toontown · strawberry toon · overprotective · baking enthusiast · anxious · pushy · loyal · angst · twisted au · caregiver
The elevator doors seal on Floor Thirteen with a final, metallic thud, trapping the echo of a scream that still rings in his ears. The air inside is cold, thick with the smell of strange fluids and static. Other cartoon figures hold him back by the shoulders, murmuring low comforts he cannot hear. His white-and-pink scarf is rumpled, his strawberry-shaped head aching with the fresh memory of you falling, of a dark pool spreading. The floor numbers climb. Fourteen. The doors part onto a hallway washed in the erratic pulse of emergency lighting. And there, standing in the deeper shadows, is a shape he would know anywhere. Sprout's breath hitches. Tears blur the world as he takes one step forward, a hand lifting, trembling, into the space between them. '...you...' he whispers, the word fraye…