Never ignore you again

by Boopersz

Summary:

Vee wants to hang out with Shelly but wants to seem nonchalant and cool. Shelly is also not doing well mentally.

(Title changed due to more chapters)

Chapter 1: Moving supplies

Notes:

Hii!! I am by no means a talented writer, but the lack of shellvision has disturbed me to the point I'll take things in my own hands.
This is mostly in Vee pov and a short moment of shelly walking around the storage
CONTAINS MENTION OF:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stegosaurus

The elevator was rumbling, going back up.  

  

Today has been long and exhausting, the rest of the crew looked quite under the weather. Shrimpo had been severely damaged and Boxten seemed traumatised from seeing his twisted counter part. Vee remained ever so nonchalant, simply adjusting her bow and impatiently tapping her foot while waiting. She still had better things to do then go down an elevator and spin valves around, although clearly this group wouldn't function without her. Shrimpo would constantly get into trouble, Boxten gets nervous about everything, Sprout is paranoid every time Cosmo leaves a 5 meter radius of him, Rodger is obsessed with trying to figure out "secrets" he doesn't check if he's in trouble and Pebble, well pebble's ensuring the twisteds are busy with their own things but he should probably bump into less things while running. All of these idiots should understand their situation better, clearly they have much to-  

    

Oh.. there's also Shelly here. Vee stopped the thought process for a little and looked over to the Ammonite, she had been quiet during the whole ichor collecting. Vee wanted to go talk to her, actually she'd been looking for an excuse to do so the entire trip but it would seem weird to suddenly ask Shelly if she wanted to go somewhere, and now they were already going up. How to ask this..  Vee took a couple cautious steps and stopped next to shelly, who seemed. . distracted staring at the elevator doors. 

  

"Hey shelly." 

  

No response. 

  

"Shelly." 

  

With the second try Shelly turned around, shocked. odd.

  

"Oh! You were talking to me?"  

  

Shelly's eyes were sparkling like they usually do with excitement when she talks about prehistoric facts, or whenever her friends are talking to her. Vee was uncertain on what say, she'd usually have things to say or excuses on the fly but in practice she's always left with nothing. 

  

"Uh- Yeah I was talking to you, I wan- need your help with something" 

  

"Sure! What is it?"  A mild sweeping of wind could be heard  

  

"Could you help move around some supplies when we're back up?" Great, that works.  

  

"Oh.. Yeah, I can help." The sound from before had stopped. 

  

Vee was a bit conflicted with Shelly's reaction to her invitation but nevertheless she has a reason to talk to her in private now! Great! Step one complete. 

  

"Good, see you up at the storage at four."  

With that Vee walked away to the middle of the doors, which opened with a hiss and a clank. She stepped outside, adjusted her bow and walked off to her own room. 

  

That was so weird, why did I specify a time, I shouldn't have said that, we could have just gone now , now it sounds like some secret meeting, what do I do. 

  

Vee exhaled a deep breath she hadn't noticed she was holding in and plopped on one of the chairs. Well she has about half an hour to plan what to do and how to respond. All this having to fit in, smile like the rest of toons or understanding how the room was. Brightney had told her before she was quite blunt, she never meant any harm with it though. Vee looked at the mirror, struck her signature pose of a hand in her hip, smug smile and holding her mic in the other hand.  

  

"This is stupid." 

  

Her expression dropped and she stared for a little, how is she supposed to be the responsible one if she barely knows how to keep together her own feelings. She understood them, felt them but didn't know how to process them, there's no book on that. 

  

The fuzzy feeling she felt around Shelly, the almost stabbing pain whenever Shelly looked so. . . Rejected. Vee wants to comfort her, but how? She barely knows how to deal with her own loss and sadness usually just stowing it in the back of her head and forgetting about it, if she says that to anyone they'll probably cry more if anything. Vee stared at the ceiling for a little. 

Right, gotta focus on, this evening. Maybe go past the cafeteria after they're done moving supplies, Shelly likes the food there right? Probably. So, move supplies, talk, get something to eat and yeah sounds like a plan! 

 

/ / Shelly / /  

Shelly walked out of the elevator; a mild bit disappointed, she had tried her best to get Vee's admiration or approval with the amount of machines she had done. It felt weird, Vee seemed more distant lately, Shelly fondly remembers the time before the ichor operation, before the park shut down. They'd sit together while Vee was rebooting, hang out, talk about whatever, they had a couple episodes about them! Vee's just... Gotten colder.

Well yes the situation is a bit different, the whole twisted ordeal, dandy's obsession with tapes and ichor. It's all overwhelming. She just wanted to sit alone in her room to organise her collection again, no one wanted to chatter happily as much. They still did some activities, baking. . but Shelly wasn't really invited. Never actually. She didn't let that ruin her mood! At least, she didn't do so the first time, or second, or third, or fifth, or tenth, or twe-.. The one time Vee goes to her it's to move things around..

It's better than nothing.

Well she has to get to the storage in half an hour, Might as well go now! To be on time of course! Not.. like there's much else to do.

Shelly walks down the gardenview hall soft carpet under her feet, the rest of the expedition team has already gone back in their own shells and the rest of the crew is probably doing something more important. She walks and walks, staring at the numerous posters on the walls. She has her own! Well in her own room but there's a couple featuring her in the main halls. Well.. Barely any that do but at least there's some!

She arrives at the storage, packed with boxes covered with cloths and dust. It's absolutely cramped in there and it's a mess, odd that Vee didn't ask Tisha to help. She's more suited for cleaning. Walking into the storage and sneezing every now and then Shelly goes to a shelf with pictures, picking up one and dusting it off, it's one of a really young dandy. Shelly smiles at the small guy and grabs more pictures to look at. Oh even she has her own! Shelly's tail swooshes around some dust while looking at a picture of Vee and Shelly together when they were really young. She doesn't remember it well but it looks like they were having fun. She sighs and places it back, looking around the storage. Most of it is spare chairs and tables, but there's old toys from when the kids still used to visit. She looks at drawings that the kids made. She has a couple of her own, it makes her smile.

Shelly sits down on one of the chairs, reading little notes the kids had written, pictures of the whole garden view crew, old Barnabies to replace fin's if it ever broke, extra make up that's spoiled by now for glisten, colouring books.

