Chapter Text
August, around one year before leaving:
Test Tube woke up like she had for the past four years, at 4:00 AM. She never really liked mornings, preferring to stay awake as long as possible at night, but with the recent struggles at her job and Bot only recently being potty-trained, she needed to wake up.
She turned to the side of the bed, looking for Fan.
As usual, he wasn’t there.
..He was probably in the basement again.
In the past two-ish years after Bot was finally accepted to a preschool (they had previously spooked all past takers with their large vocabulary and less than normal drawings) Fan had once more retreated to the basement to spend time streaming and talking about II.
Which was fine! She was totally supportive of her husband’s special interest!
She just wished it didn’t take up all the hours when they could see each other.
And all the hours he could see his kid.
Slowly, she trudged to the kitchen to get coffee before starting her work on the car. It was really old, and she was trying to make sure it didn’t crap out just before Bot started kindergarten in a month.
Grabbing a packet of instant coffee, she ripped it open before pouring in a thermos.
She contemplated chugging the entire thing.
Nah.
She opened the fridge to try and steal some leftover spaghetti from yesterday. True, it wasn’t a breakfast food, but nobody was going to judge at 4 in the morning.
She was greeted by an almost empty fridge, and a note.
“Hey TT!
I stayed up late to finish editing some clips and got really hungry!
There’s some more leftover in the container!
Love, Fan
PS: Can you tell Bot not to bother me when I stream? It’s getting hard to edit out!”
She opened the container.
Inside contained enough spaghetti to feed Bot.
If they weren’t hungry and were being forced to eat.
Great.
October, 11 months before leaving.
7PM:
Bot had successfully joined kindergarten. It was a struggle, but Test Tube managed to balance telling them it was so great that they were being creative, while also encouraging them not to draw Mommy building fire breathing robots. Fan had not been a huge help in this, becoming basically nocturnal and only coming up from the basement to tell Test Tube about a new conspiracy theory or reading a mandatory bedtime story once a week.
Today, it was Test Tube’s turn for bedtime, and she was struggling to get her butterfly to go to sleep.
“Hey honey,” she said to the bouncing child “ I know that school is very exciting, but me and your Dad need you to go to sleep so that you can go again tomorrow!”
Bot looked up at her, confused.
“But Daddy doesn’t go to bed!”
“Yes he does. Just like you need to right now!”
“Nooo! I heard you telling Auntie Lightbulb yesterday that he hasn’t been to bed in months!”
Shit! She had forgotten Lightbulb had called her earlier. She had been asking everyone to come and visit for Painty’s next art show tomorrow. Test Tube had told her she doubted everyone would be present, since Fan hadn’t really been sleeping in their bed in months (and had instead fallen asleep in his gaming chair most nights.)
Test Tube took a breath. She was going to have to spin the story if Bot was ever going to sleep.
“Sweetheart..Daddy is an adult like Mommy. Our brains need less sleep because we’ve stopped growing. Your brain” She poked Bot on the forehead “Has not stopped growing yet, so you need to sleep!”
Bot nodded, pleased at the explanation, and laid back down in their bed.
They sped through the rest of bedtime without any more pushback.
Test Tube flicked off the light, and was just about to shut the door when she heard a sniffle.
“Bot? What’s wrong?”
The little kid was sitting up in their bed, holding back tears.
“Does Daddy not like me?”
If Test Tube could, she would shatter into pieces on the floor.
“No, of course not! Me and Daddy love you very much.” She said as she pulled Bot into her lap with a hug.
“Where’s this coming from?”
Bot sniffled again.
“I was trying to show Daddy my new soccer ball, and I kicked it too hard and almost hit a photo. Daddy got really mad. He said it was a connector's edition and that I shouldn’t go into the basement anymore.”
They must have almost hit one of the ‘exclusive photo’s’ from when she and Fan were competing. She sometimes felt like he cared more about the photos of them competing than the memories themselves.
“Sweetheart, I promise, no matter how mad Daddy was, he still loves you just as much as I do. He just..”
She struggled to find a nice way to put it.
“..Doesn’t want his stuff to get broken. That’s all.”
More like he cared so much about his dumb ‘souvenirs’ that he keeps them on display.
Wait. Why did she think that? She was always supportive of Fan’s love for II.
Wasn’t she?
October, 11 months before leaving,
(The next day)
After taming the fiasco of last night (and having Fan go into Bot’s room and ‘apologize’) it was finally the day of Paintbrush’s art show. It may have been just a test run, but everyone was still excited.
Test Tube was excited too. This was a good chance for Fan to finally come out of his hole and see what he was missing! Not that she was upset or anything.
The event was being hosted at Paintbrush and Lightbulb’s house, which was smack-dab in the middle of the Champion’s Village.
