"WHATS THAT PUPPET BOY?" Wally Darling x Reader

Chapter 14 : Grief

August 3rd, 1974.

A day that's forever indented in everyone's minds. A date that everyone knows of to well. The day Welcome Home was announced cancelled.

Welcome Home, a show that ran for years from 1969 to 1974. We never got any reasoning on the ending of the show, but supposedly the creator Ronald Dorelaine for an call from the Sesame Workshop, complaining that they "stole" some of their ideas from previous episodes. They apparently didn't respect of the allegations of Ronald Dorelaine for harassing his staff, and they didn't want any part of it.

This ended in the company contacting Playfellow, and demanding for the show to be cancelled or else they would result to suing. Of course, Ronald picked the choice of cancelling the show rather than giving his precious money away.

Ever since the cancellation, the neighborhood has been handling it poorly, that barely anyone has even been talking to each other.

Julie barely goes outside to jump rope or water her plants. This leaves either me or Poppy to be the ones to stop by her house and have to water them before they die.

Frank remains the same grumpy puppet he's always been, and constantly puts up an front that "he doesn't care about the show being cancelled," but deep down, it wasn't hard to tell he was equally as heartbroken.

Eddie has an hard time giving out his mail anymore, that Frank has to be the one to help him. It makes his job even more harder on him when he gets envelopes from kids who watched the show saying how they'll miss everyone and if their ever gonna see him again. He can't even hold himself together, and breaks down everytime he gets an letter from an kid.

Howdy hasn't had the energy to face anyone in days, leaving his shop feeling empty and cold. There would be a few times where I've walked into his shop and I would happen to overhear him crying in his backroom.

Sally, who is usually happy go-lucky hasn't popped an single joke in days. A couple days ago, she has tried to joke around with some of the neighbors to get them to pop an smile or laugh, but this would never work. After days of trying over and over again, she just gave up.

I feel that the only people left in the neighborhood who have the littlest of hope left is Poppy, Me and Barnaby. Poppy's been kind enough to leave pastries at people's doorsteps to make them feel somewhat better, even going out her way to leave small encouraging notes inside the baskets.

Goodness..and poor Wally. Oh, where do I even start? Wally's definitely been one taking it the hardest out of everyone else. When the news hit about the cancellation, he was quick to jump into the leader role of trying to calm everybody down. He kept telling them that, "It'll all be fine!" and that, "There was nothing to worry about!"

Behind the scenes right after we got the news, I was the first person he turned too. He didn't know what to do at all, and didn't wanna break the news that all of it was true. The same night we arrived back home for the last time, he was silent the whole ride home. He didn't look, speak or even interact with anyone in the limo. It wasn't until we got home and he stepped through the door was when he lost it.

He dropped to his knees and broke down. His face was pouring with tears and snot running down his face, completely devasted and heartbroken. Never in my life have I ever seen Wally so vulnerable to anything. Those first few days were the worst for me and him both. He was constantly clinging and non-stop crying every few hours of the day.