~Welcome home~ Wally Darling X Reader

Aftermath

Slowly you floated through the darkness. You had no body, no senses, no thoughts. You just were. It was cold but not painfully so. It was like lying on the floor on a hot day, letting the air vent hit your back and send that much requested chill down your spine. It was like the comfort of an ice pack a parent had provided when you were ridden with fever. It was like comfort. And so you didn't fear.

The darkness carrassed you and held you gently like a river. It flowed around you lazily, as the current slowly lulled down its forged path. You were nothing but a spec of debris in this vast empty nothingness. It was a cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless. It wasn't living but you truly but the gentle abyss made it worth it. Never again would such peace engulf the soul like this.

And so there you went, down that dark river. Eyes closed, consciousness asleep. Dull sensations occasionally hit your body, words spoken from far away and threw a veil, but none of it was your problem now. Now was time to rest. The hands themselves were cold as well when you felt them. Not soft like those of your friends, not made of felt. It resembled something rough like leather. This might have been the first sign of returning. The feelings through your body.

faintly you had started to become aware of the pain now. It snaked its way through your body. First it formed in your cheeks, crawling down your throat, making it dry and raspy. Then it continued down to your chest. There it started to burn, like the snake had bitten down and its sharp teeth pierced your heart. More the pain grew, spreading to your arms and down to your wrist and fingers, surfacing in your lungs. Those hands ran along your broken body, ripping you from the river.

The next sense came back as you cried out. and cry out you did. Screaming filled the once sleepy abyss, consuming the mind. It hurt. No longer where the feelings touching your body dull now. Full force they wrapped your body as the venom from that snake like pain corrupted all of you. Desperately you wanted to make it stop, it had to stop.

The abyss turned angry without your emotional shift. The hands ripped into you again, pulling you apart slowly. Cotton spilled out and up your throat, choking you. a

lone, weak, "HELP ME" escaped your constricted throat but you were painfully alone.

No longer was he the comfort of home.... And you weren't sure he ever was. But it refused.

An explosion of warmth replaced the cold, the pain, the hands. A forgiving warmth, one that lingers and protects and is mercifully laid around you. It didn't consume you or drag you along, simply surrounded you. Like a bubble of safety. The sensation of living itself returned to a husk that was near lost hours before. And slowly the breath was allowed to fill your lungs.

This was a type of peace, but different than before. A sense of being alive, and allowing it to settle into your core. A sense of letting oxygen flow in and out, unlike nothingness that simply took. The warmth brushed your cheek as you shifted. The feeling on top of you was familiar but it took a moment to occur to you exactly what it was as your consciousness trickled back from the cold.

At last the word occurred. "it's a Blanket..." you felt quite silly now... Though you were rather sure you'd fully returned from wherever you'd gone. The dark river was erasing itself, simply swirling in the back of your mind at this point. As you blinked your eyes open it was almost gone entirely.

Light filtered into your vision as reality wove itself back together. Yet this reality before you had a foreign sense to it. You'd never been here before, so you let your eyes take it in. The small room was neat and clean. Notebooks were nicely tucked away, Blankets folded against the wall in the corner, and what seemed to be a door was on the far side. Medical felt and cotton repair supplies were the only thing haphazard in the room. There they sat on the bedside counter, like they'd been just recently used. Subconsciously your gently aching fingers found themselves running against the twine patched into your upper cheeks as you reached forward to run a hand across the clothing oddly folded on the table near a sewing needle.

The fabric was just the right texture, and a lovely shade in a cherished color. You rubbed your thumb accords the shirt before slowly clutching it in a free hand and pulling the item for closer inspection. It was your favorite cut and style and for a moment you were mesmerized with how all of this was so wonderfully perfect.

After the unfortunate realization that your current clothes were mucky and covered in the left over leaves from... what you could only assume was a roll in the colorful woods, You changed into the provided clothing. They were warm like the blanket and bed had been, yet slightly too big. You found yourself gravitating to the door. Your body was sore and your face ached but you couldn't remember why, and the overwhelming anxiety was highly overpowered by the desperate want to understand.

Your feet pitter pattered across the ground as you moved down the stairs. The dusty purple of the walls and white cream of the carpet was soft and comfortable on your eyes. The walls seemed to have faint stars painted in them. Whoever this home belongs too definitely had a thing for sleep.

As you progressed down the steps you caught a voice, pausing your forward march as not to be heard. "Don't worry, Frank. I understand the situation" A sleepy voice sighed. You'd heard her voice before you believed. That Rabbit with Sally maybe....? You'd figure it out later. "Sally and I are very aware and ready to help. I'll keep an eye on- Oh! You! oh you're awake"

Your face paled as you realized you'd stepped out of your hiding place. Half lidded purple eyes washed over you as a tower of a puppet waddled over. You barely had time to look at Frank in the doorway before pale purple paws scooped your trembling body up. "You shouldn't have gotten up, dear. You're still recovering!" She quickly ascended up the stairs and back to the room you'd woken up in.

"Koimon, Sweet Stars, you really mustn't make so much noise in the morning" A dramatic thespian groaned off screen. You couldn't turn your head but you were aware who it was. The Star tugged The rabbit's sleeve, causing her to turn her head to look down at the much shorter puppet.

Koimon glanced back at you, biting her lip anxiously. "my patient woke up" She tilted her head toward you, causing a long lop ear to smother your injured cheek. The sensation of the felt itching across your face burned, yet you didn't reach up to move it, afraid to disturb Koimon. The conversation continued but unfortunately the burning pain flaring up made it a little difficult to focus on that.

However, you push off the pain in a few smoldering moments of discomfort and managed to ignore the feeling. your eyes drifted towards, one, the purple figure above you, and two, filtering the thoughts of the events of last night...

"...Excuse me, mhm... Koi-... Koimon?" you let the words slip off your lips anxiously. "So how exactly did you..." you were intending to ask a full question relating to how exactly you were found, last night, and a description as to the period between now and going to sleep was intended to be the subject of your ask.

However, as your words trailed off, a sudden jolt of movement startled the fully formed sentence out of you. The way Koimon simply shot her head up... Her eyes flicked to lock with yours, that sleepy look utterly forgone, and the gaze settled a sort of disturbing steadiness within you. Her eyes did not falter, They stared at you with a deliberate look, which hung within in tension, and for much more than a mere second it sent a shiver of terror throughout you. For Koimon's simple expression was so vastly incomprehensible and yet so simple:

Oh poor soul... puppets like you... shouldn't ask questions like that...

And for a good amount of time, longer than you'd care to admit, you simply sat in terror of that unnerving, forsaken expression.

"You had a panic attack" Koimon stated simply, leaving Sally behind as she entered the room from earlier. "It caused a violent meltdown and you ran to the woods. Frank and Wally went to look for you. You were hurt so Sally and I patched you up. Eddie suggested that you no longer live alone so I will be taking care of you unless you wish for that job to fall onto another neighbor" As anxiety ridden and tired as this rabbit seemed to be, she had the air of a put together cool aunt to her. You decided you liked that.

Suddenly the door was thrown open. "KOIMON WHERE GOING TO MISS THE WEDDING REHEARSAL"

"OH SH-"