, eventually settling on the stairs. As he climbed down, his heart realized a new fear: OJ leaving the hotel entirely. He tripped over himself running to the ground floor, barely registering Bomb as he passed him in the stairwell.

He practically burst out the front door. Balloon was standing by the outside wall, a little on edge, a little lost in his head. “BalloonhaveyouseenOJ,” Paper slurred when he saw him.

“No, but I think I heard a-”

THUD THUD THUD

Paper raced back inside. It sounded like the noise was coming from-

He stopped dead in tracks. There OJ was, arms raised, standing in front of the eliminated contestant closet.

“...OJ?”

OJ put his arms down. “I…I have to get in.”

Paper took a step closer. “OJ, what’s going on?”

OJ’s expression looked…scared? It was hard to tell. “I have to get in there.”

Paper put a hand on his shoulder. “OJ, please talk to me.”

OJ switched up, falling into his arms. “I just…I don’t know. I’ve just felt different ever since…ever since I…”

Paper hugged him tight. “You don’t have to talk about it. I get what it feels like to not be yourself. But you’re you, ok?” He pushed him back a little so he could look him in the eyes. “And I love you, ok?”

OJ pulled him back into a hug. “I’m so sorry I haven’t been all there lately. I love you, too.”

Paper let out the faintest sigh of relief. That was the first time he had heard OJ say that since he got back. He had missed that. He had missed his boyfriend.

He slumped against the wall, not letting go of OJ’s hand. “It scared me when I woke up and you weren’t there.”

OJ sat down next to him. “But you found me.”

Paper smiled. He needed to hear that. “If I ever disappeared, would you come find me?”

OJ scooted closer to him. “Now that is a trick question. Nothing bad would ever happen to you.”

Paper leaned on his shoulder. “Do you mind if we just…stay here? I think I’m too tired to make it back up the stairs.”

OJ gave him a gentle kiss on the head. “Whatever you want, my handsome co-manager.”

Paper relaxed, just like he did in his dream. He melted up against OJ. The whole world felt so peaceful when he was there. And so, that was where he stayed. Falling asleep was a breeze, and he slept the night away in the arms of his partner.

Hours later, a voice came from inside the closet. “You aren’t…you can’t…you aren’t going to get away with any of this,” it said, not as confident as it wanted to be.

“MePhone, I’ve got this whole hotel in my pocket. A ‘spa bath’ here, an ‘I love you’ there; everyone here is predictable. Or even programmable, if you would. Would you?” OJ said, his voice loud enough for MePhone to hear, but soft enough to not wake Paper.

“My cast can’t be manipulated that easily.”

“Actually, they can. You’ve even created a little British villain to prove it.”

MePhone couldn’t come up with a good response to that. He just sat there holding himself, back against the door, in the empty closet. He was exhausted. One moment asleep, one moment not being careful, that door was going to fall. And he had no idea what would happen next.

A notification popped up on his screen. Recover Marshmallow. He ignored it.

“Sorry about Goo. I’m sure you understand.”

“I won’t let you throw them all away.”

“What’s your plan, then? What if I've had enough of this whole game? What if I’m ready for it all to end? How are you going to prevent that?”

“Suitcase and Knife-”

“Won’t help you. I dealt with them.”

“You can’t scare me with some big evil villain speech.”

OJ smacked a hand against the door. MePhone exclaimed and jumped back. OJ laughed. “Yes I can. That’s the only reason why I’d do it.”

“Please, just stay with me,” Paper muttered in OJ’s arms.

OJ paused. “You know, MePhone, there’s a lot of questions that I’d still like to ask you. Plenty of things that I’d like answered. But I’d hate to take too long on my ‘villain speech,’ and we wouldn’t want to wake Paper. I’m going to take him upstairs, and I’ll see you tomorrow night, same time,” he said, beginning to pick up Paper and carry him away, careful to avoid the blue puddle on the ground.

“Oh, and MePhone? If you want to keep this easy, you won’t recover her.”

Ballon tried his best to keep his breathing calm as he listened in from around the corner. OJ wasn’t himself. And Paper was never going to believe him.

Chapter Text

“Alright, my butterfly-winged friend. What’s the plan for all this biz?” Lightbulb asked. She and Bot were still stationed in Fan and Paintbrush’s room since the night before, and Bot had just explained everything that happened last night.

“Well,” Bot said, “we can’t trust Nickel, Soap, OJ, Pickle, or Bomb.” They were trying to come up with a plan, trying to focus on what they could do about all this instead of focusing on what happened. “I think the best we can do is either try to talk to MePhone, or go look for the missing contestants.”

Lightbulb suddenly looked very nervous. “Well that’s no problem for me! I’ll just go say hi to the Me-ster when I drop off some cookies for him.”

Bot got quiet. “Lightbulb, do you think they’re ok?”

“MePhone? Well if I were sitting alone in a closet all day, I’d-”

“No. Fan and Test Tube and…Paintbrush.”

“Of course! I trust Painty with…” Baxter crawled into Lightbulb’s hand. “...anything, really. And those three together? Not that is a powerhouse you don’t wanna mess with! I believe in the Lights.”

Bot smiled.

“Alright-y now. I’ll go bake some cookies for MePhone, and Baxter will stay here and protect you. If anything goes south, you just call for your Auntie Lightbulb, y’hear?”

Bot jumped up and hugged her. “I’m scared, Lightbulb.”

Lightbulb got down so she was eye level with them. She gave them a sincere smile. “I’m not.”

Microphone and Taco were playing cards in the lounge when Lightbulb passed by. Microphone was very focused on trying to make everything feel normal. The truth that she didn’t want to admit (maybe even to herself) was that even though Taco had used her, she still missed her company. She wanted to feel that connection with her again, however insincere it may be. So maybe if she could just play some games, if she could just pretend it was all fine, it would feel just like it did back when they would scheme together.

It didn’t.

