#you can imagine both they and lightbulb were made that way as contestants. that's the archetype they were made to full

[smile-files]

now this, this is fascinating!

even before any kind of reveal, test tube is under the impression that a contestant's existence is dependent on the game they're in -- she doesn't think this season should exist, that it's a mistake, and likewise, she doesn't think these contestants should exist either, that they're a mistake too: a mistake as a by-product of the mistake that is inanimate insanity infinity ever occurring as a season. she doesn't even think that these new characters could've already existed, living their own lives, just recruited by salt and pepper... no, she thinks they were made. and...

...oh. damn.

yeah okay the twist wasn't even a twist, was it?

[manygeese]

LONG AWAITED CHAPTER EIGHT GUYS!!!!

The park in the middle of town got scary when it was dark, Jason discovered. It wasn’t much of a surprise, though.

Forests were different creatures after the sun set. One time, when he was still a toddler, he had gotten lost in the woods behind their mansion because Thalia was at school and nobody else had bothered to keep an eye on him. He had wandered into somebody’s yard the next morning, at which point the old lady that lived there reported the missing child to the police. Thalia had run all the way over, with their semi-drunk mother stumbling behind her. Ever since, his vivid imagination ran especially free in the shade of a darkened forest.

“Leo? Leo!” Jason would love to say that he shouted, but it came out like a frightened whisper. “Are you out here?”

The lightbulb in the street lamp buzzed and flickered, the crickets chirped like an orchestra, and the owls’ hoots echoed through tree branches, but there was no further response.

Back at the farm, before the sun had set, he and Piper had sat in silence till she had spoken up. “Give me a call if you see Leo on the way home.” With that, she had waved goodbye, gone back into her house, and left him alone on the porch.

He had done more than that. He had searched in the shopping center, all up and down Main Street, near the school, and at the Italian restaurant on Bluebonnet Avenue. Which, having found zero pretty boys named Leo there, led him to his final resort: the park.

“Leo?” He tried, a little louder.

“Jason?” The confused answer came. “What are you doing here?”

“Leo, thank goodness,” Jason breathed, numb with relief, both at having found the other man and not having to be alone in the woods anymore. “It’s ten at night,” he admonished, flicking out his wristwatch to take a look at the time. “I was worried about you.”

Leo raised one of his eyebrows. “How did you know I wasn’t at the farm?”

Jason pulled at his shirt collar. “Um, I may or may not have heard your whole fight, and Piper was really concerned, so she told me to keep an eye out for you.”

“And this made you search frantically through the park for me?” Leo asked, smug.

“Yes.”

Leo seemed stunned by his answer, stiffening against the tree he leaned on.

“You should rest, Leo. I don’t know what made you run off, but I’m sure it was tiring, right?”

Jason had run away several times as a teen. Sometimes, he escaped through the woods. Sometimes, he just didn’t come home from school and crashed at a friend’s. The end result was always the same, though. An exhausted and defeated Jason would come home to a father who would jump at the chance to shout at him. Keeping that in mind, he tried to do what he wished somebody would have done for him when he had run away.

“Yeah. I’m a little tired. Honestly, I don’t know what I was planning on doing if you hadn’t gotten here, I just have absolutely no energy,” Leo laughed.

Jason furrowed his brow and offered Leo a hand, hoisting him up when he took it. Leo clung to Jason’s arm as he tried to not stumble over his feet too much. He let out a nervous giggle, muttering something about his legs having fallen asleep when he noticed Jason staring down at him. “Are you sure you can get home safely, Leo?” Jason asked when the silence got old.

Leo shivered and sighed, looking to the side self consciously. He shook his head, but it was only a minute movement, as if he was ashamed. It still made his curls fall across his forehead like a soft, pliant waterfall, though.

Jason averted his eyes, trying not to freak Leo out with his unnatural husky eyes (Piper’s words, not his). As he entered a staring contest with Leo’s bike, he tried to decide on whether or not to invite Leo to his apartment.

On one hand, when Leo had been at his place before, he had looked super cute with his face pressed into Jason’s pillowcase. The thought of making Leo breakfast in the morning (pancakes, he didn’t know what else to make) caused Jason to blush.

On the other hand, Jason lived in fear of making people uncomfortable. Gosh, he didn’t even know if Leo… liked him that way. He didn’t know if Leo would take the invitation that way either, but it was better safe than sorry.