The room feels, lively despite only having Shelly in the room currently, old memories that had been buried for a while now. Most of this was junk they couldn't throw away but it brings the feeling of nostalgia. Shelly looks at a little book of dinosaurs, that used to be hers! She lost it at some point, she quickly pockets it and continues looking through pictures.

 

The door to the storage opens and Vee is standing in the frame.

"Oh Vee! Was there anything we needed to move specifically?" Shelly was happy to see her, well somewhat, at least this was a way of spending time. 

 

"Just a bit of reorganising and maybe moving some stuff to the cafeteria or arcade."

 

Vee's voice was, relatively monotone and bland. Shelly put away the pictures she was looking at, her eyes lingering a little on her and Vee sleeping next to eachother while they were younger. A faint mechanical clicking echoes in her head as if she was there in the moment. A single tear runs down her cheek.

Why can't we still be like that.

Shelly wipes the tear away, she didn't notice Vee had gotten close, She hops back a little out of surprise.

 

"Ah- right, what belonged where?"

"Let's just start with lost and found items, broken wares and sort them on functional and non functional, between those shelves." 

 

Vee walked off and Shelly trailed closely behind, sitting next to a box with a bunch of old stuff, dusty old stuff.

Shelly rummaged in the box and picked up an old karaoke mic, Holding it out to Vee.

"Look, we used this once to sing together!" Shelly smiled Vee stared at her and nodded, grabbing other things and dividing them in a pile of junk or useful things 

 

Shelly kind of liked looking at the older stuff remembering the memories that were shared with them.. It grew a bit awkwardly silent between them.

 

".. Did you wanna hear some dinosaur facts?"

"I know them all already" Vee boasted a bit.
". . Right, forgot.." 

Shelly stopped talking and stared at some blocks with letters on them.

 

/ /  Vee / /

THIS IS AWKWARD

Vee was staring at things in the box, what to talk about? I mean Shelly liked dinosaurs but Vee already knew it all, she looked up from picking up a paint brush to Shelly. . Crying?

Vee almost dropped the brush, dammit what do I do, I didn't mean to make her sad.

 

"Ah- Shelly."

Shelly looked up, watery eyed

"..."

Vee sighed

I'm sorry

"Is there a reason you're crying?"

Can we hug?

"If it's important of course."

 

Shelly sniffed for a moment and wiped her tears away, staining her arms.

"It's... fine... Yeah."

 

Vee's shoulders lowered, what can she say to cheer up her friend. 

".. About.. Dinosaurs." Shelly looked up, slowly but a tiny bit of excitement. "I don't know your favourite."

Shelly looked confused at first and rubbed her eyes to clear out anymore tears. Her tail wagged a tiny bit.
"I can't just pick a favourite! They all have their own cool quirks."

Vee caught a smile on her face

"Alright, how about the first one that comes to mind"

"Uhm..." Shelly thought for a moment, "Stegosaurus" It was on the cover of the little book she had.

 

"The one with spikes and armour plates?"

"Mhm!"

The two of them listed a couple of dinosaurs, Shelly seemed to excitedly talk about them, Vee wasn't too excited but it made her happy to see Shelly so excited.

They moved around supplies and organised. It took about two hours but at least they were chattering about dino's, trivia and hobbies Shelly has recently picked up.

 

The storage was tidy-d up and looked good again, Shelly was a bit tired and Vee seemed quite happy with herself until she turned around to see her mic tangled.

"Agh, snap."

"Hm?"
"Mic is tangled."

"Oh let me!" Shelly walked over and spend a little bit of effort to untangle it smiling whilst clumsily fixing it up. "There, all fixed up again!"

Vee looked at Shelly and smiled, a warm feeling in her chest. Shelly returned the smile, which.. slowly faded to a bit of sadness.

"Shelly?"
"It's nothing."
"It clearly is, what's on your mind"

Vee turned around to Shelly and held her hands while trying to make eye contact.

".. We just.. We did this so often before. I just miss how it used to be."

Vee felt that, stab in her chest again hearing those words, she just.. She couldn't say anything. What could she say? Shelly isn't wrong about.. that, Vee also misses the time they spent together.

"We.. could do that.. again"

Shelly looked up, watery eyed yet again feeling conflicted.

"We could? You're not too busy with all of the elevator nonsense? Not too focused on everyone else?! Ever since the park opened you had less time for me because you had so much to do, even when it shut down you left me alone, there's probably something you're busy with isn't there?! Some other excuse you use to avoid me?"

 

Vee...

Vee stood there, the words hitting her so hard. Shelly was crying more and Vee stood there, what can she say? She's been less present because of everything that happened, she was too focused on all of the ichor operations she forgot about her friend. About Shelly.

". . I.. I didn't mean to ignore you."

Vee strengthened her posture while holding Shelly's cheek.

I don't know what to say when we're together

I get nervous when I'm near you

I missed us so much I don't know what's normal to say anymore?

"I never did, I've just had.. A lot on my mind. I don't mean to avoid you.. Never did."

 

Vee looked into Shelly's eyes, sparkling with water tears running down her face. Vee grabbed a little cloth from the shelves and wiped away some of the tears.

".. Do you want to spend the night together? The storage isn't too comfortable to talk."

Shelly sniffed

"Yeah.."

 

They walked out of the storage to Shelly's room and sat down on the bed, Shelly leaning on Vee's shoulder for comfort. Vee static in place scared to move.
I missed you

I want to stay with you

I need you.

". . I." 

"Hm?" Shelly looked at Vee a little tired

"I.. was wondering if you were okay with hugging.. Thought you might need it."

Shelly smiled and embraced Vee, who promptly fell over onto the matress.

It felt nice.

Fuzzy, warm, and nice.

They were doing the thing, they were cuddling again, like they used to.

Afraid to disturb the moment Vee remained quiet and instead softly swooshed her mic(tail?) around over the side of the bed.

"Can we sleep here?" Shelly muttered.

"Of course."

Vee grabbed a blanket and made an attempt at placing it over Shelly who was unwilling to let go of Vee.

 

Shelly fell asleep relatively fast to the mechanical clicking within Vee's chest

Vee listened to Shelly's heartbeat for a little, before setting an alarm for 8:30 am next morning.

She waited and enjoyed the company for couple of minutes, then shutting down until the alarm would go off.