“Her, I never understood,” Taco said, drawing a card.

“Lightbulb? What do you mean?” Microphone asked.

“She was always so insufferable and random, but gained allies anyway.”

Microphone played a queen of spades. “She was honest.”

“I feel like there’s a point you’re trying to make here.”

Microphone thought about how she wanted to phrase it for a moment. It always difficult speaking with Taco, and that never got easier. “Her team connected, and stayed together even after the split. Mine never did. Maybe that’s why.”

Taco raised an eyebrow. “There is no way you are trying to use Lightbulb of all people to teach me a lesson on honesty.”

Microphone smiled. “Is it working?”

“Uh…hi,” Balloon interrupted.

“Balloon.” Taco kept her eyes on her cards, disinterested.

“Taco, I was…” he looked around “...wondering if I could talk to you.”

Taco and Microphone exchanged a look. Microphone shrugged. Taco nodded.

“About what?” she asked.

OJ walked by, and Balloon gave him a fleeting glance. “I was wondering if I could talk to you alone.”

Taco threw a skeptical look at Microphone, and then stood up. “Fine. I suppose that would be alright.”

She retracted her arms, and Balloon led her back to his room. Taco kept shifting her eyes the way there, trying to make sure they didn’t run into MePad.

“So, what is this about? Some sort of redemption reminiscence? You want to talk, season one manipulator to season one manipulator?” Taco asked when they got there, giving him a condescending look.

“Taco, did you ever see anyone acting weird at night?” Balloon asked, cutting straight to the point.

Taco was taken aback by the question. This was not what she was expecting. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, while you were sitting in front of Pickle’s door, did you ever see anyone walk by at nighttime? Someone acting…off?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Someone like who?”

“Someone like…OJ?”

Her mind went back to Thursday night. She was having trouble falling asleep, but had her eyes closed anyways, when she heard footsteps. She opened her eyes, and saw OJ walking down the hall.

“Oh…didn’t know you were…awake,” he said when he reached her. The cadence in his voice sounded…strange, but in a way she couldn’t quite place a finger on. Yet before she could say anything back, he was already down the stairwell.

“...Why do you ask?” she ended up asking Balloon.

“So something did happen!” he exclaimed, almost relieved.

Taco sighed. “How bad is it?”

“What do you mean?” Balloon asked.

“Something clearly happened, and the fact you’re talking to me and not Paper means that you don’t think you can trust him. And if you’re trusting me, it’s obviously a last resort.”

He laughed nervously. “Well, it is good to see you in the hotel.”

“No it isn’t. Skip the pleasantries, what’s the danger?”

Balloon sighed. “I think OJ’s being…controlled.”

“Controlled? By who?”

“My guess would be Cobbs. He was talking last night to MePhone about how he’s got the ‘whole hotel in his pocket,’ and he, uh, used you as an example of how easily we can all be manipulated.”

Taco processed this for a moment. “...Ok, if this is Cobbs, then what does he want?”

“My guess is he’s trying to get to MePhone.”

“Alright then,” Taco said, extending her arms and brushing herself off.

“What do you mean ‘alright then?’”

“Let’s go talk to MePhone.”

Lightbulb was almost done baking cookies for MePhone. She made sure to make this batch with extra chocolate chips, that way he’d probably be more likely to talk to her. She certainly wasn’t the best at baking (Soap used to give her the worst death glares for the mess she would leave the kitchen in, and Baxter still refused any food she made), but MePhone always had a soft spot for home baked cookies, regardless of the quality.

As she scooped the dough into little cookie-sized spheres, her mind wandered back to season one. All of the cookies that they were all promised that he ate instead. She missed that MePhone, the one that was more focused on calling himself a fat slob for eating cookies and making fun of his contestants than anything else. She missed the MePhone that ran an Inanimate Insanity of fun and games, not the one where she was constantly trying not to think about where her friends were right now.

She let out a small sigh and smiled. They were fine. She believed in them. And they’d be back any day now.

“Uh, hey Lightbulb!” Baseball rudely interrupted her thoughts as she put the cookies in the oven.

“Baseball! My bro. How are ya?” she said, taking a step back from the oven to lean on the counter.

“I’ve, uh, been better. Have you seen Nickel?”

A fleeting part of her remembered Bot saying Nickel was one of the ones that couldn’t be trusted as she said “Nah, haven’t seen your five-cent friend in a couple’a days now. Why’dja ask?”

Baseball winced. “He hasn’t been in his room, and I haven’t seen him around the hotel since Saturday. I’m worried he’s…mad at me.”

Lightbulb sat up on the counter. “What makes you say that?”

He sighed and leaned against the wall. “We had an argument Saturday. He…it didn’t go well. He stormed off, and I haven’t seen him since.”

“Have you talked to Balloon?”

“Yeah, he said he saw him Saturday night, but not sooner. He said he found him ‘taking a spa bath,’ which just…” Baseball trailed off.

“What is it?” She had a feeling she wouldn’t like the answer.

“He doesn’t do that! Relaxation has never been his thing, unless you count back when he would play with his rubber ball. He’s been so different lately. Angrier. More sarcastic.” He looked at Lightbulb. “Sorry, I’m probably not making any sense.”

“No I get it! Everyone was so different when we came back. We missed a whole season! It was like meeting a bunch of old people that were new people.”

“No, it’s not that. He was different after season three, but this is a different different. He’s acting like he did…like he did before he was eliminated.”

Baseball looked down. Lightbulb had seen the way he reacted when he saw Nickel for the first time after coming back from the competition. She knew they were close friends, like her and Paintbrush. Paintbrush…who was also missing.

“I’m sure he’ll be back any day now! He probably just got lost or something, and is missing you as much as you’re missing him! I bet he’ll come back through the hotel’s front door before-”

“Sorry,” Baseball interrupted, shaking his head and stepping off the wall. “I shouldn’t have asked,” he said as he walked away.