He took a deep breath and looked back to Leo, whose eyes darted away as soon as they met Jason’s. Jason huffed a quiet laugh and put his hand on Leo’s. The smaller, rougher hand was still resting on the crook of Jason’s elbow, raising goosebumps and making him feel as though his lunch had been comprised of fluttering butterflies. “You don’t have to accept if you feel unsettled,” Jason started, voice barely above a reverent whisper, “but if you don’t feel up to going back to the farm, you can spend the night at my apartment.”

Leo looked up at him with round eyes the color of gingerbread and a smile that put the Mona Lisa to shame. It was just a smile, a smirk, really, but the dimples it revealed belonged in a museum. Jason could make an entire gallery based off of Leo’s face alone. “That sounds nice,” Leo answered softly, looping his arm the rest of the way through Jason’s.

“Oh, uh, okay,” Jason stammered, awkwardly reaching around the other man to grab his bike.

“Woah, be careful with that, man. I’ve had that bike since I was, like, fifteen. I’m not sure if it can take much jostling.”

Jason nodded and made a conscious effort to get a firmer grip on the rods. “My apartment building is just a couple blocks west of here.”

~*~

“Do you have to wake up early tomorrow?” Jason asked as he cleaned the bowl he had made the pancakes in. They had finished dinner not long ago, leaving the clean up to Jason because he was nothing if not a neat freak. He wore Leo’s approval of his carefully cooked confections like a badge of honor, though.

Leo paused the movie they were watching (some movie musical, Jason thought, but he had been too invested in making the best pancakes possible to actually watch it). He whipped his head around, having to stretch his neck in order to see Jason over the back of the couch. “Sorry, run that by me again?”

“Do you have to wake up early tomorrow?”

“Oh, no, thank goodness. On weekends, I go help my cousins out at the family garage, and I don’t have to get there till noon.”

“That’s nice.” Jason finished rinsing the bowl and loaded the dishwasher. Once he was done, he sat down on the sofa on the opposite side fromLeo and unpaused the movie, but Leo paused it again and turned to him somewhat dramatically.

“Do you want to know why I left the farm this afternoon?” Leo sighed, sinking into himself.

“Only if you want to tell me.” Jason reached out, trying to comfort him, but he flinched back when he noticed Leo collapse further.

Leo took a deep breath before continuing. “I don’t really want to, but I feel like I have to.” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “My ex-girlfriend, Calypso, um, she’s coming back to town around the holidays- two months. And the breakup was not at all peaceful, so I’m a little nervous.”

Jason couldn’t do anything but nod.

“She says she wants to be friends again, but a lot has happened since I last saw her. I’ve done a little self-discovery recently and I’m kind of not sure she’ll accept me.” Leo turned back to face him, arms and hands up in a half shrug, half surrender. “Am I making any sense?”

Jason nodded again, humming sympathetically. “That sounds rough.”

“Yeah. I’m really not sure about how she feels about gay people,” Leo concluded, picking at his nails absentmindedly.

Jason’s eyebrows raised involuntarily. “You’re gay?” He gasped.

Leo blushed a brilliant shade of vermillion. “Um, yeah… what about it?”

“I’m gay too!” Jason exclaimed, grabbing Leo by the shoulder in a moment of pure excitement. “Well, I’m bi, but my point still stands. I haven’t met any other openly queer people around here, or many openly queer people in general.”

“What are you talking about?” Leo snorted, covering his face in embarrassment. “You’ve met Will, haven’t you?”

“Will is gay?”

“No, he’s bi, like you. He’s my friend Nico’s boyfriend.”

“Damn. There are more queer people here than I thought.” Jason looked into the distance contemplatively, which Leo guffawed at.

“You don’t have to philosophize about it, man.” Leo leaned towards him like he was sharing a secret. “We’re everywhere.”

Jason laughed with him, delighting in the way Leo’s eyes and nose scrunched up as his smile widened. Getting a sudden and most likely temporary boost of courage, Jason slid his arm up onto the back of the sofa, effectively looping his arm around Leo. And sure, he felt a little like a teen boy going on his first date to the movies, but damn, did it feel good.

~*~

When Leo had asked where he should sleep, Jason’s immediate reaction was to offer up his own bed. This had been all fine and dandy until he realized he had his work in progress painting in the same room.

The painting in which the only thing that was done was Leo’s smiling face. Jason didn’t feel like explaining all of that to Leo, so it was paramount to the preservation of his dignity to hide the painting.

He rushed to usher Leo off into another room while he stashed the painting away, but it was too large to put in the closet and too wide to carry quietly through the door. He didn’t even want to move it in the first place, since some of the paint was still wet from the other day. He settled for flipping it around and praying that Leo wouldn’t ask what it was.

