Chapter Text
As the toons walked past the main hallways towards the elevator, while Dandy sells trinkets and tools, Dyle sits atop his stool waiting for Eggson, the only toon willing to talk to him on a personal level, while the other toons just say hi and walk away. You see, Dyle never really came off as open, and extroverted, but that never meant he didn’t want to talk. He just… Had trouble communicating, and Eggson was the perfect solution for that. Since Eggson loves talking about his past and opinions, Dyle can just take a breather and soak it all in. This sort of benefitted the other toons because there would be no Eggson annoying them about how things were different back in the day.
But as Dyle waited for Eggson, fiddling around with his chain, Boxten and Cosmo walk up and start talking, maybe asking for some aprons, but Dyle could care less right now, then Cosmo starts waving his hand in front of Dyle and he zoned back in, thinking about ‘how much of a bother these imbeciles are…’
“So can you get us those aprons? I’m trying to teach Boxy here how to coo-” Boxten taps Cosmo’s shoulder.
“Uhh, could you not… call me that?” Cosmo sighs and apologizes, but turns back to Dyle, who has the aprons in hand.
“There. Now leave. My day could and can still go on good if you stop being a bother.” Cosmo scoffed and walked off, apron and Boxten in hand. While walking off, Boxten pecks Cosmo’s cheek, and Cosmo lightens up a little bit.
Back alone with his thoughts waiting for Eggson, Dyle’s eyes slowly close and images of Eggson pop up. Now, Dyle wouldn’t consider himself old, but he definitely remembers Eggson in his prime, when in the show he was some sort of authority figure telling kids what was right or wrong, and in gardenview, a kind man who pursued justice. ‘Kinda like a cowboy…’ Dyle thought, then imagining a younger Eggson riding a horse in one of the episodes, and imagining he was riding the horse with him, his hands gripping Eggson’s waist tightly…
Dyle wakes up to a blanket on his back, his head on his store’s counter, and Eggson drinking some tea with his gentle hands, his lanky figure stretched out on a rocking chair that Dyle had put in the back for him. After noticing that Dyle was awake, Eggson jumped out of his seat and offered some tea.
“G’mornin’ sleepyhead! Oh- And don’t worry, there were no ‘customers’!” Dyle sighed in relief and grabbed the tea that Eggson had offered. It was pu-erh tea, but it tasted amazing (ehhhh get it heheheh). After taking a few sips, Eggson starts to talk about the show, and how it’d worked, since Dyle liked hearing about the show, especially since he wasn’t a part of the show.
“… A-And then one time, the lights fell down and made a small fire! Thankfully, Mr. Arthur called people to put out the fire, but I'm pretty sure…” Eggson droned on and on about how the sets worked, how staff treated the toons, meet and greets, even the middle aged men who drooled just looking at Eggson, which weirded Eggson out, but it at least made for a good story to tell to people, but no one was willing to listen. Well, except for Dyle at least.
After a few hours, Eggson yawns and puts his empty cup on a little table to the side, and leans back in his chair, snoring almost immediately. Dyle stands up… But sits back down. His leg fell asleep.
“Shit…” Dyle starts to push his hands into his leg, but to no avail. So he just sits there. After a bit, he stares at Eggson. Because he worked out in his prime, his body is relatively the same, but after the ichor leaks and shutdown of Gardenview, there were crates of food for the toons to use. In said crates included food, water, clothes (that Dyle took for himself to sell) and lastly, adult beverages and such. After drinking some, Eggson immediately got enamored by the drinks and acquired a beer belly and a small addiction, but due to Dyle’s word, he stopped drinking for a while.
After reminiscing about the past, Dyle’s leg wakes up and he starts to clean up, dusting the shelves, cleaning clothes, sending the ichor to the main generators that power the ground level of Gardenview and the Toon rooms. Afterwards, he helps Eggson to Dyle’s backroom, which was his makeshift bedroom until he somehow gets his own.
After a few days passed, Eggson’s condition grew slightly worse, and Dyle was the first to notice, especially since Eggson didn’t don his huge smile he kept everywhere. What an optimist. Dyle was opening up his shop as Eggson, in his shiny vest and white shirt and pants, making coffee, something that he has put his addiction to.
“Better than beer, I suppose…” Eggson pours himself a cup, while Dyle just takes a sip of water.
“Are… Is that… Good for you?” Dyle tilts his head in confusion.
“Sure it is, it’s water.”
“But its.. Only a sip?”
“Enought o get me through the day at least.”
“At least ain’t enough boy! You’re supposed to stay hydrated, toon or human! I thought I taught you that!”
“Yeah well that was on the show. It’s not like you actually care about us anyway-”
Eggson grabs Dyle’s hand, and the unprompted touch surprised and flustered the stopwatch, as he looked up at the towering egg “I do care. I know I can’t do much but I d-ACK- HAUGHK-” Eggson immediately fell to his knees, coughing up ichor and solidified chunks of the stuff.
“Mr. Eggson?! A-Are you ok?” Dyle helped Eggson up and onto his bed, where he laid, coughing still. After a few seconds though, he calmed down. Now calmed down, Dyle proceeds to take his dirty vest and shirt off. Now, Dyle wouldn’t consider himself into men or anyone in particularly, but even he himself knew he couldn’t take his eyes off of the old man’s chest. After snapping himself out of it, he asked if Eggson was fine, in which his response was water.
“Here, I got the water for you.” Eggson sat up, his posture crooked (since he had to talk to relatively small toons and tiny people), he took a sip and smiled.
“Thank you,” He pauses” … No one’s ever been there to help me.. But, there's no need to be and feel so depressed about it…”
Dyle simply stared at Eggson, then walked over his wardrobe and handed him a coat and collared shirt.
“Here. Just take it and put something on, I don’t want to look at beer belly anymore.” Dyle didn’t even realize he was slightly blushing while seeing Eggson change into the outfit.
“... Well, thank you! You made my day helping me!... But I must leave since I have to babysit Toodles today! My son and her wife are out on a ‘run’ and Toodles can’t be left unsupervised!” And with that, Eggson left the small shop, and Dyle was left alone with his thoughts once more.
“Shit” was the only word he could muster as he realized he had a crush on Gardenview’s oldest toon. And the thoughts racing through his head wouldn’t help.