Lightbulb put her head in her hands. She hadn’t cheered him up like she wanted to.

Balloon looked at the crack in the wall, at Taco, and then knocked on the stone door in front of him.

Silence.

“Uh, MePhone? It’s-”

“MePhone. It’s Taco,” Taco interrupted. “We know something’s up, and we know it revolves around you. Care to clue us in?”

Silence.

The two exchanged a look, and then, as if on cue, footsteps could be heard approaching them. Taco darted out of the way and into the nearby pool room on instinct, feeling her heart pounding. She had no real reason to hide right now, but old habits die hard.

She listened in on the ensuing conversation.

“Oh, hey OJ! What brings you all the way over here?” Balloon asked.

“I didn’t see you anywhere in the hotel and started to get a little worried. Don’t want you going missing or anything,” OJ said, with a tone in his voice that sounded a little…intense? The cadence was hard to place.

“Yeah, don’t want me going missing!” Balloon laughed nervously.

“So what are you doing over here?” OJ asked.

“Oh, just checking in on MePhone. Figured he could use a buddy right now.”

“...Why?”

Taco scrunched up her face. She knew Balloon had slipped up.

“Oh, just because, uh, Suitcase and Knife and those Bright Lights are still missing! And Nickel now, too. Did you hear about tha-” Balloon said before he just…stopped. He didn’t even have time to scream.

Taco threw a hand over her mouth when she heard the loud Pop! that followed.

“That’s that,” she heard OJ say as he walked away, and she checked around the corner before going back into the hallway.

Balloon was completely gone, but now she noticed the small puddle of blue on the ground.

The oven dinged with an echo of a Pop!, but Lightbulb shrugged and didn’t pay it much mind. She plated the cookies, and made it over to the old eliminated contestant closet, where she found…Taco.

“Uh, heya Taco! Heard you were around,” Lightbulb said, smiling to hide her nervousness.

“Lightbulb. It’s never a pleasure,” Taco replied.

“Ok, now that’s just mean.”

Lightbulb slid the plate under the door, eliciting a small “Thank you” from the other side.

Both Lightbulb and Taco rushed to the door, to the first time MePhone had said something, presumably to anyone in the hotel, in over a week.

“MePhone, please, what’s going on?” Taco said at the same time Lightbulb asked “MePhone, why’s everyone acting so weird?”

The two shared a look, as if to say “You know too?” Albeit Taco’s look seeming much more annoyed.

“I think she can help,” MePhone said quietly. He sounded so tired.

Lightbulb looked at herself, at Taco, and then back at the door. “Which one of us is the ‘she?’”

“No. Marshmallow.”

“Marshmallow?” Lightbulb and Taco exclaimed in unison.

MePhone let out a large sigh. As much as he hated to admit it, there was no way he was going to get out of this situation by himself. Cobbs was after him, and he was going to need all of the help he could get.

And so, with a shaky finger, he recovered Marshmallow.

Chapter Text

Marshmallow collapsed to the ground, forcing herself to get a breath in. She stayed there heaving for a few seconds before rushing to her feet, her eyes darting around as it slowly registered that she was somewhere she hadn’t been in a very long time.

“This isn’t…the mansion…” she huffed, still struggling to regulate her breathing. She felt more energized than she had in a week. She was so much lighter. Her whole body wasn’t weighing her down anymore, and her vision was finally clear again. It was hard for her mind to catch back up.

“Marshy! I thought you disappeared into the woods or something,” Lightbulb said, excited to see her old teammate.

Marshmallow looked up, and then jumped back. “Taco?! What are you doing here?”

Taco sassily put a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes. “Destroying your lives from the inside out.”

“Not really though, right? I was starting to get this vibe we were about to have an epic team up,” Lightbulb whispered.

Taco gave her a deadpan look, and then turned to the girl on the floor. “Marshmallow, you mentioned a ‘mansion.’ Were you referring to Purgatory Mansion, perhaps?” she asked Marshmallow, who was quickly becoming overwhelmed.

“...Yeah,” she said, feeling slightly ashamed to admit it. Her head felt like it was buzzing, but there was one thing in the back of her mind that kept trying to bite her. Something she kept trying to remember…

“Ah! So that’s where you’ve been hiding all this time,” Taco said, satisfied with herself.

Marshmallow’s eyes widened. “Have you all…been looking for me?”

Taco kept her mouth shut. She had much to say, but not now.

Lightbulb did not keep her mouth shut. “Well, Painty looked for a while, and I helped a bit, but after we couldn’t find you I assumed you just didn’t want to be found. I’m not sure if…I don’t know if they stopped”

Marshmallow froze. That was it. “Paintbrush! I have to get back!” she yelled, taking off before Taco stopped her, throwing a hand over her mouth and sending her to the floor.

Lightbulb hadn’t moved. Time seemed to stop for her. “You’ve seen Painty?” she whispered.

Marshmallow bit Taco’s hand, causing her grip to loosen, and crawled backward. “What the heck, Taco?”

“Keep your voice down! If MePhone waited to recover you, it’s probably because it would be dangerous for you to get caught,” Taco said, grabbing her wrist.

Marshmallow shook her off. “If I don’t get back now, he’s going to have a lot more to recover.”

Lightbulb forced her focus back on the situation at hand. She lit up with an idea. “I’ll keep the coast clear, and then meet you outside with Bot.” Taco nodded, and Lightbulb took a step forward before turning back. “Please don’t leave without me,” she whispered before she went into the lobby.

Marshmallow and Taco stayed behind in silence. Taco had been waiting for this moment. There was so much she wanted to say, but she figured not much of it would be something Marshmallow would want to hear. So, there they sat until Taco peaked around the corner and saw Lightbulb walk away with OJ and Soap up the stairs. The only people left in the lobby were Microphone and Paper.

In a split second, Taco got an idea.

“Alright, head for the door,” she ordered Marshmallow, who wasted no time hesitating. She then ran into the lobby, threw Paper over her shoulder, and yelled “Mic! Come on!” as she rushed after Marshmallow.