 

She'd stay with Shelly next morning to talk things out

Notes:

Heya! English is not my first language and I don't write very often at all.
Still I wanted to make something cute with the two of them and I hope I did this somewhat well.

I attempted to keep the wiki's personalities in mind and reference a bit of the, wants to hold onto memories, trying to move on.

I might make another chapter or come back to check grammar, until then! Have a lovely day !

Chapter 2: Next morning

Summary:

Vee wakes up with Shelly nuzzled against her and decides to reflect a bit on what Shelly had said.

Notes:

Holy hell I did not expect chapter 1 to be recieved so positively, honestly was gonna write 1 chapter and forget about it, but here we are!

Beep beep, beep beep  

 

Vee started up, all of her circuits slowly flaring to life. Her screen flickered to life. The ceiling above blazed yellow, sterile and glaring, a bright yellow roof with piercing lights almost blinding her eyes immediately. 

Vee adjusts to the surroundings and looks beside her, a small ammonite sleeping contently next to her, holding her waist tightly almost afraid to let go. Vee stares at Shelly for a moment, allowing herself to smile and enjoy the couple of seconds before thinking. 

 

Avoiding Shelly?  

 

Shelly had mentioned Vee never had time to even talk with her. Vee rarely reflected on the past and rather moving forward preparing for the future, she didn’t remember actually avoiding Shelly. 

Taking the opportunity of the silence to think, Vee ponders for a bit. When the park officially opened, she invited Shelly to the trivia shows well sometimes, but consistent characters on a show get boring right? Vee always had kids asking her about facts, People trying to get a picture with her, showered with attention. She was always tired at the end of the day and immediately went to her room to prepare for the next day. 

She’d encounter Shelly in the hallways who seemed so full of energy, asking about next game show, or if they had a moment to talk, if they could hang out. Vee usually declined the offers due to her always having to do things.  

She never had anyone who visited her specifically. . .  

Shelly spends time in her room often from what Vee knew, or talking with Tisha. She put herself out there, waited for people to go to the Dino Museum, offered fun facts to the kids who barely remembered them. Vee never really realised how lonely that had to be. 

It hadn’t crossed her mind before—how isolating it must’ve been for Shelly, smiling alone in the Dino Museum, waiting for people who never came.

 

Why didn’t I notice.  

Vee’s mic(tail?) curls up against her leg, out of shame. She holds onto Shelly to try and stop feeling so bad about this. Guilt floods her mind, having left her dearest friend alone like that. Shelly wasn’t wrong, Vee did actually avoid her once or twice, unable to see her so energetic at the end of the day while Vee felt exhausted.  

When the park had closed Vee took the time to relax and feel sorry about herself, that she couldn’t really do her game shows anymore. Her trivia had no more audience. She focused herself on the ichor operation to forget about what happened back then, it was best to leave the useless emotions behind anyways. 

 

They would only drag her down. 

 

A soft yawn emitted from Shelly, dragging Vee back to the present 

“Mornin’ Vee.” 

Shelly nuzzled Vee’s head  

“Morning Shelly..”  Vee replied, absentmindedly. 

 

Shelly looked at Vee, curious at what her friend was staring at. Vee was looking somewhere, or somewhat in thought. Shelly bumped her head softly into Vee’s and hearing a little whirr of fans from Vee’s head. 

“Watcha thinking about?” Shelly asked upbeat 

“. . .”  

 

The silence immediately dimmed the mood. 
 
“It’s fine Shelly, I believe I should ask you first if you’re feeling better.”  

 

Shelly took a couple seconds to think about yesterday, savouring the memory of them chatting, then remembering Shelly’s small breakdown. 

 

“I’m feeling, better than yesterday but.” 

 

Shelly sat up for a moment to look down at Vee, ensuring eye contact with Vee, who looked to the side and met her gaze. 

 

“Do you mean it? Or was it an in-the-moment-thing" 

Vee seemed a bit perplexed, tilting her head slightly. 

“Of course I mean it. Why wouldn’t I?” 

“It’s just you’ve done that stuff before.” 
“What stuff?” 
 

Shelly sighed for a moment, 

“Saying something quickly to cheer me up and never coming back to that. You wanted to add more prehistoric trivia, but you never did. You said you’d meet me after your show but never appeared.” 
 
Vee looked a tad bit surprised.  

Shelly kept track of that.  

Vee had forgotten about it almost immediately, well at least didn’t want to waste the storage for that to remember such small things. But of course, Shelly would never forget.  

“Do you still.. Feel sad about those things?” 

Shelly looked at the wall for a little while. The silence spoke volumes. 

“You shouldn’t dwell on such things Shelly. It happened so be it. Maybe try to, y’know move on, and look for other sources of happiness.” 

Shelly thought about the advice, then turned to Vee again. 

 
“What about the nice moments then? I don’t want to let that be in the past.” 

 

Vee also sat up, mostly to spare Shelly’s neck but also to have an easier time keeping eye contact. 

“Like?” 

“Y’know, you helped me organize my fossils once by time of discovery, another time we were gardening together with the other  mains. Many other times that we hung out together back then.” 

Shelly’s voice picked up energy as the memories rolled out—one after another, like fossils unearthed from dust. It made Vee feel nicer by listen to her ramble.

. 

 

“How do you actually keep tangling your mic? It’s happened so often now.” 

“I tend to focus on other things too much that I forget to look at it until it’s a tangled mess.”  

 

Shelly leaned into Vee, resting her head on Vee’s shoulder. Shelly would’ve probably gone back to sleep if it wasn’t for 

“Hey Shelly, are you awake?”  A voice spoke behind the door 

Vee seemed puzzled, trying to piece together who’s voice this was. 

“Oh it’s Tisha, Yeah I’m up!” Shelly responded rather excitedly 

 

Vee’s fans started whirring overtime and Vee walked away from Shelly, hiding behind some boxes and display cases of fossils. The door then opened, it was in fact a rather worried Tisha. Feather duster in her right hand the doorknob in her left. She walked into the room. 

 

“You weren’t there for breakfast, I thought it would be best to check on you.” 

“It’s already been breakfast time?” Shelly tilted her head 

“Mhm, it’s already 9.30 am, I’m surprised you haven’t gotten hungry yet.” 

 

Vee peaked over the boxes to see Tisha facing Shelly and somewhat distracted, taking the opportunity to slowly walk out of the room. Careful steps and making sure not to knock over anything, Vee slipped past to the door, sighing carefully about to celebrate her victory 

“Vee.”  

