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oh how he hated thunderstorms
After various weeks of hot and painful summer, autumn finally arrived, and it was the rainy season again! The whole hotel was very excited about it, of course. Can you imagine all the fun things you can do on a cozy day like this? Everyone was happy about the chaotic weather!...
… Everyone, except one object
A certain grumpy coin laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling, motionless, with the most annoyed expression you can get from him. God, how he hated thunderstorms. The sound of several raindrops hitting against the window filling the silent room wasn't helping much. He groaned before closing his eyes and tried to ignore the sound
Don't get him wrong, he loves the rain! It's calm, moody and it naturally watered the plants and flowers! It was good for the environment and also quite nice; storms were on a middle point, they were a bit loud and did some damage to the trees and different plants, but they still had its charm.. Thunderstorms, however, don't even get him started. Not only were they horrendously loud and extremely damaging to the green life surrounding the hotel, but he also couldn't step outside! The lighting was quick to catch him if he even DARED to take a peek and he didn’t want to die and be revived over and over again just for "some stupid lightning" so he was stuck inside the hotel, waiting for his end to come
The coin continued groaning and rolling on the bed, gradually getting more and more annoyed by the sound of the harsh rain outside; it was so frustrating, he couldn't even gather his thoughts around, the only coherent one being-
—GHAA!
The coin jumped from the bed, now sitting straight on it as a sudden loud thud was heard, at the same time as a loud thunder and… Was that a scream at the end?
Nickel looked around, scanning the room for a moment before his eyes landed on a certain salmon colored balloon.
The coin parted his lips lightly but got interrupted before a sound could come out of his mouth; Balloon had immediately shut the door closed and approached the window in front of the desk, desperately climbing on it and closing the curtains, getting startled by some harsh sounds from outside in the process. Nickel limited himself to simply stare and analyze every tiny movement balloon made, a dumbfounded expression on his face perhaps trying to find an answer in every action perhaps and just when balloon seemed to finally calm down, another thunder hit outside, this time the static of it combined by his anxious mood dragged him to the nearest wall. Nickel chuckled at the sight.
—... Are you scared of lightning? —the coin finally spoke, looking at the other who was still stuck on the wall
—what?! No! It's just… —Balloon said as he gestured nothing with his hands in a dramatic manner, then pushed himself out of the wall and began to slowly fall —I'm not very fond of these kinds of storms, alright? They are loud, harsh and can kill you any second now! —he put his arms up defensively as he finally reached the ground, then dusted himself off and sighed, now actually calming down —I do not appreciate getting popped… —he approached his bed, gently laying on it and quietly groaning
Nickel chuckled again, forgetting why he was mad earlier, or that he was mad in the first place —yeah, you don't say
Both objects stayed quiet in the room, the harsh sound of the water and wind outside filling the silence. It wasn't a good moment, to say the least. An unpleasant mixture of emotions increased between the pair, going from anxiety to a weird sensation in their stomachs. The silence continued for minutes that felt like hours until another loud lightning struck nearby, startling them, balloon barely being able to control the helium inside him to avoid getting dragged to the wall again. They exchanged glances, almost like looking for something into each other's eyes but ultimately failing, making them dart their gazes away
—... Why are you not with the rest? You like hanging out with them more than I do —the coin decided to break the silence, focusing on the window beside him
Balloon sighed again —well you know Suitcase and Baseball are enjoying the rain outside, so, uh, Bot is with their parents making some updates to their program, Cabby is outside too along with Trophy, yin-yang and Cherries taking pictures… —Balloon began rambling as he counted the objects with his fingers —... Pickle, Knife and soap are playing video games but, and I don't think this is the best moment to hang out with Knife… Mic is outside too, but not sure what she is doing, and uhm… Paintbrush is trying to stop Lightbulb from sabotaging Fan and Test tube's work on Bot's updates, and Silverspoon-
—alright, alright I get it!
They stayed quiet again. Balloon brought his knees up to his face, hiding the lower part of it on them and wrapping his arms around, hugging them as tight as he could while he squished his eyes shut, letting his mind wander around a bit. Balloon felt extremely anxious right now, even if he was inside the hotel, safe, he couldn't help but feel scared, the thought of popping over and over again... the thoughts quickly got to his head, making him tremble at the simple thought of it. The fear. The pain. Everything was abruptly brought back to him, all at once
suddenly it was just him
and then a gentle touch snapped him out of his thoughts
—hey. uhm, do you wanna play uno? —Nickel was now standing in front of him on the bed, pushing a pack of uno cards towards balloon’s feet and looking at balloon with his usual monotone expression. balloon took a moment to gather his thoughts around, soon noticing a few tears quietly sliding down his rubber cheeks; he tried to wipe them off without making it much of a deal as it seemed like nickel ignored it, since he didn’t point it out
—yeah, yeah sure —balloon responded quietly as he took the pack of cards and began equally handing out the cards
nickel sat down in front of balloon on his bed, taking the cards balloon was handing him, the helium filled object wondered how the coin in front of him could take the cards with his feet… Actually, he could literally do almost anything with his feet, isn't that odd? How was that possible at all? And he used both feet, would that make him ambidextrous?
