Chapter Text
August 14, 1998
A paper airplane comes flying at Sprout's head.
“ Sorry, Mister! ” A little red-haired boy calls for his attention at one of the many picnic tables scattered sporadically around the area. He seems to have a goatee made of frosting.
Sprout picks up the airplane, recognizing it distinctly as the construction paper Scraps has in her room. It has a texture on it like that of wrinkled paper, despite lacking any creases in itself. She says it matches her aesthetic. Or whatever Scraps says.
“ No biggie. ” Sprout positions the paper in his hand and tosses it back in a fluid motion. His aim ends up being slightly off and instead of the cool, suave drift across the table the airplane instead ends up hitting the little boy in the forehead. Sprout snorts to himself, watching the chubby fingers straighten out the tip that had shriveled from hitting one too many things head-on.
The TV in the kitchen is still going, if Sprout strains his ears enough through the kids talking he can hear it. He hears his own voice, and Cosmo's.
Cosmo.
The best friend Toon Delilah was supposed to make for him. The one who he already can't wait to see. The one he'd literally begged knees on the floor to make first, who was due any day now to come and join him. Sometimes the kids who came and only ever seen the TV show ask about Cosmo. Sprout missed him too, even if he'd never seen him. He feels incomplete without his other half. The one he'd spend every day with from the day that he's created to the day they're all destroyed.
A shrill scream pierces through his thoughts.
He looks over, realizing he hasn't been supervising the kids like he's supposed to while in his little thought bubble. Oops.
Sprout sighs loudly, and gets up to separate two kids, a girl and a boy, who had been fighting, though he'd much rather be getting called down after his shift than hearing this eight year old girl scream about her brother pulling her hair once.
Maybe once Cosmo was here he would be much better at handling fight breakouts than he was.
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About ten minutes Sprout had been slaving away trying to get a mystery spillage off of a corner table, scrubbing with a washcloth so hard that paint on the wood came off.
“ Seedly? ” He recognizes this voice as Delilah's. She walks into the room, her brown hair coming in wispy strands down her face like that of a cheap lampshade. “ I've got something for you. ”
Behind her slowly steps out this timid looking Toon, still hanging loosely on the tail of her shirt like an anxious child on their first day of school. He looks like he could have been crying if his eyes didn't say the opposite. He looks at Sprout and lets go of her shirt slowly.
“ This is Cosmo. You may have heard of him before. He is your best friend. ”