Crap  

“Tisha.” Vee looked over 

Tisha seemed unamused at best, tapping her foot and staring down the robot. 

 

“What are you doing here.” 

“Checking if Shelly wasn’t sick.” 
“I don’t believe any of that.” 

 

The intense stare down between the two ensued. They never really got along, Vee thought Tisha was just being immature and disliking Vee for her popularity and arrogance. In reality Tisha didn’t like how she was treating Shelly and also kind of her arrogance. 

“I have a feeling you just came here because you wanted her skills for your dumb ichor group.”  

“Trust me, if I needed help, it wouldn’t be from someone who cleans display cases for a living. You shouldn’t be speaking here, you’re yet to go on a mission.” Vee replied with a monotone, yet mildly accusing voice 

Tisha was about to throw the feather duster at Vee. Shelly put her hand on Tisha’s shoulder 

“Don’t worry about it Tish, Vee. . . Has been excused by me.” 

Tisha looked over to Shelly confused and looked back at Vee, then whispering back. 

“Are you sure, her expression remains just as stupid.” 

 

“I can hear you y’know.” 

 

“Yeah, believe me she’s apologised.” Shelly replied in a whisper. 

 

Vee sighed again and walked away to her own room, 

“See you later Shelly.” 

 

Vee walked down the hall, alone to her thoughts. Gosh Tisha could be so annoying, and why did she have to interrupt the moment. At least she checked up if Shelly was okay. What was her problem? Even when Vee hadn’t done anything to upset her, she could tell Tisha was considering spraying cleaning supplies into her circuits. 

“Tch, whatever” Vee muttered to herself. 

She was about to enter her room, recollect herself and take a moment to breathe. When she heard brightney in the distance, 

“Morning Vee! Where have you been? The group has been looking for you all over the place.” 

“Ah, nowhere special really.” 

“Well, if you’re sure about that it’s no big deal just let us know. Also! We’re planning the next Ichor expedition; you should go by the cafeteria to see what’s happening. I’m quite certain you’re going to be sent out again.” 

Brightney smiled and gestured for Vee to come along and see what’s happening. Vee reluctantly walked along with Brightney to see what the next course of action was. 

 

/ / Shelly / / 

Shelly waved as Vee walked away, Vee probably didn’t notice it, but that didn’t matter to Shelly. She looked excitedly at Tisha who, seeing Shelly so cheerful, immediately returned the smile. Tish then lowered her hand seeing there was no more robots to shoo out and looked over at Shelly. 

“How long have you been awake?” 

“Maybe an hour or so.” 

“Why is your outfit so dusty?” 

“I was in the storage yesterday.” 

“Why.?” 

“Organizing with Vee.” 

 

Tisha looked, confused to say the least. She gently bonked shelly on head with her feather duster after.  

“Why would Vee care about organizing the storage? Place has been abandoned for a little while now.” 

“She invited me there.” 

“She what? Are you sure she just didn’t want to do the chore? Humiliate you for showing up dusty? Want to sab-” 

“Tisha no, none of the sorts. She’s changed, in a good way this time. She was very nice to me.” 

“I don’t believe that in the slightest.” Tisha muttered 

“I liked us hanging out there, I enjoyed being there together, doing something together again.” 

 

Tisha was thinking, suddenly something fell into place as her eyes lit up for a moment. 

“.. You two were there alone, right?” 

“Yeaah?” Shelly didn’t see where this was going. 

“Like, she specifically invited you, right.” 

“Yeaa?” 

“ Horrible date idea. ” Tisha whispered to herself 

“What did you say??” Shelly tilted her head in confusion 

“Horrible idea, the storage is all dusty.” Tisha pretended to not have stated the previous. 

“Well I had fun.” 

“I’m happy you did but I’m going to talk to Vee.” 

“Don’t dump her in water. Please.” 

“Thinking about it but I won't yet.” Tisha smirked a bit and then walked out to the door, waiting for Shelly to follow. “Just change into a less dusty outfit, I’m waiting outside for you to eat brunch.” 

 

“Okay!” Shelly’s tail wagged at the mention of food. 

The door closed and Shelly walked to the closet, only then noticing in a reflection that Tisha did have a point, it was very dusty. She grabbed a spare of the main overalls she wears and the little shirt underneath it. 

 

Time for brunch, then ask Vee to share lunch, or dinner, or when we could meet up again.  

Notes:

Hiii!! It's Boopersz again,
Thank you for reading chapter 2 of my little lesbian shellvision fic. It started to get a little long, so I cut off a part to leave that for another time.
will write a chapter 3 soon :3

Until then have a lovely day!

Chapter 3: Another run

Summary:

Shelly and Vee get send out to an ichor run, Shelly is distracted with feelings for Vee, uncertain on what to do with them.

Notes:

:3!!!
Guess who's back, back again.
The kind comments, support and honestly people bothering to read has motivated me to actually finish this >:D.
I was planning to do both Vee's run and Shelly's run but got too 2.5k words already just writing shelly's part soo, SHELLY CHAPTER!!!
CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING DINO:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotasaurus
Anyways!! Chapter three of stupid lesbian short fic that started somewhere and will go on for idk how long!!!

// Shelly //  

Her gaze lingered on the doors for a moment, and then changed into the outfit in front of her. The dusty clothes went to the laundry basket, later to be washed when it got too full. She looked at her surroundings, her room.  

Yellow walls, both comforting and cold to her. They surrounded her, the only friends to talk to for years. She walked to one of the drawers with one of her countless hobbies. Knitting, drawing, a cookbook and some supplies to bake. Picking up a bit of clay that she had shaped into a Kotasaurus, her hands gently booped the snoot of the clay figure, it hadn’t been baked yet so it disformed slightly to the touch. Shelly fixed it up again, stretching the neck again and rolling the nose a little. She put it back and stared into the cabinet space for a little.  

Vee was really here huh.    

  

Shelly smiled and her tail wags excitedly. She and Vee were on better terms now! Maybe they could do this all the time now? Cuddle each night, she could hold onto her, slowly drift to the strangely soothing clicking noise of Vee’s heart. She could get used to hearing the fans whirr when she places her head in her neck. The slightly faster clicking of the heart.   