Balloon accidentally zoned out while handing out the cards, thinking about how nickel could grab the cards so easily with his feet, then what would be the feet equivalent of ambidextrous, then how object anatomy even worked, and then-
—uhm… so… are we gonna play or?... —Nickel said awkwardly, looking at the side to avoid Balloon's stare
Balloon quickly shook his head, then gave nickel an embarrassed smile as he took his cards and placed one in the middle of the two objects
—oh, sorry, heh…
Nickel nodded understanding, then placed a card on top of balloon's
The two objects played uno, completely forgetting about the thunderstorm outside
It was common for occurrences like these to happen, Balloon feels down, Nickel indirectly does something about it, and vice versa. Somehow, neither of them have caught up on the other’s acts of service, brushing it off as “he is just in a good mood” or “he is nice like this to everyone” or even convincing themselves that its probably out of pity. regardless of what they thought the reason was, they appreciated it anyway, in their own ways, of course; said acts of service gradually turned into an unspoken competition between the two of them to see who was nicer, because of course it did
In the end, they both benefited from each other’s attention, and sure they still had other friends to get attention from, but something about the other’s specific care was… different… it was almost as if no one could understand them the same way the other did, not even the nicest and most sympathetic object out there, and it made sense at some extend, they were so similar, they went through similar situations but dealt with them differently; their souls were made of the same thing… and yet, they still had a particular individuality that complemented the other, like two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly, it was as if they were meant to be the same soul, but somehow got split in half
—uno! —balloon exclaimed, placing a red 6 card on the pile of used cards
—what the hell man! —nickel protested letting go of his useless 10 remaining cards —you cheated, didn't you?!
Balloon giggled at Nickel's denial of losing; he knew his friend was a bad loser (and a bad winner, actually) but he personally found it very endearing, it looked like he was an angry pug
—yeah, yeah, surely I cheated Nickel, it's totally not that you don't know how to play u-! —balloon's sentence was cut short by a pillow slamming straight against his rubber face. The salmon colored one fell onto the bed and groaned, blinking twice before looking up with confusion, finding Nickel in front of him, the later one biting a pillow and attempting to hover over him
No words needed to be said
As soon as balloon caught onto what was going on, a fierce battle started; pillows flew everywhere and the uno cards were soon scattered all over the room. Once they ran out of soft things to throw (and balloon was on the other corner of the room) Nickel began using balloon's plushies as a defense, gaining a loud “hey!” that left him satisfied… At some point, Balloon realized he couldn't win against the merciless attacks from nickel- how was that even possible?! The guy was armless!
Just as he considered giving up and letting nickel have this victory, a brilliant idea came up inside his mind
In a swift motion, Balloon jumped to Nickel's bed, crawled onto the tall drawers beside the bed and launched himself into the air with his paws, his current floating position making it hard for the other to aim at him
—w- hey! Stop cheating!! —Nickel barked, letting go of the salmon fish plushie he was gonna use to hit Balloon
—I'm not cheating! I can't do anything about being full of helium! —Balloon snickered, crossing his arms as he very slowly fell
Despite the situation, Nickel couldn't help but crack a tiny smile on the corner of mouth, and said smile didn't go unnoticed by Balloon, who returned the smile with enthusiasm
Unfortunately, their moment didn't last long
Just as balloon was inches away from touching the bed, a loud thunder struck outside right near their room, the electricity almost dragging Balloon back to the ceiling, but before that could happen, he grabbed onto Nickel, who let himself fall onto the mattress, successfully bringing balloon down with him…
… Now an absolutely terrified balloon and a worried coin laid on the bed
Nickel slowly opened his eyes and shifted his gaze to his left side, where balloon was clinging
He felt tense
He quite literally had no idea of what to do, he didn't know how to react or what he was supposed to say in a situation like this. Usually he wouldn't care about other objects, after all it was easy to detach himself from situations that weren’t exactly his business, he didn’t have to care… Did he?..
… well, this was certainly business and he couldn’t deny
—pst… Balloon.. —Nickel whispered, shuffling a little closer to his scared friend —remember the time we gaslit Yin-yang into believing their colors were reversed.. and that everyone was pretending their colors were okay because they wanted to spare their feelings
Balloon blinked twice at Nickel, the tears that had gathered in the corner of his eyes disappearing as he did. it took him a moment to fully process what the other had said, the heat of the conductive metal helping him calm down further, and once he did, he simply nodded, the memories of that chaotic day replaying in his mind
—it was a funny week wasn't it? seeing them lose their minds over it, and then how they chased us down the halls after Cabby told them we were just messing with them —the coin continued, noticing balloon snuggling closer to him but deciding to ignore it, as nervous as it made him
Balloon was taking his time listening to nickel, remembering that week many months ago.. then he smiled, and it took everything in nickel to not smile back
Nickel realized this was working, so he continued talking about their funny antics, all the fun and silly things they got into over the years, all the nice memories and as well as some unfortunate ones that they could laugh at now. Balloon's mind starting wandering off, lost in the other's voice that was uncharacteristically calm
The storm continued outside, but the two objects were too busy inside their shared bubble to care, with occasional lighting making balloon yelp a bit before going back to giggling with nickel, who only snuggled closer to balloon
Time passed; probably hours, probably only a few minutes, but by the time they were done talking, their eyes were already closed as they rested close to the other, the metal coin serving as some sort of comfort plushie for his rubber friend
suddenly, it was just the two of them
the two puzzle pieces finally connected