Work Text:
The television hummed, as the CRT screen’s snow crackled comfortingly. The tape whirred, and whirred some more, but…
“Damn it-” Dandy instinctively covered his mouth with his mitten palms, feeling his heart skip a beat, his breathing stop. A thousand apologies wanted to leave him at once, and he turned around to spew them…
But there was no one behind him.
His hands fell. As if he didn’t believe it, he looked around the dark back room, searching it with small pupils, but… He sighed, it was with relief. He turned himself back around and pressed the eject button on the cassette player. The machine obediently spat back out the black tape, which he collected carefully.
He reached behind himself, feeling around with his chubby hand until he could feel the winding key in his palm. He took it and carefully inserted it into one of the reels, twisting slowly. Dandy always got anxious when it came to having to do maintenance on his old tapes. His collection of them were irreplaceable to him. Having the others collect the remnants of the past he adored so. He couldn’t afford to lose them… They were all he had.
After one last turn of the key, he set it back down, and placed the tape in. The hum came back, and the whir of turning reels brought to him the beginnings of relief.
The click of the worn play button on the tape player commanded the screen, as it lit up for his eyes. Dandy watched the logos fade into view. First the distribution company, some small now defunct home entertainment company. Then the Dandy’s World title logo with its purple background, fading into warm orange toward the top, with a small cursive signature beneath it: ‘By Arthur Walton’.
These were ancient branding. Gardenview had its own distribution company now, or at least it did in its heyday. Gardenview Movies & Home Entertainment… The logo was redesigned once the cartoon gained enough popularity, and didn’t need to tout its creator in the logo anymore. They were more than a novice animation major’s ideas given life because the network didn’t have something else to fit in the time slot. His papa worked so hard to get them to where they were now.
He settled in on his worn pillow, eyes affixed to the silver glow from the screen. He saw himself, in a grassy meadow, smiling to the camera as he introduced himself to the audience.
He could recite this first episode by memory if he tried, most likely. He’d watched it about a hundred times by now. He could watch it a hundred more and it still wouldn’t be enough for him to turn in boredom…
‘Oh Hello! I didn’t see you there! Are you here enjoying the sunny weather too?’
‘… Me? Well I’m collecting flowers! That’s one of my favorite things to do with a perfect sunny day…’
‘I know, a flower collecting flowers, what a coincidence isn’t it?’
‘Say! I never got your name, friend. Mind telling me?’
Dandy didn’t bother to respond to his doppelganger.
‘What a wonderful name! It suits you well! My name’s Dandicus Dancifer, but you can just call me Dandy.’
He frowned slightly, listening to how the Dandy on screen spoke his own name… How it rolled off his tongue more naturally than his own. Not a doubt at all whose name it was: it was his own, and he knew it.
He watched the drawn figures of his friends dance around, as the episode continued. How close all six of them were, as if they’d been friends forever. Each fit into the uncomplicated box they were meant to occupy and they were so easy to understand. His silly pup. His shy, and tired best friend. His reliable and determined right hand. His energetic go-getter, to rally them together. The grumpy skeptic that kept them chained down to facts and science. They all fit with each other like peas in a pod. Why wouldn’t they all?
He watched as they came together at the end for a group hug.
‘Thanks so much for joining us today! We hope you had fun with us, and that your day is dand-errific!’
Dandy stared into the eyes, the ones he was modeled after. Full of life, appreciation, care.
Wetness dripped down his cheeks.
He quickly paused the tape to grab a tissue. Better to wipe his tears than ruin his appearance with them. He was a star, one that could not afford to be seen looking any less than his best. Not by anyone, human, toon or otherwise.
“Dandy, do you see that?”
He turned in shock, as he heard the familiar voice of Vee come from the television speaker. Her cartoon figure had moved closer to the foreground, looking straight back at his horrified expression.
“Hm? What is it Vee?”
“I could’ve sworn it was you, looking back at us from behind that tree.”
“That tree?” His mirror pointed in his direction, and he felt stared into. These… things… They could see into his very soul, his being. They knew he was there, and knew everything he’d done. Every sin was laid bare before them.
The Dandy on screen’s face fell into a frown, as he stepped closer to the screen, coming to get a better look at him.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk… Oh Dancifer, what are we going to do with you?”
What made it worse was that it wasn't angry… No, not a hint of anger… Just disappointment. Like watching a child trying to clean up spilled juice from the carpet. Dandy pushed himself back from the television, as if that would obscure him from the eyes that looked into his own.
“Dandy, don’t try to hide from us…” The cartoon Astro stepped forward, coming next to his best friend. “Dandy, I think you’re scaring him…” The crescent moon turned to his left to meet his best friend’s eyes.
“As if he has the right to be scared.” Vee took a step as well, coming to the cartoon Dandy’s right.
“Dancifer, what are you doing with yourself right now?” The other Dandy placed his hands on his hips as he said this to him. “You’re messing up your blush, look at yourself!”