“Hey! Put me dmphphph!” Paper yelled, Taco shifting him on her shoulder to muffle his voice.

Microphone sighed, putting her cards down. “Taco, what are you doing?” she asked as she followed the three out the front door of the hotel.

Taco shrugged. “Let’s find out.” She could have said that she figured OJ probably had Paper fooled and she didn’t want him reinforcing whatever he was doing, but she didn’t say that. She could try to make herself nicer, but nothing could make her lose her love of messing with people.

The group barely had to wait before Lightbulb and Bot came crashing out of one of the windows, which was good, because Marshmallow hadn’t stopped running. Bot stretched their legs to touch the ground and break the two’s fall, and everyone kept running, chasing Marshmallow.

Lightbulb took note of the extra passenger Taco was carrying with her. “Woah, what’s with flatface?”

“He’s kind of pathetic,” Taco said, resulting in Paper’s kicks and muffled screams, trying to wrestle himself free.

Bot sped up their running so they could catch up with Marshmallow. “So, you’re Marshmallow, right?”

Marshmallow did a double take when she saw them (without stopping her pursuit toward the mansion). “Yeah, and you are…?”

“Oh, I’m Bot! It’s nice to meet you!”

Marshmallow stopped running for a moment. “You’re Bot?”

Bot looked around nervously. “Y-Yeah?”

“Huh,” Marshmallow said, picking up speed again. “I thought…hm. Test Tube told me a lot about you.”

“Wait, you’ve seen Test Tube?”

“Yeah, she’s at the mansion.”

“Well then what are we waiting for?” Bot said, stretching out their arms to pick up everyone in the group (eliciting a nervous yelp from everyone but Lightbulb, who let out a “wheeee!”), and then stretching out their legs, running so fast that Purgatory Mansion was visible in seconds. Bot carefully let everyone down at the porch, and Marshmallow quickly burst inside, Bot following behind.

The rest of the group, however, had other issues.

Paper shoved himself off of Taco. “What is your PROBLEM?!” he yelled. “First you try to ruin OJ’s season, then you’re in the hotel- which, if he’s chill with it, I’ll be chill with it- but then you do this? What was that? Where are we? What is wrong with you?” He looked like he was going to snap.

“‘OJ’s season,’” Taco scoffed in air quotes.

Microphone put herself between the two. “Alright Taco, what is going on here?”

“Oh shoot, do they not know?” Lightbulb asked.

“Know what?” Paper asked, exasperated.

“About like, the stuff with Bomb and Nickel and OJ and the…other…guys...” Lightbulb trailed off. Paper probably said something after that, or maybe it was Microphone, but she didn’t hear any of it. She stopped paying attention to anything when out of the corner of her eye she saw the glimpse of a familiar red-and-yellow friend through the open doors of the mansion.

Her legs went faster than her brain as she tackled him to the ground. She held him tight, tracing the crinkled edges of his paper with her hands. It had been way too long since she got to hold one of her partners. After a moment, she sat up so she could really look at him. His eyes were so tired, and a chunk out of the left side of his face was missing- no, not missing. She noticed the black marks around the area. Burned.

She rushed to her feet. “OMGA! Fan, what happened?”

He didn’t get a chance to respond before Marshmallow yelled “Guys! We need some help in here!” from the next room over.

Lightbulb ran to open the door to find…Paintbrush. Their bristles were in an aggressive flame, and they looked to be in severe distress. They wouldn’t stop screaming as Marshmallow, Apple, and Test Tube all struggled to keep them down on the ground. “...Painty?” Lightbulb whispered.

Microphone, Taco, and Paper ran in after her, with Paper taking a step back after seeing the fire that threatened to engulf the room.

“Quick! There’s Dr. Fizz on the counter!” Marshmallow yelled, doing her best to motion to the bar while she tried to hold Paintbrush down.

Taco took the initiative, grabbing the two liter bottle, screwing the cap off, and dumping it all on Paintbrush’s bristles. Paintbrush coughed as the fire went out, struggled against the three holding them down for a moment, and then passed out.

Marshmallow let out a deep sigh, and then smacked Test Tube. “I told you we were leaving Apple out of this!”

Apple tried saying something, but Test Tube talked over her. “We lost that luxury when the fires got so bad you died. We’re lucky we were able to hold them off this long. And you know Fan couldn’t help after-” Test Tube stopped herself when she saw Lightbulb. “Oh my golly gee,” she whispered, running over to hug her.

“Tube! What’s the uh, deal-io over here-io?” Lightbulb asked, trying her best not to focus too hard on Paintbrush.

Test Tube sighed. “It’s…been a long week.” She gave Lightbulb a kiss on the cheek. “But it’s so good to see you. What’s Taco doing here, though?” she whispered.

“Oh, I think she’s chill? Chill chili? She kinda knew about all the weird biz Bot was telling me about, so-”

“Wait, Bot?” Test Tube took a step back.

Lightbulb looked around. “Yeah, they…wait where did they go?”

Bot slowly walked up the mansion’s main staircase. They couldn’t explain it, but it felt as if they were being pulled forward, like they needed to be here.

One creaky wooden step after the other, with their hand guiding along the accompanying handrail. The walls were tired and worn, irradiating the feeling of tragedy. They looked at the painting on the wall. Four objects playing poker together. They wondered who they were. If they played here. If they used to live here. Who even lived here now?

They climbed to the top of the staircase, turning around the right corner. Floorboards creaked underneath them, and they didn’t know if that was a sign to turn back or keep going forward.

Voices echoed down the hall.

“Surely someone would have noticed?” one said. It was worried, and just faintly familiar. Bot knew the voice, but just barely couldn’t place it.

“You…he…whatever, was pretty convincing. I didn’t notice it wasn’t you until you- or, he- started blabbering some evil plan to MePhone.” That high-pitched squeaky voice they recognized.

