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Recent life-altering, existential-crisis-causing events aside, things are going quite well for Mic. She and the rest of the ex-contestants are starting to settle into their new lives, they’ve successfully gotten through a few weeks without anyone dying, and construction on the new mansion is progressing slowly but surely.
Being one of the stronger objects, her job for today consists mostly of hauling logs from one area of the building site to the other, where one group was chopping to where another processes it, sanding and whittling it into the necessary shape. Taco walks behind her in turn, holding the other end of the logs as high as she can with her short stature. She isn’t quite as strong as Mic, at least when it comes to lifting things, but she still has surprising strength for her size, and solid endurance. Taco may also have been put with her since not everyone is comfortable working with her yet, but Mic prefers to look on the positive side when she can.
She slows slightly as she gets absorbed in her thoughts, but is soon snapped out of it when she hears her name.
“Mic!” Soap yells from the processing group a short distance away. “Need any help with that?”
She readjusts her grip on the log and calls out in response, “No, we’ve got it!”
Soap points behind Mic and covers her mouth as her shoulders shake with a giggle.
Mic strains to turn her head back, only to see Taco hanging off the log by her arms, legs wiggling as she fruitlessly tries to stretch them to touch back down on the ground. She promptly but gently starts to set down the log, letting Taco get her feet under her without being crushed.
“Ah, sorry, Taco,” Mic apologises, “Are you okay? Didn’t get hurt at all?”
Taco shakes her head and brushes off her shell. “I’m alright, I’m alright, just got a bit startled is all.”
Mic lets out a sigh of relief, quickly followed by growing snickers.
“Really?” Taco deadpans, heaving up her end of the log again.
“Oh come on, Taco,” Mic argues, grabbing her end in turn and continuing on the last leg of their trip, “You have to admit it was a little funny.”
“It was not ,” she rebukes in a light tone.
“It totally was.”
“It totally was not .”
“It was funny.”
“It was not funny.”
“Was~”
“Was not .”
The pair continue bantering as they arrive at the processing group and set the log down on top of the growing pile. Mic pokes Taco’s head as she continues to insist the incident had been worth a good laugh, and Taco playfully swats her hands away each time. Cabby, in charge of making sure the group’s operations run smoothly, raises an eyebrow and pulls out her files on the two.
“You two have quite the camaraderie for only meeting recently,” she muses, turning their attention from their game towards her, “But I don’t have anything in my files about you two interacting, or when you would have met in the first place. May I ask how you two have formed such a strong social bond so quickly? P-purely for my records, of course.”
Mic freezes, seeing Taco wince out of the corner of her eye, and lets out an ineloquent, “Uhhhhhhhhhhh…”
“Was it recently, though?” Fan adds, helpfully for Cabby but quite unhelpfully for Taco and Mic, “You were running the red line game together, weren’t you? That- I mean that has to mean something.”
“Guuuuh,” Mic spits dumbly, mind racing. She’s thought a lot about how she’ll tell everyone about the partnership she and Taco had during the season, but that means in no way that she’s actually ready to do it! Her hands grow clammy as she feels more eyes shift towards her the longer she stays quiet.
Everyone is going to be mad at her! And where does she even start ? She’s not close with most of the other former contestants like she is with Soap or Knife, no way they’ll be so gentle about all the crap she’d pulled before quitting! Ugh, but the longer she waits to just say something already , the worse it’ll be.
She gulps, opening her dry mouth to try and explain, only for Taco to beat her to it.
“I blackmailed her,” she says simply, shrugging.
Mic whips her head down to look at Taco so fast she has a brief moment of vertigo. What in the local recycling center is she talking about?
Taco continues, “I stole her diary around the middle of the second season, and told her that if she didn’t do what I ordered and forfeit the prize money to me upon winning, that I’d make certain every one of you knew every detail of what was written inside. I held it over for her until after I’d kidnapped Mepad, killed Test Tube, and shot Fan when she quit the game in order to get away from me. Ah, speaking of, would you like this back?”
She riffles through her shell for a moment before pulling out a small blue book, Mic’s diary, and holding it out to her as she stares back at Taco in disbelief.
Everyone goes silent. No one knows exactly what to say to that. Cabby scribbles in her files as fast as she can as Fan mutters to her about themes and patterns. Mic can see two of the season three newbies she hasn’t spoken to much, the candle and the spoon, whispering back and forth, ending with the candle elbowing him in the neck. Soap looks at her with confusion written all over her face, and Mic doesn’t blame her. That’s not the story she’d told when they’d reunited after her elimination.
Aside from them, everyone else is staring at Taco with varying levels of vitriol. The first season’s contestants all had a front row seat to how badly Taco’s ruse and eventual betrayal had affected Pickle, and opting to move straight to blackmail after that plan had failed certainly wasn’t a good look for her. The later casts aren’t much better, having known Taco mostly if not completely from the story of her long-con and nothing else before she’d ‘suddenly reemerged’.