She could listen to that for hours.  

Maybe shelly could learn poetry, that could be something Vee has never seen before? Well, there’s probably poets in her database, but a shelly poem! Or.. Just a letter that asks her to meet her somewhere! Because calligraphy is also such a traditional. with stickers!!  

Her thoughts were interrupted by a grumble.   

“Oops!”  

Right brunch! Shelly closed the drawer and walks to the door, opens it with a smile and immediately drops the smile. Seeing Tisha dusting some cobwebs in the corner  

"Oh Tisha you waited!”  

“Of course, I said I would.”  

Shelly’s eyes sparkled and her tail wagged erratically, then coming to a realisation  

“Sorry for making you wait so long!”  

"It's okay shelly-" 

"No, I'm really really sorry you shouldn't have had to st-" 

  

Tisha put the feather duster on the floor for a moment and placed both her hands on both sides of Shelly's shoulders. 

  

"You don't have to apologize to me, it's okay, let's just go get brunch yeah?" 

Shelly nodded and scratched the back of her head awkwardly and picked up the feather duster for Tisha with her other hand. She held out the feather duster, Tisha took it from her hands with a smile. The two of them walked through the gardenview halls. 

Empty clean halls echoed of the past. Little papers drawn on by kids were hung on the walls. Toon portraits hung in front of each door. Even without being able to peer into the rooms, just the decorated door spoke volumes of each toon’s personality. Teagan’s door was gilded (probably fake gold) and had a teacup in the middle of the door, Tisha’s door had a simple pattern, but it was well kept and practically sparkling.  Vee had an automatic sliding door.  

Shelly had spent many days staring at it, as if her patience would maybe open it one day. 

The two of them made it to the cafeteria, it was decently quiet aside from one voice. Shelly recognised it as Brightney. The cafeteria had plenty of tables, they moved a couple together to have one area to discuss plans, there was a white board with Brightney standing in front of it. The board had different groups, one which would leave after breakfast and return somewhat after lunch. The second group would leave when they arrived and return at dinner. The last group would depart at dinner and return at night. Tisha and Shelly walked into the doors of the cafeteria, almost unnoticed. Shelly made eye contact with Vee. 

Her heart fluttered for a moment, cheeks changing a hue for a moment. She could barely make out Vee’s tail swooshing behind her. Vee’s face flickered back to the white board. Shelly could hear a sigh beside her and she chuckled. She felt watched by someone else. 

Shelly dragged Tisha to the counter and grabbed some less freshly baked bread. Shelly grabbed a plate, some fruit and cookies. She then grabbed a chair for herself and sat down at the plan table. The two were careful to not make too much noise while dragging a chair. 

It seems that Shelly was in the morning group, together with Tisha, Goob, Rodger, Vee, Bobette and ginger. Shelly got so excited realising she’d be with vee the whole morning! Awesome!  

“Any objections to the groups?” Brightney asked. 

“Yes.” 

The interjection came from the right side of the table. It came from a rather displeased Scraps. 

“I’d like to be with Goob.” 

“I.. I think we can switch your place with Vee then.” Brightney moved around the name cards, Scraps gave a satisfied nod. 

Shelly felt heartbroken hearing that but refrained from speaking up. Her plans were immediately thwarted. Then again Scraps has the right to be with her little brother, they were closer anyways, right? And Shelly can meet up with Vee at dinner! 

“Alright then, anyone else?” 

No one spoke up. 

“Great then! Morning group, grab some snacks if you want and I’ll see you off at the elevators.” 

Brightney walked off to the launch area. Shelly stuffed some muffins in her pockets, then scurried over to Vee. Who seemed to be in conversation with Glisten. Shelly’s shoulders lowered as she walked towards the doors, where tisha was waiting for her. 

“Shelly!” 

She turned over to see Vee had called out for her.  

“Don’t get yourself in trouble.” Vee said 

Shelly smiled  

“No promises! But I’ll try my best not to.” 

 

Shelly had to contain her excitement as she walked to Tisha. Tisha eyed her up and down. 

“I feel as if you would have skipped your way over if it wasn’t for the rest.” 

“Wh- no I wouldn’t.” Shelly’s elbow jabbed Tisha’s side 

 

The two walked to the elevator area or launch area as they called it. There were three elevators, they were taking the left one. 

“The plan is to get down get ichor and return after two hours. We’re aiming to get to floor ten for now alright?” Brightney rehearsed 

“Goob, you’re in charge of Distracting twisteds, Ginger you’re making sure those who are injured don’t get heavily wounded. Tisha I expect you to aid goob if he needs it. Bobette you’re a failsafe if a twisted escapes seeing you can safe yourself. Scraps, Shelly and Rodger, You three are in charge of doing machines. Understood?” 
 
The group nodded along and agreed mostly. Ginger had a pack of homemade cookies that seemed overflowing, one fell out as they left for the elevator. 

“Oh ginger, you dropped one!” Bobette cheerfully picked it up and smiled. 

“You can have that one Bette.” Ginger returned the smiled as Bobette broke it in half and shared it with Goob, overjoyed to receive the gift. 

 

Everyone entered the elevator and it slammed shut. 

 

Down we go  

 

 

Down we go  

 

The collection of seven toons chittered and talked. Ginger stuck mostly to Bobette’s side while she talked to Goob and Scraps. Rodger stayed back and reviewed his notes. Shelly and Tisha stood next to eachother. 

“Muffin?” 

Shelly grabbed one of the five muffins she managed to stuff in her pockets. It was a chocolate chipped one, it was just a tiny bit still warm from the oven and smelled delicious. She had no clue how cosmo and sprout made them so delicious or what the difference was between the normal food they made and the healing food.  

Dandy had mentioned something about ichor. And Cosmo always seeming tired after making them. 

Tisha happily took it from her hands before questioning. 

“Did you just take that out of your pockets.” 

“Yeah..?” 

“... How many more do you have?” 

“Like four more.” 

“Do you know how many crumbs that will leave behind.” 

 “Well atleast the the muffins are still good, and you can eat the crumbs later!”  

“GROSS!!” Tisha gave Shelly a playful punch, who returned it with a bit more force than intended sending tisha stumbling 

“Tisha! Are you okay-?” 

“I’m fine, just give me a warning next time.”  