They picked up the pace of their footsteps, searching for whatever room the voices could be hiding behind. They eventually settled on one, swinging the door open to find a closet full of ghosts.

Chapter Text

The Hotel OJ Party was a disaster, but Fan, Test Tube, and Paintbrush didn’t know that. The three Bright Lights were preoccupied with the false alarm of aliens that led to the reunion of an old friend. They sat on the wooden staircase, the three that stuck out the competition to the bitter end, and the two that left it (plus, the ghost that didn’t leave by choice).

“All this time,” Paintbrush mumbled, holding their face in their hands.

Marshmallow sat down next to them on the steps. “I’m sorry I couldn’t say anything. There was no way you were going to leave the competition, and I had to. It just wasn’t worth it anymore.”

“I’m…” Paintbrush paused. They wanted to choose their words carefully. They had been stressing over what happened to Marshmallow ever since she was disqualified, that was their friend for crying out loud, but seeing how happy she looked right now, how relieved, how alive...

They looked toward Apple and Bow. “I’m glad you found that worth.”

The irony here, of course, being that at that moment, Nickel went inanimate. But, of course, none of them knew that.

“How…how is the competition right now?” Marshmallow asked.

“It’s…been a wild ride. Season three was fun, though.”

Marshmallow looked at them wide-eyed. “Season three? I really should keep up. I thought you were still on season two.”

Paintbrush laughed. “We are. Or at least, Suitcase and Knife still are. Everything feels a little off right now.”

“Off…how?”

Paintbrush sighed. “I don’t know. I just have this feeling that no one wants to compete in the show anymore.”

Marshmallow elbowed them. “Taking after my lead, I see.”

“Heh. Maybe you had the right idea with all of this. I think more people are happier outside of the competition than when they’re in it, and I don’t know if the rest are happy at all.”

Back at the hotel, Soap fell victim to MePhoneX.

Marshmallow smiled. “I’m happy to see you.”

Paintbrush smiled back. “So, what have you been doing all this time?”

Marshmallow waved a hand and sighed. “Oh, it’s something new every day with these two. Something’s broken, something’s haunted, someone just wants attention. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, though.” She looked over at Bow and Apple, who were currently having a very animated conversation with Fan and Test Tube. Presumably, Bow was regaling them with the story of how she got her tail. It never got old. “I love these dorks.”

Paintbrush leaned back on the steps. “I know what that’s like. How is the mansion, anyway?”

Bomb was the next to fall.

Marshmallow shrugged. “Old. And I swear, sometimes it feels like it’s haunted,” she joked.

Paintbrush laughed.

“How’s the hotel?”

“Never boring, that’s for sure. The other day I caught Fan and Test Tube trying to light my bristles on fire to see if they would light the same way as when I’m mad.”

“Do they?”

“I don’t know! But that’s not something I want to find out when I’m trying to enjoy lunch.”

Marshmallow laughed. “So the Lights stuck together?”

Paintbrush smiled. “We sure di-” they stopped themself. They heard a faint noise outside the mansion, one that felt like it was getting closer. A loud, commanding buzzing noise. The louder it got, the more it started to sound like some sort of alarm.

“Paintbrush, are you ok?” Marshmallow asked.

They stood up. “What’s that?” they gestured to nowhere in particular.

“What’s…what?”

“That noise…” They walked over to the front door and slowly creaked it open, garnering the attention of Fan, Test Tube, Bow, and Apple.

“You alright Paintbrush?” Fan asked.

They didn’t respond, continuing their pursuit outside the mansion. “...MePhone?” they said as a rectangular figure darted past in the woods.

“Paintbrush, what’s going on?” Test Tube asked with a bit of a wavery voice, slowly walking out of the mansion to follow them.

Paintbrush kept their eyes fixated on the figure in the woods. Its shadow kept getting faster, closer. They jumped back when it appeared in front of them, a new kind of MePhone, one they hadn’t seen before. They threw their hands in front of their face, trying to shield themself as they screamed.

And then, it stopped. It all stopped.

Everything felt…blurry. Like they were floating around in nothing at all. They tried to look around, but couldn’t. They didn’t have eyes to look around with, nor ears to hear or hands to feel or a mouth to shout into the void. It was all…nothing. Nothing at all.

They tried to think, tried to focus, tried to feel where they were. The more they focused their thoughts, the more they felt themself start to come back. They focused on their hand, on just trying to feel it open and close, and soon enough whispers of it began to appear. Then the fleeting form of an arm, then two.

They rubbed their hands together, cold and unfeeling, as if they weren’t in a solid state. Their hands blended into each other, rivers flowing into an ocean. Cold water.

They brought their hands up to their face, and it slowly began to take shape with a cold texture. Cold water, then cold metal, then cold plastic, then cold glass, and then every other surface it possibly could have taken. Round, sharp, unsmoothed edges. They tried to focus on themself, but there was so much static. Their mind felt so cluttered and fleeting, like one moment of broken concentration and they would never be themself again. They felt around their face, and slowly the small grooves and ridges of wood began to form. Then, the edges of their head. The familiar cold metal of their hairband. Their bristles: sharp yet soft, with what was beginning to become split ends. All of the details of themself that they were familiar with, that they were comfortable with.

And then, they opened their eyes.

It was dark, but not “the void” dark, just “trapped in a closet” dark.

They reached forward to open the door, and watched as their hand phased through. They brought their arm up to their face, studying the translucent tan that was usually black. They slowly reached for the door again, this time allowing it to go all the way through, outstretching their hand on the other side to feel the coldness. They took a deep breath (or rather, mimicked the action, as no air flew through them), and pushed themself forward, only to find the other side to be the halls of the very mansion they were just in.