Mic feels a pit of nausea growing deep in her stomach. She can barely stand seeing everyone looking at Taco like this, but can only imagine how Taco herself feels about it. She’d been on her best behaviour the past few weeks, even if her best behaviour wasn’t… great… Yet, she’s still been trying. And now, here she is, regressing into yet another lie.
She moves her glance back down to Taco, to try and make any sense of why she’d said any of that , but can’t glean a thing from her expression. Her face is carefully blank, guarded but nonchalant, as she loosely holds out the diary and stares at Mic like everything is normal. Like she hadn’t just broken the fragile truce she had with the many contestants who wouldn’t trust her further than they could drop her. She hadn’t exactly pictured it all being sunshine and rainbows when everyone found out about their partnership, but this was just wrong . It feels gross. This isn’t what she wants.
“NOPE!” Mic shouts, startling everyone. “No, no, no, no, nope, nuh-uh, absolutely not, no, no, no, no! Just- All of you, hold that thought! Actually, no, don’t hold it, get rid of it, throw it away as far as you can, forget it, don’t hold it!”
She reaches around Taco to grab the hand that isn’t holding out her diary, and starts pulling her towards the forest. Taco scrambles for a moment to shove the diary back into her shell, and falls into Mic’s quick pace.
“We need a minute!” Mic calls out to everyone, and she ducks beneath the brush around the perimeter of the forest and storms her way towards one of the clearings they’d met up in during the competition.
Her thoughts race through her head. This isn’t what she wanted at all! How had telling everyone about their alliance gone worse than her anxious what-if thoughts about it? Those were supposed to be the worst possible outcomes! And yet, here she is! She’d asked Taco not to lie so much anymore, Taco had agreed , and here she is lying again ! She thought Taco really wanted to get better, to build a better relationship between them, so what the hell was that?!
Arriving in the clearing, Mic drags Taco over to the stump she always stood on, jerks her hand away from Taco’s and throws it into the air. “Why did you say that?!” she cries, fighting to keep herself quiet enough that the others wouldn’t hear.
Taco eyes her intently, mouth slightly agape and eyes furrowed in nervous confusion. She looks down at Mic’s collar as she closes her mouth into a thin line, staring harder and harder until she jumps slightly and flicks her gaze back up to Mic’s.
“Oh dear,” she begins, “Was your diary a secret? I apologize for revealing it to everyone.”
“No!” Mic flares, “Not the diary , it’s- well, actually, I do want to know why you have it, but- but that’s not what we’re talking about! Why did you tell everyone that you blackmailed me?! None of that happened!
Mic steps away from the stump Taco stands on, and paces around the clearing as she rants.
“You said you were going to be more honest, but you’re still lying to everyone! Why in the world would you make up a story like that? It just makes you look even worse! I thought you wanted to be part of the group again- I want you to stay with the group! But if you’re going to keep lying, there’s only so much I can cover for you! And- and I told you I don’t want to lie and keep secrets and manipulate people anymore and now you’re lying about me and just… expecting me to go along with it?! What the hell?!” She stops her stomping to whisk herself back around towards Taco, waiting impatiently for an answer.
Taco taps her fists together in a way that Mic had learned meant she was nervous. A small, subconscious show of vulnerability, fear, that Taco wasn’t as in control of a situation as she wanted to be. She takes a deep breath, and meets Mic’s eyes with a surprising intensity.
“I said it because it’s our best option,” she states in a practiced monotone.
Mic jaw drops slightly. “Our best option ?! How exactly is more lying our ‘best option?!’”
“Because everyone already hates me,” she says simply. “I may not have used it to blackmail you, but I did read a small portion of your diary the day we met. I know how much you value what other people think of you. You want to be liked and recognized for your accomplishments and contributions, yes? If everyone knew that you’d willingly allied yourself with me of all objects, their thoughts on you will change for the worse. They’ll all be disappointed and angry with you, and you’ll be unhappier for it. But they already know what I’m like. They already despise me for things I actually have done. It’s perfectly conceivable to them that I’d blackmail you. If we have them think that our relationship started with that, then they’ll only be upset with me rather than both of us. I’m quite used to everyone hating me by this point, that’s nothing new, and you’ll be off scot-free. So, it’s the best possible outcome.”
Mic wants to give Taco a hug. She also kind of wants to drop kick her until she realises how messed up that logic is. Instead, she settles against a nearby tree and covers her eyes with her hands. Tilts her head up, and takes a slow, deep breath. Okay. There’s a lot to unpack. At least Taco isn’t immediately going back to villainy, that’s something. She’s trying to help, in the way she knows how, which brings a warm buzz to Mic’s heart despite the completely awful method in which Taco had gone about it. This is an easy fix, they just need some clean communication, like Soap says.
“...Mic?” Taco starts cautiously, banging her knuckles together so hard that it had to be painful.
She makes grabby-hands at Taco in response, who obliges and steps down from the stump and over to Mic. Without looking down, she scoops Taco into her arms and holds her small body at face level.