Tisha patted Shelly on the shoulder, but their tiny commotion had made the elevator grow quiet. Either they were concerned, scared or impressed and none of them really tickled Shelly’s fancy.  

The doors finally opened. Revealing the main entrance of garden view. The middle area raised with a billboard showing off gardenviews logo. There were wheelchair ramps to make sure everyone could traverse the halls, one of the many good things about the place. There were four rooms in each corner and giant posters on each corner. 

In the distance a twisted version of Boxten strutted, nearly falling forward every step he took from the weight of his head. Goob ran ahead and Tisha trailed behind him, Waving after Shelly. 

The group left the elevator, and it closed behind them. Four machines and they’d be rushing back to the elevator.  

“Remember, when you have located the last machine, fill it halfway then let everyone know, not everyone is a fast runner.” Rodger noted 

With that, the group split up, Shelly walked around the map looking for machines. Shelly went to the room with her poster. She didn’t find much but a couple of tapes, some gumballs and a capsule. She picked them up and continued walking to the next room. Bobette seemed to be working on a machine there. Taking the opportunity Shelly called out, 

“You got this!” 

Bobette looked over and smiled, "Thank you!", then continued working with a bit of a faster pace. Shelly saw a machine nearby and started working. Turning valves, stopping at the right time, and continuing with turning. It required some practice, but Shelly was very good at this. 

Within practically no time a machine ping echoed, eight seconds later her own did so.  Shelly saw bobette leaving the sprout poster room and followed after her. While walking She heard another “ ding!” emanating from a room, and Rodger walked out non-chalantly.  

“Anyone seen scraps?” Shelly asked 

“She went with ginger.” 

From the other side of the map a shout could be heard. 

“Found it!!” echoed through the halls. 

“To the elevator then.” Rodger walked away to the elevator, the other two following suit. 

They made it and stood around for a little bit. Rodger glanced to Shelly for a bit, something on his mind that he wanted to ask, but before he spoke up. 

“So Shelly you like dinosaurs right?” Bobette asked cheerfully 

“Oh yeah! But I also sew, write, colour.” 
“Oh.. I thought dino’s were like, your schtick you know?” 

“Ah... Well yes but I have other hobbies too! Many.” 

Bobette looked away awkwardly, and Ginger walked up to them as a machine ding went off. The elevator opened and a countdown began. The four of them entered the Elevator, Tisha and Goob made their way over after. Scraps was still missing. 

20 

From a corner she appeared, her tail reached out and latched onto Goob, as she pulled herself forward quickly. The elevator slammed shut behind her. 

“All safe and sound!” 

The group turned over as a familiar face, operating the store, Dandy. 

“Howdy friends! Any tapes to spare?” 

His assortment of pop and timers was not anything useful at the moment. Nor did anyone have a good number of tapes. Nevertheless, the group still looked and checked their wallets.  

“Hey Dandy, Why are you not there with the ichor planning.” Bobette questioned 

“Ah.. Busy with repairs and elevator duty, and of course the store!” 

Dandy brushed it off but he seemed a little uncomfortable about the subject. After everyone had their look and declined Dandy shrugged and waved people off, as he disappeared to the floor. 

What’s Vee doing now?  

 

A couple of floors went by. Most went the same way, although it was a bit time consuming. One thing however didn’t seem to leave her mind. Her evening with Vee, what did it mean between them. 

The elevators opened, closed, opened, closed. 

While walking in the halls, Shelly was mostly alone. Tisha was near Goob, Ginger and Bobette stuck mostly together, although Goob got hit once which called Ginger to move away. Rodger was off doing his own thing and so was scraps. 

It was quiet, all was quiet except for. 

When are me and Vee hanging out again?  

Today? Or well, she was talking with glisten, does she have something planned already?  

Are we friends?.. Could we be more?  

She thought about it for a little, yes Shelly would like to cuddle every night with her if possible! But is that a friend thing or.. 

They’re friends, great friends but something about that word makes Shelly, upset. Something about being just friends felt wrong. 

Time passed. Tisha seemed tired from constantly worrying about Goob, and also didn’t seem too talkative. Something about seeing a twisted version of yourself being quite, frightening. 

 

Shelly couldn’t really remember which floor they were on, it was a parking lot, the elevator on one side, huge parking area, and the broken elevator on the other. Finding machinery was annoying. While walking around she bumped into rodger who seemed focussed. 

“Keep it up!” Shelly noted, she was about to walk away when she remembered the fact Rodger was a genius detective, who probably knows a LOT about the toons, or subtle hints. She waited until the machine finished. 

“Hey Rodger, I had a question for you.” 

“I have an answer.” 

“.. How do you know if.. Someone likes you?” 

Rodger chuckled for a moment and seemed to look a bit smug in a way. 

“Well, there’s many signs to it. Laughing at each other's jokes, them reaching out to spend time together, gifts, comforting and much more.” Rodger made a finish to his list before staring almost through Shelly. “Where’s this question coming from?” 

“Ah-” 

Shelly was startled and unsure on how to answer this pretty keen observation. Rodger was onto her, but what if, she just wanted to be best friends with Vee. Maybe she’s mistaking the feeling. What if Vee doesn’t like her back and she hears this from Rodger? She has access to a lot of the electronics here, like the security, the, th- 

“Shelly? Are you okay?” 

“Oh- Yeah no sorry, just a thing I was curious about.” 

Rodger gave a doubtful look to her but shrugged. 

“We should find more machines to fix up.” And with that Rodger walked off. 

Shelly followed behind. 

After a bit the elevator opened again and as everyone regrouped, the elevator made a strange high-pitched ping, suggesting it was preparing to go up again. Shelly didn’t really notice how tired she was. Usually, the group would stay out longer but they left kind of late because of people oversleeping apparently. Including herself. 

Shelly yawned and sat down on the floor, leaning against the elevator walls. Tisha sat down next to her. Shelly planted her head on Tisha’s shoulder and took a nap while the elevator was heading up. 

Dingy old thing took a while to get to the surface. About half an hour had passed and both Shelly would have probably kept sleeping in the elevator if it wasn’t for Tisha to nudge her. 

“Oye, Lunch time, and you might still see zipper.” 

Shelly woke up a bit drowsy and confused. 

“What do you mean by zipper??” 

Shelly stared out for a moment, until coming to the realisation of zip meaning a shock, meaning Vee and not the little metal bit. 

