Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

     Wally wasn’t sure of exactly how long he was asleep, all that he really remembered was pulling off the itchy thing on his back and nuzzling back into the softness of the stuffed animals surrounding him. That was until his surroundings turned bright and he was greeted by a silvery little whisper and a hug. He expected to be put right back down, but to Wally’s surprise he felt himself get hoisted up alongside this new person. “This was fine,” he thought to himself. He was still disoriented, his eyes were still adjusting to the bright lights, but he thought the blurry figure cradling him like Barnaby used to seemed nice enough. Wally felt the this person moving around the small space, and to his delight she grabbed a few tapes and his telephone. She must be a fan! At least he thought it was a she. Their face was still coming into focus, but that was alright. Wally didn’t really care what this new friend looked like so long as they were kind. Wally let his eyes adjust as they walked through this new place. 

     At one point he finally allowed himself to get a good look at his friend’s face, and that’s when she started acting strangely. She looked around and held him tighter, her steps increasing in speed ever so slightly. Wally felt bad, her pupils were already blown so wide. He debated trying to apologize for staring, but they were in public… and he wasn’t completely sure he had his voice back yet. She could come to terms with this quirk of his later, he decided. He felt fully awake by the time that they reached the counter, and the nice lady finally gave a name to this new face. “Dolly,” he thought to himself. “Dolly is a very nice name. It suits someone with a face like that.”

     Their conversation didn't last as long as the ones at Howdy’s bodega, which struck Wally as strange for these two people that seemed to be on good terms. Maybe she was still scared, but she didn't act scared around Mrs. Lola. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe Dolly was the one overreacting. He'd find out in due time, he supposed. Wally behaved himself as the girl struggled to get her bag put away safely before buckling him up. She made a joke about him needing a car seat, and he wanted to chuckle at the idea. The seat was much too big for him, but Wally was unaware of this fact. He let his gaze fall to Dolly as she tapped away on some sort of flat box. He figured it must be some kind of remote, because soon music began playing from the car's radio. 

     The first song was loud and fast-paced, it seems like something Julie would like. Granted, he couldn't understand half of the words being sung because of just how fast it was, but that was fine. Dolly seemed to understand it as she hummed along. The next song seemed much sadder than the last one, but she sang along much more consistently than with the last. She shifted back and forth between singing and resting, but Wally couldn't help but notice that she sang along loudest with the sad songs. She seemed so happy, it didn’t make sense. He would ask her later, he decided… once there was no risk of her crashing into a tree or running away. Wally admittedly didn’t pay much attention to their surrounding on the drive to this new place as one separated from everything they once knew should. He was too busy looking at all of the dials and buttons on the car’s dash. It was so much different than the last time he was in a vehicle on Earth, and much more complex than the occasional vehicle he saw in Home. 

     It took about half an hour for them to pull into the driveway of a large cul-de-sac neighborhood. It wasn’t perfectly round like Home’s, but it shared similar features. Everyone’s house was in a circle, with a large swath of grassy hills and trees in the middle. It was nice, Wally thought to himself. He hoped that some day he could sit under one of those trees and paint the world around him. He watched Dolly nearly trip as she exited her door, the poor thing- But she was fine! She chuckled to herself as she scooped him and the paper bag with his things into her arms, her foot going to shut the car door. “G’night, Zinny,” she called out to her car, “You be good now!” Hmm, technology seemed to have progressed a very long ways since he was last present. The car could hear her. How curious. 

     Dolly’s house was… nice, all things considered. It was messy in the way only a lived-in could could be, and Wally enjoyed the menagerie of family photos he could see when she stopped to talk to her mother. The frames themselves were a tad dusty, but each photograph was pristine, not a hair out of place on any of the children. Dolly looked about the same, he noted, save for her hair. It was much neater- longer, even, with a pretty white bow adorning her head. Her two siblings looked much the same, if not for their darker hair and eyes. His attention fell back to the real Dolly once she held him out to show off. “...Isn’t he just adorable ?!”

     “You know I don’t do clowns,stop bringing those things into the house…” her mother groaned. Wally noticed that her gaze returned to her own shiny box. “He’s not even a clown, he’s just a snazzy little gentleman! Lookit, he’s even got little hearts on his shoes! I love him!” She squeezed him tight to her chest when her mother made mention of how Wally looked like he was suffering from an acute case of jaundice, making a note to pat his head. “She didn’t mean it, baby. She’s just a bitter old hag.” She laughed as her mother shooed her away, and she made her way to her room with no further interruptions. 

     The first thing Wally noticed was the wards placed along the door. A sachet of ingredients and runes on one side to keep unwanted entities out, and wrought iron trinkets to keep things in on the other. They were not very complex pieces of magic mind you- but there was enough intention behind him that Wally could feel it through his body. He allowed himself to get situated in her lap as she put down her bags and moved over to an armchair situated in front of what he recognized as a home computer. It was a very cozy setup, and Wally was more than happy to sit and watch her type in her passwords and browse through the internet for tutorials for setting up VHS players. These newer generations… How would they survive if they couldn’t navigate the true pinnacle of video formatting? Surely nothing could have come along that surpassed VHS tapes in the 30 years Wally had been asleep, right? 

     Just as he was excited to see Dolly get up and react to his show, he felt her yawn and glance at the time. 7:02. “Sorry little buddy… I need my beauty sleep. How’s about we go to bed and get this set up before I leave tomorrow, alright?” Wally did not find that plan too agreeable, but he was still regaining his energy so he wasn’t in a position to complain. He was very carefully sat back down into the chair after Dolly got up to get changed, with a playful warning thrown his way about not peeking! Not that he would, of course. Dolly was right when she said he was a gentleman. A gentleman that she didn’t know was sentient, but a gentleman nonetheless. He really would have to apologize for his behavior once he was able to do so.

     Though, if she was a witch like her door and shelf full of books suggested, this conversation might occur sooner than he initially thought.