Despair's Insanity - an II x DR fic

TTM - FTE 4

Characters Selected: Paper(?) and Oj

As soon as I opened the door to his office, I saw him and Paper inside, sitting next to each other at his desk and drinking something. I could hardly see them because the only lighting in the room was the little lamp on Oj's desk, and once I entered the room fully, Oj nudged Paper and they both looked at me. Paper of course began to smile.

"Hm? Oh hey Lifering! What's up? Did you need us for something?" He seemed a lot less drunk than I'd expected, but then I realized the glass cupped in his palm was filled with red... wine. He's going to get drunk off wine instead of solely the mystery punch, which might be worse.

Oj said nothing, so I responded with a curt "yeah" before I sat across from them. "Oj, did you hear about the new motive?"

"Yeah, but what's the big deal about all that?" Oj replied with a wide, toothy grin. He was definitely already drunk- and he wasn't even at the damn party! I looked at Paper again instead.

"I want to have a quarantining to prevent symptoms from spreading around. Or at least keep all the healthy patrons in one general spot? Baseball didn't drink the punch, but he can't afford to get sick, Paper."

Paper thought on it as he took a sip from his glass. "I mean, that makes sense. But I don't want to worry about that. I want to reminisce on how I was going to originally be a star. A reality star... y'know Lifering, I had a lot of potential as a person before Paper became all creepy with Oj."

"Wait- who's fronting now?"

"Jeremy. Splitroject and secondary host, which just means I'm loosely based off a few things in Paper's life, and I front a lot. Most people don't even notice that Paper and I are different people... isn't that funny?"

"It's- it's hilarious, pal."

Jeremy hummed a bit and set the glass down before sliding a picture over to me. It was of them in a college classroom, presenting something I couldn't quite make out.

"I wanted to be a marine biologist, it's what I majored in when I went to college. Funny thing though... I can't swim. Never could- so being around water, despite being my lifelong passion for two decades, got thrown out the window. I was in hell for two whole years before I found out about the Inanimate Insanity thing. I at first signed up because my high school crush did, and he'd mentioned it on Facebook."

"Slow down," I said. "All the alters sure do talk a lot. Who's the high school crush?"

"Someone I'd grown up with my whole life! Knife, obviously." I stared at him, completely baffled, but he went on talking so casually. "He was my best friend, and in high school we did everything together. He was the bad boy and I was the nerd. We'd sneak out of class and go to a lake to skip the pebbles, sometimes we'd steal packages of candy from Walmart... it was a thrill! And then he got me eliminated first by fucking me over in the water he knew I couldn't swim in."

Oh. I had no idea what to say to him- because even an "I'm sorry" felt a little too late to bother with. Knife was gone... whatever he did in the past pretty much meant nothing now. Jeremy seemed fine enough though.

He continued. "And I was always a hopeless romantic, too. I thought I would be perfect for the big screen! And then I laid my eyes upon Oj after coming back. Or, Paper did. Instantly, he fell head over heels for the guy and did everything he could to impress him. It was so distressing and terrible that Bristol, our newest alter, began to solely target him throughout the show."

Oj piped in with a little giggle. "He sure did! It hurt- and I got VERY sick! I felt like I was about to die every moment we spent together!"

"You probably were," Jeremy grunted, "and I probably would've been a lot happier."

"Heeeey..."

Jeremy rolled his eyes at our drunken friend, but then began to stare off at the wall for a while. I could only guess it was a switch, and soon he lit up again. "Hm? Oh hey Lifering! What's up?"

I had wicked deja vu for a second, but I tried to brush it off. "Nothing- I was just talking to Jeremy about stardom and... your relationship with Oj."

"Oh... Oj and I are good friends. Jeremy pretends to hate him, but they get along just fine- I'd say they're friendly even! Jeremy's more into work and fulfilling a purpose to our lives though, so he only likes when Oj's got a stick up his-"

"That's enough of that," I huffed. "Oj, don't you hate Paper?"

"Hate him?" Oj tilted his head to the side like a confused puppy. "Why would I hate Paper? He's lovely! We only broke up because of that nifty little Bomb, y'know."

"Wait- the mystery guy was BOMB?" Paper asked, whipping his head to Oj. "I thought it was Paint...why did I think it was Paintbrush...?"

"I don't know!" Oj tilted his head back to practically inhale the rest of his wine glass, setting it down and flopping his arms and face onto the desk. "When I went on season three, I was all like 'wait, didn't I already win?' And that means I like- took a spot that should've been for someone else. And apparently, that would've been Microphone! Isn't that funny?"

It wasn't all that funny. That woman deserved a break...although maybe season three wasn't the best idea for a break, was it? Everyone kind of went through hell.

This conversation felt like a waste though, and I couldn't help but want to leave. Once I got up, Oj waved a little bit at me.

"Bye bye! I hope you have fun!~"

I looked over at Paper. "Are you gonna be able to handle him?" Paper nodded with an amused look as he watched Oj flop around a little bit.

"Yeah. I might stick around though. I like tipsy Oj."

Tipsy wasn't exactly the word I would've used, but I left them to go to bed. I don't know what happened then. I couldn't even tell you what I learned, other than Paper can't swim... and that really means nothing to me.