Apparently, God wasn’t on his side today, because the first thing Leo did when he walked into the room was point at the painting and ask “what’s that?”

“Nothing,” he barked, turning back around and smiling in a way that totally didn’t say “I have a secret!”

Leo huffed a laugh. “Alright,” he drawled, “whatever you say. But, um- this is going to sound weird, isn’t it? Fuck it. Can I borrow your clothes?”

Jason blushed, matching Leo’s flushed face.

“It’s just, uh, I didn’t think I was gonna be spending the night, so I don’t have anything to wear. Y’know what, now that I think about it, it’s okay. I’ll be a big boy and just wear what I’m wearing now-”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Jason said, already opening the drawer of his dresser and getting out a sweatshirt. “You can take a shower, too, if you want. Do you want shorts or sweatpants?”

“Shorts. I run hot.”

Jason wanted to say something stupid like “you look hot, too”, but he stayed quiet and tossed the clothes to Leo.

“Thanks!”

~*~

Jason was back out in the living room, watching the latest installment of his stupid cop sitcom, when Leo walked out of the bathroom.

To put it lightly, his breath was taken away.

Leo’s coily curls were pulled down by the weight of water, looking glossy in the fluorescent lights. His skin was as shiny as a bronze sculpture from the leftover moisture. Jason’s shorts reached down to Leo’s knees, even though they only got to mid-thigh on their original owner. Leo kept having to pull them up even with the drawstrings tied in a tight bow.

But the pièce de résistance was his sweatshirt. It hung off of Leo’s shoulders adorably, the cuffs of the sleeves covered his arms right up to the tips of his fingers. The symbol of Jason’s alma mater was plastered on the front. The purple block letters spelled out “NEW ROME UNIVERSITY” above the wolf in the logo.

He looked gorgeous.

“You look…” Jason trailed off when he realized he was about to say gorgeous.

“Gee, thanks,” Leo laughed, pulling at the edge of his sleeves and looking down. There was a cute smile gracing his face. If he looked gorgeous before, he looked radiant now. “I sure do look, huh?”

Jason eyed him up and down (like a gentleman, of course) before getting up and putting a hand on the other man’s back. Just to lead him to the bedroom, he told himself. No other reason. But now that he thought that, it sounded incredibly lewd. “Yeah. I don’t know what I was planning on saying.”

Leo laughed again, the sound almost falling over itself in a musical way, like a babbling brook. He let himself be taken to the bedroom. Jason needed to stop phrasing it that way in his head, he was getting… ideas.

“Where are you going to sleep?” Leo questioned once he was sufficiently tucked into the sheets.

Jason scratched the back of his head. “Um, probably the couch, I guess.”

Leo sat up, ruining what was essentially his nest to pat the space beside him. “Well, who am I to kick a man out of his own bed?”

Jason gave an awkward laugh, pretending like getting in the bed was the absolute last thing he wanted to do. “Oh, no, I don’t want to impose.”

“Impose?” Leo chuckled. “This is your apartment. I’m the one imposing.”

“If you’re sure.” He sat on the edge of the bed and shuffled on.

“Oh, I’m sure.”

~*~

Jason’s bed had never been so warm.

His pillowcase felt abnormally soft.

The blankets smelled like cucumber scented shampoo and charred s’mores.

Jason opened his eyes and was met with Leo, still fast asleep, snoring softly and nuzzling into the pillow. The other man’s legs were wrapped around Jason’s hips, and his arms were looped around his shoulders. Jason found that his own hands were resting on Leo’s lower back, which he immediately shifted upwards, even though it made Leo whine softly. He pressed his face into Leo’s hair, breathing the scent in while he had the chance and relishing the feel of it tickling his cheeks.

Piper wouldn’t mind if he was late.