They noticed that they no longer had legs, only a wispy tail, but that wasn’t the focus on their mind when they saw Bomb, Soap, Nickel, Pickle, and OJ sharing ghostly forms in the hallway with them. Soap sat (to the best of her ability) curled into herself against the wall, Nickel had himself perched on the ceiling, OJ was pacing around, Bomb seemed to be having a conversation with him, and Pickle was at the corner of the hall staring out a window.

“Oh great, not you too,” OJ sighed.

“What…was that?” Paintbrush asked, studying their hands again. Everything felt so cold, and they could feel the wind blowing through them.

“Congrats, you’re a ghost! It sucks,” Nickel said.

“What happened?” Paintbrush asked.

“It’s been the same thing for all of us,” Soap said, her voice having lost the uplifting cadence it usually held. “Heard a weird alarm, saw a new MePhone, the nothingness, and then here.”

“Y-Yeah,” Bomb agreed.

Paintbrush took a moment to look past all of them at Pickle. He hadn’t moved or said anything at all, just staring out the window with his arms crossed and dead eyes.

“He’s been like that even since I got here,” OJ whispered to Paintbrush. “We tried talking to him, but…” he trailed off, shrugging.

Soap sighed and leaned against the wall (to the best of her ability). “I wonder if anyone else is going to…you know,” she said, changing the subject.

“Do you think we’re dead?” Paintbrush asked.

“We’re ghosts, Paintbrush. It doesn’t get more ‘dead’ than that,” Nickel deadpanned.

They trailed a hand along the wall. That’s right, I’m still in the mansion, they thought, following the hallway to the left.

“Paintbrush, where are you going?” OJ asked, his voice just the slightest bit frantic.

They didn’t say anything, just followed the wall down the old hallway, then around the corner, then around another corner, and finally to the stairwell. The mansion looked even more degraded than it did when they had last been there, if that was even possible. They zoomed to the main stairwell of the mansion, only to find Marshmallow and Bow comforting Apple in the corner, and a crying Fan holding…their body.

Bow was the one who noticed them. “No. Flippin’. Way,” she said, tapping Marshmallow on the shoulder to get her attention.

Marshmallow gasped when she saw them. “No…then that means…” she whispered.

Fan was too trapped in his own little world to notice that they said anything, or even to notice that his partner that he was holding was at the top of the staircase. He kept muttering little half-sentences to himself: “This is- MePhone has- recoverable, it’s all- he could never- they’re right here- and she wouldn’t- I can’t-”

Paintbrush gently floated down the stairs. It was a feeling they couldn’t describe, seeing their own lifeless body in front of them. It made them feel colder than they already were. They floated down next to Fan, and nervously tried to tap him on the shoulder, watching a chill run through him as their hand phased through.

He slowly turned around, and his eyes got wide as he saw them.

They expected him to jump back, but he jumped forward instead, phasing right through them and crashing to the floor with a thud. He pushed himself back up and stared at them, Marshmallow, Apple, and Bow staring at them too. No one knew what to do, much less what to say. It felt like everyone was on pause.

Fan reached out to hold their hand, and shuddered as it went through. He took a step back and then ran out the front door of the mansion, careful to avoid running through Paintbrush. “Test Tube!” he called out as he left.

Paintbrush stayed there in the lobby, unclear of what to do. It was finally starting to settle in. They were dead. Dead dead.

Bow floated over and grabbed their hand. She gave them a smile. “Don’t worry, the whole ‘being dead’ thing is totally cool when you get used to it. And the mansion isn’t that bad.”

Paintbrush didn’t say anything. This was all too fast. They weren’t about to accept that this was permanent, but weren't about to offend Bow, either.

“Golly gee whiz,” Test Tube whispered as she slowly stepped into the mansion. She walked up to Paintbrush, reached out to hug them, but then pulled back. She wiped her face with her hands, clearly trying to keep it all together. “This is…manageable,” she eventually said.

Marshmallow walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. Apple gave Fan a hug.

“There’s…more up there,” Paintbrush said after a moment.

“What do you mean?” Fan asked.

“There’s more ghosts. OJ and others.”

“Pft, there’s no way,” Bow said, ascending the staircase.

The rest of them followed, Paintbrush giving a passing look at their body in the lobby as they left.

“Bow?!” OJ and Bomb shouted in unison when they saw her. Soap and Nickel didn’t seem to care, and Pickle was still unresponsive.

“Wow, you can’t just come into my house and then gawk at me for being here,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“What does ‘gawk’ mean?” Apple whispered to Marshmallow.

“Bow, have you been here all this time?” OJ asked.

“Well, duh. Where else would I be?” Bow said.

Did you know about this? OJ mouthed to Test Tube.

Of course not, she mouthed back.

“What…happened to you guys? Is it the same thing that just happened to Paintbrush?” Fan asked.

“Some dumb new MePhone took me from my best friend,” Soap muttered, holding her arms together.

“Ditto,” Nickel said from the ceiling, startling Fan when he saw him.

“Wait…a MePhone did this?” Fan asked, taking a small step back.

Pickle scoffed, causing OJ to look at him. He almost asked him about it, but took a breath and decided not to. “Yeah. I can’t even imagine the panic it must have caused at the hotel,” he said to the group.

“Especially with all of you lying around like that…” Paintbrush mumbled.

Soap looked up at them. “...What do you mean?”

Paintbrush shared a look with Fan and Test Tube, and then waved her over. Soap hesitated, but floated over, with Bomb and Nickel following behind. Pickle stayed unmoving, which at this point was to be expected, but OJ also stayed put. He had his arms wrapped together, and he kept staring at the floor.

“Uh, OJ? You ok?” Nickel asked.

“I just don’t know if we should leave,” OJ said. “I mean, what if MePhone tries to recover us, but he can’t because we’re out of range? I don’t want to mess up my chance of going back to the hotel.”

“No offense dude, but I think if MePhone could recover us we wouldn’t be here right now,” Nickel said.

Bomb floated over and grabbed his hand. “C-C-C’mon OJ.”

OJ sighed. “Ok.”