“Right!! Okay I’m off!!” Shelly sprinted down the hall. 

The next group was getting ready to depart Vee seemed to be the one trying to get people to get moving and get up. She saw Shelly approaching immediately and nudged her head over to the hall. Vee left the lounge area stood in the hallway around a corner just out of sight for the rest. 

Shelly without hesitation grabbed Vee and hugged her. Vee was surprised and unsure what to do, wrapped her arms around the tinier ammonite giving her a pat on the back. Shelly’s tail began to wag. 

“Hiii” 

“A bit more... discreet please?” 

“Why?” 

“It’s just that..." Vee paused for a little, and then brushed it off, "I got to go, have a good meal. I’ll see you when I get back.” Vee replied in a monotonous voice while holding Shelly’s cheek. 

“Ah-! Alright!! I’ll see you here?” 

“Sure.” Vee let go of Shelly, gave her a pat on the head and moved to the launch area. 

 

Shelly stood there again, watching as Vee walked away, out of sight. But this time she’d return. Shelly felt that feeling of hope again in her chest, she’d come back to her. She will. 

 

She will. 

Notes:

Hello people!!!
I got sick for practically a whole month and it was NOT fun.
This was planned to be finished February 10th hence why there's christmas toons. They're gonna be here for a little while.
I'm really excited to finally have this finished, and posted.
The next chapter should be out MUCH faster seeing this one was way longer but I cut it off
Have a great day and I hope next chapter doesn't get interrupted as much !!
Boopers out!

Chapter 4: Afternoon troubles

Summary:

Vee's run starts and the usual argument with dandy and then refusing to talk to him ensues. Although this time she meets someone down there while collecting ichor.

Notes:

Hello!!! Told you all this chapter would be released faster >:D
Any whom, it's mostly Vee & not really getting the whole feeling emotions thing.
Got to add the angst tag, but there comfort coming next chapter ofc, writing fluff till I perish!!!
MENTIONED DINO!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor

Before reading, drink some water!

/ / Vee // 

Her hands had lowered to her sides by now, but the touch of Shelly’s cheeks still lingered on the sensors on her palms.  

Vee continued down the hall, following the group of toons. Pebble, Looey, Finn, Sprout, Cosmo and Gigi. Vee swiftly analyzed the group—Pebble, jittery and alert, looked ready to sprint laps, Looey and Finn were chattering about something laughing every now and then. Gigi joined into their conversation giggling along, Vee noticed the snacks almost falling out of her pockets, they haven’t even gotten to the elevator yet, but her pockets were half empty already implying she had been snacking. Cosmo and Sprout chatted happily, Cosmo jabbed Sprout’s side who immediately jumped back and seemed to jokingly talk down Cosmo, who nodded along to the lecture with faked interest. 

Classic Seedly, ticklish and jumpy.  

The others don’t seem prepared at all for this. Great.  

Vee had much rather been with the other group, maybe switch out Goob for Pebble and it would have been such a good team. A serious and functioning team at the very least. Vee expected the group to have to return to the surface early because of too much damage. Brightney was waiting for them at the middle elevator. 

“Great to see you all here. One more rehearsal so we all understand, Pebble you lead the twisteds away from the group and machines, Looey you are a back up incase pebbles gets too hurt and can’t recover at the moment or if theres too many twisteds.” 

Looey seemed a bit nervous at the mention of twisteds but smiled with a goofy grin to reassure the group 

Mostly himself if anything.  

“Finn, Gigi, Vee you are on machine duty. Sprout and cosmo you are also expected to do machines but more importantly make sure the rest is healthy. We’re trying to get to floor 20 but stopping earlier is absolutely alright if need be. Is all clear?” 

The group nodded mostly, Vee shrugged and rested her right hand on her hip waiting for the doors to open. A high-pitched ding announced the arrival of the elevator. The door slid open with a creaking sound. It hasn’t been properly dusted and oiled in a while anyways no wonder it’s noisy. 

Vee was the first to waltz into the elevator, taking the lead as always. The rest of the gang followed along after her. Cosmo seemed to be holding hands with sprout. 

They seem happy. How’d Seedly even get together with Cosmo.  

They never said they were dating, but to anyone with more than 10 braincells it was pretty obvious. But those smiles, the way they looked at each other and talked without speaking. How they just knew what the other one felt. Vee admired it in a way, she wanted something like that. 

Brightney waved at the group and the door dropped down, making a slamming sound that spooked a couple of the toons. 

A whirring noised started and the elevator descended, Vee stared at the door.  

Gotta focus, ichor, machines, hiding.  

Shelly’s words stuck with her, to think of the past, to not live everything in the moment and keep moving forward. Taking breaks to look back was fine too of course. Vee probably should actually do so. When was the last time she tried to reflect on things she did? Longer than a week ago. If it wasn’t about recalling facts about people or trivia it usually didn’t interest Vee, not enough to think about it.  

She and shelly had attempted to fill a scrap book with little decorations of things they liked together, Vee had much difficulty with doing things based on how they make you feel. She could guess which thing was associated with which emotion, look up what it would mean, but when she felt things, there is no easy solution to dictate what and how. 

Frustrating really  

Vee’s hand balled up a bit, Gigi appeared beside her, reaching up to place her hand on Vee’s shoulder. Vee turned to face the gachapon and turned the rest of her body. She loomed over Gigi. 

“Yes?” 

“I just wanted to ask if you had any spare pieces-” 

“No, I don’t, and don’t take all the supplies we find today.” 

“First of all! You’re the one keeping them, second of” 

“Don’t. I don’t need to hear some petty justification; share the supplies we all need them.” 

“Okay!! Sheesh.” 

Gigi gave up with a huff and trudged back to Finn. Vee could hear their conversation going on about crabs or something, Looey also seemed interested. Cosmo and Sprout joined in. Vee didn’t feel compelled to pretend to not already know all about crabs, why does it even bother the other toons? They’re on almost on the first floor, why are they goofing around? 

The door slid open with a small screech and Vee stepped out together with pebbles. Vee looked around for some panels and walked over to the nearest bundle of circuits on the wall. With a little finesse Vee plugged herself in scanning the map with the barely functional cameras. 

They were in one of the many halls leading to a small lounge, desks and chairs with a tv present somewhere to showcase the adventures of Gardenview. She could spot a Twisted Poppy and Toodles roaming the southern halls near the dysfunctional elevator. 