@katiefromcabin7 @iwannascreameurekaa @froglyberrys @justlikearat @existential-life-crisis @jasonisntboring @poppitron360 @erosjournal @ihatenotreading @reggie-the-dyke

[icemintfreeze]

II THEORIES (2)

If you look close enough, Mic has a language gain on her back. She never really messed around with it, until one time when Soap have her a gentle hug, and flipped the gain. Mic ended up speaking Japanese for the rest of the day (While Soap did nothing but try and clean her up, to see if her original gain was malfunctioning) Bomb is FORBIDDEN to drink or eat anything that contains sugar. If he does consume any (for example, he drinks soda by mistake) he will RUN AROUND, HAVING THE BIGGEST SUGAR RUSH YOU HAVE EVER SEEN, DESTROYING EVERYTHING IN HIS PATH before having either a sugar crash, or exploding. This has happened a few times; let's just say that there we're injuries and it did not end very well. Knife can Tango/Dance. Like, when he's alone, and when nobody else is around (HE WILL MAKE SURE EVERYONE IS GONE) He fricken TANGO'S LIKE A EXPERT. The only one who knows about this is Pickle, who walked upon Knife dancing, and, Knife being the lil flirty shit he is, pulled him in and they basically tango-ed for an entire hour. MePhone 4 usually hosts a dinner for the contestants after each elimination. During one dinner, Lightbulb slammed her fist down on a ketchup packet and the ketchup fricken WENT EVERYWHERE. It splattered all over Paintbrushes face, got on Fan's phone, some flew into Test Tubes liquid, and even all over the food. Lightbulb was laughing like crazy, Test Tube was giggling because she felt a bit odd, Fan was quickly trying to clean off the ketchup from his phone, and Paintbrush was yelling the entire time. Cheesy once jumpscared YinYang while they were washing a couple of pots, pans and dishes. When he did, YinYang turned around and SLAPPED CHEESY WITH A COOKIE/BAKING PAN. Cheesy was on the floor both laughing and crying in pain, Yin was apologizing like hell and Yang was LAUGHING. Cheesy ended up with a ice pack on his cheek for a few hours. In the mansion, Bow loves to posses Apple, so she can feel and taste stuff again. She possessed Apple once so she could touch a chair again. Apple doesn't mind, but it does startle her a bit. Apple gets easily flustered. Like, Marshmallow and Bow could give her a smooch on the cheek, and she would be a ditzy, giggly mess. She would be so flustered, that she would sometimes not notice where she's going and could walk into walls, chairs, or even outside into the woods. The Cherries sometimes go out of hand with their pranks. They once put a rubber tarantula in Paper's bedroom; and the next thing you know, he was having a severe anxiety attack. (Note that Paper has severe arachnophobia). The two just hid in their room and kept quiet for the rest of the day. When someone misbehaves in the Hotel, OJ usually puts them to clean around the hotel. One time for Christmas, Lightbulb made cookies. RAW cookies. Paintbrush got really dizzy, and they raged about dizzily. Fan and Test Tube decided that enough was enough, and they tied them and Lightbulb together with Christmas lights, saying that they will not be let loose until they get along. Lightbulb just smirked and talked with them, in a giggly sort of way. One time, Paintbrush snorted after laughing really really hard. Fan recorded the whole thing, and would always play it when Paintbrush was around. Lightbulb accidentally tangled Paintbrushes hair into a big knot once. It took them HOURS to get it untangled. Tissues actually LOVES fish. Especially jellyfish. The sight of them actually helps him take his mind off of his condiSHAWN and focus more on the gentle beauty of the fish. Salt and Pepper sometimes invite Soap over for a girls night; A night where Salt and Pepper help Soap look pretty and nice for Mic. Taco LOVES gummy candy. Gummy fish, gummy worms; anything that's a gummy. She will KILL for the gummies. YinYang actually gets along for one thing: oreos. Ever since they were young, they've agreed that Yin gets the cookie part, and Yang gets the cream. That's the only thing they'll get along to. Good happy boios. Nickel still has his rubber ball with him. It's a little stress reliever for the guy. When he feels real angry or frustrated, he would bounce it or throw it against the wall furiously. Let's just say that rubber ball of his came as a good use to him after the elimination. Otherwise, things would've turned for the worst. One time, Suitcase was walking by glumly until she looked at the ground and saw a trail of little paper flowers. She followed the trail which led to the cliff, and when she looked up, she saw Balloon (of course) waiting there for her with open arms. She immediately ran into his arms, and they stayed at the cliff for hours, comforting each other, hugging and giving a few kisses, and admiring the view. MePhone 4 eventually found out, and has forbidden Balloon or Suitcase, or ANYONE, to approach the cliff. Nickel rebels and usually sneaks out of the hotel during the wee hours of the night. He runs towards Baseball, and usually just cuddles up right beside him and falls asleep. Baseball falls asleep crying most of the time, so Nickel gently wipes his tears away and mutters comforting words to him. During the Fourth of July, the Bright Lights agreed to tie Paintbrush with a large firecracker. You could only imagine how that went. -------- Hope you guys liked these !!! I really tried, I did-