The group started back downstairs, except for Marshmallow. She lightly tapped Apple and Bow (or rather, tapped Apple and phased through Bow) to get their attention. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.

“What do you mean?” Apple asked.

“This is our house! And now there’s a bunch of new ghosts in it, and Paintbrush just died here, and what if the thing that attacked them comes back?”

“Marsh, hun, I’ve scared like a bajillion people out of the mansion before already. If this weird MePhone comes back, I’ll just scare it away too! Besides, it’s not like there’s much it can do to me anyway,” Bow said.

Marshmallow grabbed Apple’s hand and held it tight. “I just want to keep you both safe.”

Apple pulled her into a hug. “Don’t worry Marsh, we’re probably too short for it to get us anyway.”

Marshmallow laughed. “You’re probably right.”

The three walked back to the rest of the group together, happy to be in each other’s company. But Marshmallow just couldn’t shake a horrible feeling. She loved living at the mansion. She loved living there with Apple and Bow (and Dough). She didn’t want any of that to change.

“He’s going to blame himself! He always does…” OJ’s voice echoed in the lobby, among the panicked chatter of the other ghosts. “I shouldn’t have freaked out so much, or screamed so loud- ugh! What could he have been thinking when he saw that?”

“I was trying to talk her down…this must have made it so much worse…” Soap mumbled to herself, pacing in circles.

Bomb kept chewing on his hand (or, trying to. It was hard when your hand kept phasing through your face), rambling to himself.

Nickel was the only one not saying anything. He stayed there on the ground, staring at Paintbrush’s body.

Paintbrush themself was uncomfortable looking at it. “This was a bad idea,” they whispered to Test Tube and Fan.

“No,” Fan said, “it’s good to know the truth.” He looked up at them. “Even when the truth sucks, it’s good to know the truth.”

Paintbrush smiled. “You probably heard that online somewhere.”

Fan shrugged. “Maybe. Still true.”

Marshmallow, Apple, and Bow nodded at each other with a plan. Bow let out a loud scream, quickly quieting the room. “That’s better,” she said, smiling. “Ok peeps, you’re like, pretty dead right now. So until that changes, you’re gonna have to live here, with us! I’ll give you a tour so y’all can like, calm down.” She motioned for the ghosts to follow her.

Apple and Marshmallow ran over to Paintbrush, Fan, and Test Tube. “Paintbrush, can we move your body?” Apple asked.

“So you don’t have to look at it,” Marshmallow added.

Paintbrush hesitated, but nodded.

“I’ll help,” Test Tube said, following the two while Fan stayed behind with the ghost.

“You…want to talk about it?” he asked them.

“You want to interview me now?” they asked.

He smiled and gave them a shrug. “Not what I meant, but we could if you wanted to. I’ve never interviewed a ghost before.”

Paintbrush laughed. “Maybe another time. I don’t think I’ve even processed what happened yet. But…thanks.”

Apple, Marshmallow, and Test Tube moved Paintbrush’s inanimate body to the bar room and closed the door behind them, a temporary solution while Bow continued her tour around the mansion. The three joined Fan and Paintbrush on the main stairway, and a couple of hours later Bow and the rest of the ghosts joined them. Everyone was expecting another attack. Marshmallow kept her hand firmly grasped in Apple’s, and kept shifting her eyes around. Test Tube kept an eye on the door, as if the MePhone was going to politely walk in. Fan, though, kept trying to get service on his cell phone. He felt if he could get in contact with someone at the hotel, he’d be able to put the pieces together and figure it all out. Maybe he could save them.

The lobby was deafeningly quiet. Everyone was either listening intently for an alarm, or simply felt too anxious to say anything. A thick tension blanketed the air, and no one was willing to cut through it.

After about an hour of silence, it was cut for them. Or rather, burned.

A crackling sound emitted from the nearby room. Marshmallow was the first to notice it, jumping up and quickly putting herself between Apple and the noise. She took a few cautious steps forward, and opened the door to the bar. She jumped back as the flames quickly rushed to bite her.

“What’s going o-” Test Tube said as she ran over to help her, stopping herself when she saw the source of the flames.

Paintbrush, or perhaps just their body, was in a frantic state, with fire snapping from their head and threatening to engulf the room, some sparks already blinking off and lighting the walls as their voice strained from screaming.

“We have to put this out before they burn down the mansion,” Marshmallow said, rushing to turn on the bar’s sink and point the nozzle at the small flames blossoming on the walls. Apple ran in after her to help.

Test Tube darted her eyes around the room, studying for the most logical next step in putting out the fire. She settled on Paintbrush’s body, tackling them down onto the tile to prevent the flames from further spreading to the walls.

Fan ran in after her, not hearing her “Fan, wait!” as he helped pin Paintbrush on the ground, and some of the fire transferred over to his head.

Test Tube acted in a split second, kicking Fan back so no more fire would spread, smacking Paintbrush to the floor to keep them there, and quickly grabbing a bottle of Dr. Fizz from the bar counter as Fan held his head and screamed in pain. She dunked the bottle of soda on him, leaving him a tad soggy, but soggy was better than on fire. After a second of making sure he was ok and breathing normally, she ran back to keep Paintbrush on the ground.

Paintbrush’s ghost tried to fly into the room to help them, but Bow held them back. “Ghosts can’t go near fire, dingus!” she said.

“I need to help them…somehow,” Paintbrush said.

Bow tightened her grip. “Trust me, Marsh and Apple got this.”

Marshmallow and Apple finished extinguishing the rest of the fire that had spread, and Paintbrush themself was all that was left. Marshmallow ran over to help Test Tube hold their body down (careful to make sure the fire didn’t reach her) while Apple stayed manning the sink.

In a matter of minutes, the fire was out, and Paintbrush stopped struggling, passing out on the floor. Marshmallow and Test Tube sat back, both breathing heavily.

“Marshmallow, are you ok?” Apple asked, running over to check on her girlfriend.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you alright?” Marshmallow said, grabbing her hands.