Dandy rubbed his hand along his cheek, feeling facepaint smear on it.
“Oh sprouts… Gee Dandy, you’ve seen better days haven’t you?” Sprout also pushed forward, looking on in a mix of disgust and concern. “Your face isn’t looking so good..”
What did he mean? What was wrong with his face? What could be wrong with his face?? He searched around until his hands found a mirror that he raised to his face. He nearly screamed at the sight, his form withering and wilting, with crinkles and wrinkles. Ichor spilled from his deformed mask… First from his nose like running mucus, but soon from what felt like hundreds of invisible holes in his skin. The holes grew bigger, deeper, and he threw the mirror in fear. It shattered in the corner, spraying reflective glass across the wood. He touched his face to confirm it, and lowered his arms to find black glistening tar on his sweating palms.
“No… no no no…”
“You seem so afraid for someone who should know the feeling.”
He looked up, seeing his cartoon version take up the entire screen, from bust to his top petal. “Oh Dandy, how the times change…”
A poster on his wall animated itself, moving on its own, and joining in. “You used to be on top of the world, the face of fun and learning!”
His plushes moved on their shelves to stare at him. “Or at least enough of a copy to get away with being passed off as it.”
“No that’s not-! I’m not a copy! I am not!!” He felt like he couldn’t breathe. His heart pounded. Was he dying?
“Kidding yourself won’t change it.”
He clutched his chest, feeling the tail end of his breaths become wheezy. An asthma attack?! No, no, no! His body was betraying him in this moment, all he asked of it was to work for him right now-
“Face it. You’ll never be like us.”
“I mean look at you, you’ve put on so much weight!”
“And those petals, absolutely dreadful!”
“You can try and copy us, act how you’re supposed to, but it will never be enough!”
“You’ll always fall short, because you can’t be perfect enough!”
Dandy grabbed one of the taunting marketable plush Dandys off his shelf. His hands shook with the strength of his own grip as he grit his teeth, and gasped for air, dripping black onto its laughing face.
“Shut up! Shut up!- Why won’t you shut up?!”
“What are you so afraid of, pal? Afraid you swallow a hard pill?”
“Where are all your friends, Dandy? Did you push them away again?”
“Shut up!!”
“If you’re not a copy then why do you fail at everything that should be second nature to you?”
“You can’t walk like him, you can’t talk like him, you can’t act like him~”
“Shut your goddamn mouth!!”
“Arthur would be so ashamed~”
“SHUT UP!!”
He tore open the plush Dandy, watching its polyester filling guts pour out of the wound. But the laughing didn’t stop, the taunting didn’t stop, nothing could make it stop-
“I bet they would abandon you, if it weren't for the show…”
“Good on them, really! They’d be better off without you!”
“And don’t you dare try to argue with him, Dancifer: look at what you’ve done.”
“You’re so destructive and violent! What kind of Dandy acts like that?”
“I’ll tell you what kind of Dandy: a broken one.”
“Oh weeds, it’s worse than we thought, Dandys!”
“How could it get worse? It’s already looking pretty pathetic and hopeless…”
“I think he’s defective…!”
“It would make sense! How much more wrong can you get than defective?”
“Maybe off-model?”
“I agree, he looks nothing like the rest of us!”
His hand laid on his chest as he heaved, staring at the ceiling. There was a chorus of laughter all around him as the plush Dandys all climbed on his limbs. The room spun like a merry-go-round, one he so desperately wanted to get off of.
His lungs burned, like they did the day that he first laughed so hard around the new Astro, that it set off his first asthma attack.
He needed so much at that moment.
He needed his inhaler, he needed a stress toy, needed a book, a stuffed animal, a comforting movie, a drink of water, a glass of chocolate milk, an ice pack, a blanket, a shower, a bubble bath, a friend, a hug; and at the same time, for no one to touch him, he needed-
He needed-
He needed-
“GET OFF!”
His lungs ached as he pushed the plush away.
Plush? Just one? But there was-
He sat up, still breathing heavily, but more regularly. Across from him, laying on the ground was one plush of himself. It was still. It didn’t move. It didn’t laugh, or speak. It just laid there, flopped out, with its stuffing ripped from its chest. The tape was paused still, at the end of the pilot episode, the characters were still all in a group hug.
“Weeds, I- …!”
What did I do?
He looked at his hands. There was no ichor on them, not even a stain, but his cheeks were wet from crying. He had cuts on his knees from the broken glass all over the floor. His room looked so much less… cramped now.
He’d done it again.
He cursed himself internally as he sat up, ignoring the sting. He fumbled around and reached for his inhaler, an inconspicuous silver tube. He pressed down the canister and took a deep breath in, feeling it coat his lungs… A small amount of relief there.
What would he do? He thought about asking Tisha, but she’d ask what happened. She’d ask more than that, she’d ask about all the things in the back room behind his store. No. He couldn’t have any other toon help. He’d just have to fix things himself. How could come to him later.
For now, he was just happy it was all over…