★~Vintage Soul~★ (Welcome Home AU)

Chapter 7 - Deceive

"So what's your job?" The next morning, Wally sat patiently at the dining room table as I prepared myself breakfast, swinging his legs excitedly as he watched my every move with an intense gaze. Sitting down beside him at the table, I explained. "Well, I'm a writer, I write scary stories and mysteries." he smiled and started to jump in his seat as I gave him a cinnamon roll to snack on while I ate my breakfast. "So you write books!" he looked towards the window, almost like he was reminiscing about something. "My neighbor Frank loves books! I can already imagine you and him talking on and on about books!" I chuckle lightly, taking a bite of my breakfast before looking back at him. "I don't think Frank would've liked my books, My books are very scary, and if I remember correctly, Frank likes books about bugs."

"Well, you'd be surprised! Frank loves all different kinds of genres! And I'm sure he would love to give your writing a chance!" he smiled warmly as he took a bite of the cinnamon roll with his eyes, a look of curiosity showing in his eyes. "What is this? It tastes interesting." I take another bite of my breakfast of choice. "That is a cinnamon roll. I thought you would like it because cinnamon is really good with apples." he looks at me, a slightly confused look on his face before something clicks in his head, and he chuckles his weird laugh.

"What? Did I do something wrong?" his laugh felt like a mocking laugh, but I recalled from the show that this is just how he laughs, it was odd. "Oh, neighbor! I forgot to tell you, I don't eat apples! I simply just look at them!" My eyes widened, I swear he would eat apples in the show, but here he is, claiming that he doesn't eat them. Is this the effect of that 'Mandela effect' or something? "Oh! I didn't realize! Sorry for assuming!" I chuckled, slightly embarrassed as I tried to brush off my assumption.

"It's quite alright neighbor! If you are curious, however, my favorite food to eat is birthday cake!" Cake? I mean, it wasn't the worst choice, he could've said 'the blood and skin of children' for god sake. "Hmm, alright, I'll have to keep that in mind!" Taking the last bite of my breakfast, I stand up and put away my dishes, Wally quickly eating his snack and following behind me "So, what kind of typewriter do you have?"

"Typewriter? Oh! No, I don't have one. I use a computer to write." his eyes widen. "A computer? Like the ones they use for spaceships? That must take up a lot of room!" I chuckle lightly, walking into my room with Wally following close behind. "No, as I've said before, technology has gotten a lot more advanced, Remember the car with the touchscreen?" he nods, and I sit down at my desk, open my laptop, and log in. his eyes widen once more as he realizes that what I was using was the computer. "It's so small!" he goes on his tiptoes, pointing to the wallpaper of my laptop. "How does all of that fit in there!?" his eyes almost sparkled at the technology that was in front of him.

"Cool right? And you can access almost anything you want through the internet!" I pulled up my search engine and typed the first thing that came to mind, Apples. After a few seconds, the wiki for apples came up, as well as a bunch of other apple-related sites. And Wally's empty black eyes looked in awe as he saw the apples on the screen. All it took was a few button taps and a few seconds and the images were there! "Wow! So much came up in so little time!"

"I have to start doing work in a bit, but is there anything you want to research?" I gently took the puppet and lifted him up onto my lap, that way he could type anything out if he wanted. Looking a little startled at the sudden movements for a second, he then put a hand to his chin, as if he was thinking about it. After a few seconds, he finally attempted to type with his hands, posing a challenge, as his hands were so small and soft. But after a few seconds of fumbling the letters on the keyboard, he finally got what he wanted to spell. "W-a-l-l-y." but before he could press the enter key as he saw me do, I gently stopped him and reached around him to type his last name.

"You might wanna write your last name too since more specific searching gives you a better result." Nodding his head, he watched my hands type with ease, "D-a-r-l-i-n-g." as soon as I pressed enter, a picture of him from the show appeared on the screen. It was a picture of him and his neighbors, sitting next to home. Surprisingly, there was so much about the little guy and the show he starred in from just a few clicks. "Wow! I must have been really famous! Look at all the colorful art of me!" It honestly kinda of surprised me, wasn't Welcome Home a canceled show? What was with the sudden surge in popularity? "Huh, I didn't expect that much to come up!" I started to scroll. "What do you mean neighbor?"

"Well, wasn't the show canceled? As much as I hate to say it, a lot of people don't remember the show, so I'm just intrigued by the sudden popularity." he smiled and nodded, however, his smile had a hint of sadness to it. And then, something unexpected showed up, a site about Welcome Home and an exhibition around the canceled show. My eyes widened, I had never seen this before, was this some kind of restoration project, with a few more clicks, I came onto a very colorful website, covered head to toe in bright colors and of course, Wally Darling and Home were front and center.

"Oh wow! It's me! That's just the absolute most-" As soon as he said that, a little drawing of a red and blue house showed up next to him like someone was drawing on the page. Huh, that's a cute detail! It was honestly a little unfitting in the aesthetic they were going for, but it was still cute nonetheless! "Oooh! A drawing! Can you click on it?" Wally seemed so fascinated by this little piece of technology. "Pardon?"

"Well, you've been clicking everything else, so why not try clicking the little drawing? Maybe more drawings will show up!" I chuckled slightly, I knew it probably wasn't going to do anything, but I gave it a shot as I hovered my mouse over it. You could my surprise that when I did click on it, it opened a link in another tab. A rotating disc with an eye in the middle showed up, as well as an audio file. Wally and I looked at each other, a look of confusion on our faces, maybe the page was glitched? Looking back at the screen, I click on the audio file's play button, and my eyes widen as I hear a very familiar voice

"There you are. Welcome Home. Ha ha ha!"

I looked over to Wally, almost certain that he had said it, but I noticed the sheer amount of fear in his eyes as I did so. His small hands started to shake, and the black pupils in his eyes became smaller, almost as if he remembered something he would want to forget.

"That... wasn't me..."