“Just a little scared. What..uh…what happens to Bow if the mansion burns down?”

Marshmallow threw a hand over her mouth. She hadn’t even thought of that.

Test Tube stumbled over herself running to Fan, cupping his face in her hands. “Are you alright?” she asked, tracing the burn marks around his edge. At least it hadn’t gotten so bad it reached his eye.

“I’m covered in soda, Test Tube,” he said, forcing a laugh. She placed her forehead to his and laughed with him. They needed that right now.

The days blended together after that. Every now and then, Paintbrush’s body would wake up and try to start a new fire, so Test Tube and Marshmallow set up a system where they took turns patrolling the bar and extinguishing Paintbrush, Marshmallow making a point that Apple would not be on watch duty.

The ghosts stayed together upstairs, out of the line of fire, so to speak. Paintbrush in part because of how terrifying it was to see their body in such a state.

Fan, for the most part, stayed on the front steps of the mansion, keeping an eye out for whatever was threatening its residents. When she wasn’t on watch duty, Test Tube would join him, leaning on his shoulder as they stared outside together. On their second night in the mansion, after double-checking that their body was currently passed out, Paintbrush joined the two.

“Do you think Lightbulb’s ok?” Fan asked, staring at the dusk falling on the grass outside.

Paintbrush solemnly smiled. “Knowing her? Not at all. But she’ll pretend like she is until she finds us.”

“And with the way she stumbles into solutions, that should be soon enough, right?” Fan said with a laugh.

Paintbrush sighed. They looked over at Test Tube, who had fallen asleep by now. “Right. At least her and Bot have each other.”

Fan rubbed a hand against his forehead. “Oh, don’t remind me. The only thing keeping me from worrying about them is knowing they’re safe from all this.”

Paintbrush almost pointed out that the danger present in the next room over could also be at the hotel, but figured Fan already put those pieces together. There was no way he wasn’t planning out every possible danger in his head.

“And they would be fine anyway,” they said. “They’ve got some pretty good role models.”

Fan looked at them. It looked like he was barely holding it together. “I know I can’t exactly hold your hand right now, but would you mind pretending?”

Paintbrush tried not to show how much that hurt. “I’d like that.” They placed their hand in Fan’s, wincing as it went through. He was right there, but just barely out of reach.

The week pressed on ever so slowly, and everyone only got more and more tired. The fires from Paintbrush’s body only seemed to get worse and worse every day, leaving Test Tube and Marshmallow more on edge, and everyone around them more worried. Fan kept himself awake so he could run in and help if necessary, but that was just one more sleep-deprived person. Apple mostly stayed upstairs with the ghosts, partly because Marshmallow pleaded with her to stay far away from the fire, and partly because it hurt so much to see someone she deeply cared for in the state she was in right now.

In between all of the chaos, though, there were a few spare conversations here and there. At one point when she couldn’t sleep, Test Tube sat with Marshmallow and told her all about Bot and how proud of them she was. When Marshmallow briefly went upstairs to check if Dough still had himself stuck in the TV (he did), she ended up in a long discussion with OJ about the similarities and differences between the hotel and the mansion. Bow ended up catching up with the other season one contestants, but Pickle still kept to himself. Everyone was initially annoyed at OJ’s constant ramblings of all that probably needed to be done in the hotel at that moment, but over time it started to feel more like a podcast, like something to listen to while passing the time. Fan ended up finding himself conducting mini-interviews with the ghosts that wandered down the stairs to see just how bad the fires coming from Paintbrush’s body were (which had gotten to the point where not even Paintbrush themself was comfortable coming downstairs anymore).

A little over a week after all of the mess went down at Purgatory Mansion, however, was when everything went wrong. The system was beginning to fall apart. Test Tube and Marshmallow were almost at their limits, and every fire that started from Paintbrush was getting harder and harder to put out.

Tensions were high already when Goo’s ghost appeared in the mansion Sunday night, and Monday night, it all became too much.

It was Marshmallow’s shift to watch Paintbrush, and she wasn’t doing too well to begin with. Every part of her body felt like it was being weighed down, and the edges of her vision were beginning to get blurry. A small part of her wished she could die and be recovered so she didn’t have to feel this exhausted. She sat on the bar with a hand on the sink as she watched Paintbrush, staying vigilant for the next time they would wake back up and try to set the mansion ablaze.

But this time was different. Marshmallow hadn’t noticed, but she must have drifted off, because when she startled herself back up, Paintbrush was gone. She dropped the nozzle of the sink and jumped off the counter when she heard the crackle behind her. She whipped around to find Paintbrush standing next to the far wall, head flames pointed at the wood.

“Oh no you don’t,” she mumbled, grabbing their body to pull them to the floor, but they didn’t budge. They didn’t move at all. And the flames kept rising.

She changed her strategy, grabbing the detachable nozzle from the sink and pointing it at the wall when she noticed how different Paintbrush was acting than usual. For the past week, their movements had been sporadic and without any order, but this felt…calm, almost. Deliberate. They weren’t even screaming. They were dead silent.

It was that moment of hesitation looking at Paintbrush that was her downfall. The room was beginning to rise in temperature, hot air enclosing around Marshmallow. Paintbrush turned, taking slow steps toward her. The water wasn’t doing anything to stop them.

They were mumbling something faintly under their breath, soft whispers that didn’t feel like their own words. “MePhone, I’ve got this whole hotel in my pocket.”

Marshmallow slowly stepped back, her unsteady hands still pointing the sink nozzle at her friend. Her blood ran cold when she realized she was fully backed up against the bar. The air was thick with smoke, and she heaved hard just trying to get enough oxygen to breathe. Paintbrush was still mumbling something, but it was hard for Marshmallow to focus on as she felt her skin begin to bubble and singe around the edges. She spent the last of her oxygen screaming for Test Tube to come help as she burned up in flames.