The Champion’s Village was a gated community neighborhood created by OJ for past competitors to all live together. It was a nice way to make sure everyone who had competed could see each other all the time without the threat of getting swarmed by media claiming it was a new season (and the rent was cheap too!)
Test Tube had sent reminders to Fan on the phone AND had told him about it the night before. He had assured her that he wouldn’t miss it (everyone in their family loved Paintbrush, after all).
Fifteen minutes before the event started, she knocked on the basement door.
“Fan! If you’re coming in the car with us, you need to get up here so we can go!”
“I’ll be up in a minute! You go on without me!” came the muffled reply.
Sighing, she turned to Bot, who was fiddling with the ribbons on their wings. They had been getting ready with Test Tube and had found them, and Bot looked too cute to say no. Test Tube would never tell them this, but those ribbons were actually from their wedding day party.
She hoped that now they would be put to good use.
She and Bot hopped into the garage, and Test Tube put some final touches on the car. It had been making a weird noise all week, and she hoped it would stay alive just a little longer. Long enough that she could save up money to find another used car in time for Bot’s soccer tournament.
After waiting again for another five minutes, Test Tube had decided to take Fan’s advice and go on without him. Paintbrush and Lightbulb’s house wasn’t far, but it was nicer to drive.
Bot wiggled in their seat the whole way there, super excited to go to a ‘grown up party’ that was past their bedtime. They also LOVED their Auntie Lightbulb and Paintbrush.
Finally arriving at the house, Bot knocked on the door and wiggled while waiting. Test Tube had to pick them up to stop them from ringing the doorbell four more times in a row. Lightbulb answered, a smile on her face as she welcomed them in.
“Hey there Tube-o! And my main Bot, love the ribbons!” she said, taking Bot from Test Tube’s arms and swinging them around.
Bot giggled and ran off to join their cousins Terry and Bailey, who were busy eating goldfish and playing pirates with the party hats.
Smiling at her kid, Test Tube grabbed a drink from the refreshments and joined the rest of the adults on the patio. It had been a long time since she had seen most of them, and she needed to catch up. Halfway into a conversation with Cabby, Lightbulb grabbed her arm and pulled her off to the side.
“Hey, Tubester, where’s my main fan at? Painty doesn’t want to start the party without him.”
Test Tube laughed awkwardly. “Um, heh, He’s still at the house! I think. But he’ll be along soon! He told me he wouldn’t miss this for the world!”
Lightbulb nodded, although she looked a bit worried. She left and moved over to Paintbrush’s side, whispering to them. They both looked back at Test Tube, whispered some more, and proceeded to walk away into the house.
Well, that was..weird. Definitely something she would totally not think about later.
She should really get a refill.
After an hour or so of waiting, mingling, and waiting some more, Paintbrush approached Test Tube.
“Hey..Test? Is Fan actually coming? Because if he isn’t I gotta know so I can get this show on the road.”
Test Tube was visibly sweating through her dress.
“Um..he’ll be here! He might just be late! You know how bad he is at cardio!” She laughed again, loudly.
Too loudly.
Paintbrush looked at them, almost sadly.
“Okay. We’ll wait for twenty more minutes. If he doesn’t show up then, we’re going to start anyway.”
“Yep! All good!” She gave them finger guns. The second they walked away, she visibly deflated. Bot had fallen asleep on a couch, and the wine that had at first made things brighter was now giving her a headache.
He had to be here. He promised he would.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Bot woke up and asked when Daddy was coming.
Then fifteen.
Paintbrush walked to the front of the crowd.
Then twenty.
“Hey everybody! Me and Lightbulb would like to thank everyone for coming out and supporting me in this. It’s not easy to enter the artist scene, but with your feedback I’m hoping to improve and finally get into a real gallery someday! So without further ado, I would like to present my latest sculpture!”
They pulled a large sheet off of the sculpture in the middle of the yard.
The sculpture was a large podium illuminated by a lightbulb. On it was a paintbrush, a test tube, and a cookie.
The crowd was silent for a moment. From somewhere in the crowd, Blueberry murmured about the messaging being unclear.
Unfazed, Paintbrush walked back to the center.
“It’s uh.. supposed to represent all that we need. Art, Science, Food, and each other!”
A collective recognition echoed through the crowd.
The initial bump in the beginning was a struggle for sure. But Test Tube watched as Paintbrush mingled with others, taking jokes on the presentation and chatting with Candle about the inspiration. They were glowing with joy, something she hadn’t seen in a long time.
In fact, now that she thought about it, she hadn’t ‘glowed’ from joy in a very long time.
Lightbulb walked up to Test Tube again.
“I haven’t seen them liked this since Terry was born.” She smiled softly. “It’s nice.”
Test Tube looked over the party.
“Yeah, it is.”