“Okay, Taco, I appreciate you explaining why you said that, and I appreciate that you were trying to help me out. It’s very sweet of you to try and protect me like that,” Mic begins. “ But I meant it when I said I don’t want to lie to anyone anymore. No more secrets. I did do a lot of things I’m not proud of when we had our alliance, and I’m not proud to admit to doing that stuff, but even if you were telling me to, it was still my choice to do things I knew were wrong. You offered a partnership, and I accepted it, no blackmail needed. Even if it’s scary and objects might get mad at me, I want to own up to what I did so I and everyone else can move past it. Does… that make sense?”
Taco is quiet for a moment, biting her lip and staring down at her feet as they dangle above the ground. She gives her fists a few more tip-taps before speaking up. “I’m sorry, Mic. I didn’t try to, er, want to upset you.”
Mic gives her a soft smile, turning her around and bringing her closer so the back of her shell touches gently against Mic’s volume button.
“It’s cool, Tac. We’re okay. Just… don’t do that again. Please.”
Taco shuffles a bit in Mic’s arms. “I’ll… try.”
“That’s all I’m asking,” Mic breathes. “As long as you’re doing your best, I know you’ll get there eventually.”
She stands and turns towards the edge of the clearing, back in the direction they’d come from. “Are you ready to go back now? It’s probably better to clear things up sooner than later.”
Taco nods, and the pair set off back through the forest and to the site of the old and soon-to-be-built mansion. Most of the other contestants, at least those they’d been speaking to before rushing off, are in about the same positions they’d been in before, continuing their tasks in a tense silence that hadn’t abated in their absence.
It’s Lightbulb who notices them first, disregarding the thick atmosphere to greet them with a grin and a joyful wave. The wide gesture grabs the attention of those working around her, and brings it back onto Taco and Mic, quickly silencing what little idle chatter had gone on in their absence.
“Hey~,” Mic says, voice ringing through the silence. “So… about that whole ‘blackmail’ thing, right? Well, uh, while I do appreciate Taco trying to help me —”
She gives Taco a few firm pats on the shell as she speaks.
“That’s not really what happened. Taco approached me in the woods and we just…talked, for a bit, about how the game was going and all that. She didn’t blackmail me, we had a deal to work together and split the money if I won, since the maze challenge. I wasn’t forced to do anything against my will. I mean, pressured , definitely, but that didn’t work half the time anyway, and that’s not blackmail, so it doesn’t count. So, uh, the stuff I pulled while we were working together is still on me, so I’m really sorry.”
Mic nudges Taco, who jolts and looks up towards the other former contestants with a wide, insecure smile.
“Oh, uh, yes, what Mic said, er, I am… also sorry…?” Taco trails off, looking up at her for approval, posture relaxing as Mic gives an affirming nod.
The others were silent for a moment, gazes mostly relaxing despite a few still-raised eyebrows, until Baseball steps forward slightly.
“I think we’ve all done some things we’re not exactly proud of during the game.” He winces. “And with… recent events… we’re all processing and using a lot of hindsight, so just. Try not to dwell on it too much. Both of you. I appreciate the apology, so, speaking for myself, at least, don’t worry about it.”
His statement is met by various nods and murmurs of agreement that drain the last drops of lingering anxiety from Mic’s body.
Surprisingly, even the notoriously disagreeable Nickel agrees. “Yeah, I’m good to just let this go. We uh, we probably could’ve been a little nicer to you back then. All things considered, I doubt we helped steer you towards cooperative, friendly gameplay.”
“Aww,” Mic murmurs, “Thanks, guys. It wasn’t all you, though. Soap had just gotten eliminated, so I was feeling pretty down from that, too. And it makes sense we’d all be a little snappy when challenges were going on. And on top of that, I wasn’t feeling great about myself, so I wasn’t exactly going to be making the best decisions…”
“It was mostly them, though,” Taco adds, once again swinging and missing at an attempt to say something helpful. “See, when you’re considering manipulating someone, it’s important to take into account-”
“WELL! THIS WAS A VERY PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATION THAT WE SHOULD END ON A POSITIVE NOTE! I’M GLAD WE GOT THIS ALL CLEARED UP! ME AND TACO-”
“Actually, it’s ‘ Taco and I ’, Mic.”
“-TACO AND I ARE GONNA GO KEEP GETTING THOSE LOGS! DON’T WANNA STALL CONSTRUCTION ANYMORE, RIGHT? HAH, GOOD TALK!”
Mic pivots on her heel and speedwalks away, averting any further crisis before it can start.
Taco furrows her brows at Mic as they hurry along. “Did I say something wrong?”
She resists the urge to sigh. “A little… too much honesty there. It’s okay, we’ll work on it. Maybe just don’t start explaining how to manipulate other objects. Like, ever.”
“Got it,” Taco assents. After a moment’s pause, she lets out a small cough. “...Would you possibly like to put me down now, Mic?”
Mic pauses in her tracks and looks down at Taco still cradled in her arms. Huh. She guesses she never actually put Taco down after they’d talked things out, had she? Mic blinks, shrugs, and continues her trek back to the logs.
“Nah,” she declines, “I’m good.”