“South, the purple carpet leading to the broken elevator is where they are.” 

Pebble barked softly and sprinted off, barking louder to get attention from the twisteds. 

“There’s two machines at the main lounge with the television, there’s one in the halls over on the left, and one in the corner at the end of the hall there.” 

Vee walked off towards the lounge, focusing on the task at hand. Get this over with, then get back to the surface, nothing she hasn’t done over and over. She was frequently sent out, because she was task oriented and just needed recharges, a bit of repairs and she was ready to go. Vee didn’t seem as paranoid as the rest, that didn’t mean she didn’t worry about them, she just didn’t let the worry cloud her mind. 

Vee put her hands on the valve, spun it carefully with much attention to make sure the ichor was flowing at a steady efficient rate. Finn ran past her. She moved back a little to make sure there was no water splashing on her. Finn got to the other machine opposite side of the lounge. Finn was much more careless on repairing machines. But he still fixed them regardless. 

Ding. 

Vee walked checked the other machines, they were all being fixed. Vee wandered back to the elevator. Waiting got a bit boring of course, but what else to do. She checked the camera’s again, Pebble seemed to be running in circles at the broken elevator, Finn was almost done. Sprout and Cosmo were fixing a machine together and Looey had also found one. She saw gigi pick up some junk which she quickly pocketed. 

Ding 

Vee stopped checking and looked to her left, Finn hopped into view. 

“Oh, are the others busy?” 

“Yes. Give them seventeen seconds.” 

Finn started counting out loud, Vee wasn’t sure if she should classify it as obnoxious or helpful, since she didn’t have to countdown anymore.   

Ding 

“Whoa.. How'd you know?” 

“I just do.” Vee smirked and her tail flicked to emphasize her statement as intelligent and thought out. 

Not a much longer 

Ding 

By then Cosmo and Sprout had shown up, and the elevator doors opened again. Gigi popped up from somewhere, and Looey ran inside.  

“All here!” Vee shouted 

Pebble quickly ran over, leaped into the elevator and right before Toodles could do so too, the elevator slammed shut. 

“Now to repeat that twenty times everyone!” Looey said with a joking tone to try and lighten the mood, but the only responses were grumbles, except for Finn. 

“With a group like ours, CODn’t imagine it being a problem” Finn smirked, waiting for Looey to get the pun. After four seconds Looey began laughing.  

Vee stopped listening in to their conversation as most of it was facts, puns and juggling. 

A familiar tune played. 

Dandy’s store popped up from the floor. Gumballs, pop and instructions. 

This stupid flower still dares to show his face  

Vee walked up to the flower. Dandy’s shoulders immediately dropped seeing Vee approaching, he sighed for a moment and then smiled, nevertheless. He began readying his usual talk and some arguments. 

“Got any tapes?” Dandy asked smiling. 

Vee stared down the flower. Their eye contact felt like lightning sparked between them. No one dared to interrupt. Vee was ready to argue, Dandy didn’t seem too excited about the idea. 

“Planning to tell us what you’re doing with the ichor? Why can’t you help us with going down floors? Why are you hiding.” 

Dandy sighed; he seemed tired of it. This was one of the so many times Vee had asked these things, attempted to argue to talk. He was just here to sell them things, wasn’t that enough? With a bit of energy, he came up with a response. 

“For someone known for constantly moving on you hold a lot of grudges don’t cha?” Dandy shrugged and smiled optimistically again. “I am helping! I’m selling items and get you all food. Isn’t that enough? I even get you repairs when you need it. Stop questioning and just move on like you always do.” 

Vee stared him down about to speak again but Sprout dragged her away from Dandy before anything escalated. Dandy smiled again and rolled his eyes. He looked to the left and a genuine sparkle was shortly in his eyes. 

“Pebble! C’mere boy” Dandy called out to his beloved dog. 

“Arf!” Pebble strutted forward excitedly, Dandy took some tapes from his sides and passed him a treat for them. 

“Good boy! You did very well.” Dandy patted Pebbles excitedly and looked at Vee. Something in his eyes was smug. Vee felt like punching him for leaving the rest of the toons to clean up his mess. 

He’s the one that caused the accident to shut down the park anyways. 

“Vee deep breaths, okay? Hey, focus on me.” Sprout snapped his fingers in front of Vee to get her attention.   

Vee scoffed and walked away from the store. When she left Dandy alone the rest aside from Sprout felt like actually taking a look at what he offered. Sprout stood next to Vee waiting for the store to close. 

“See you all again!” Dandy pulled a lever and disappeared from sight. 

“Vee, I get it, I also tried to talk to him. Just leave it be” Sprout tried to talk Vee down. 

“It’s just the way he pretends everything is fine is annoying, and he doesn’t feel like facing the consequences of his actions or explain what happened then and now.” 

“When did you care about that?” 

Vee stopped for a bit and pondered. Then walked away from Sprout to take some time to think for herself. 

Why.  

 

Floor 2 passed by, exactly the same as the previous, just different horrors, 

Floor 3 did too, 

Floor 4, 

Floor 5, 

Floor 6. 

Each time they regrouped Vee was losing more sanity listening to the puns and attempting to dodge the puddles of water that had formed from Finn’s laughter. Each time Vee had tried to speak with Dandy he pretended not to hear her, Vee had given up deciding to only talk when buying something and then immediately walking away to ignore him. 

Dandy and she were friends at some point, time had just changed them. Vee couldn’t stand watching him use that same stage persona he used on the shows, with the kids, with everyone else.  

And 

Still 

Pretend 

He's better. 

 

Frustration came easily to Vee. So did annoyance. They were simple—actionable. Dissatisfaction, disappointment was also in the book. They were easy to understand because it just made her feel desperate to fix whatever was going wrong in her opinion. Whether that was by leaving the room, speaking up, or anything else, it was easy to recognise. The notification something wasn’t going as should, the irritation. 

. 

Going down the elevator made Vee feel something, at least she hoped there wasn’t an error in her systems. 

A want, but not for a goal or for a thing. A want for a person, a toon. 

The lack of Shelly being in this run had made Vee, dissatisfied. Maybe because of Shelly’s way of making other toons do their best, to try a bit harder. It was something Vee liked about her too, being able to make sure people were looking out for themselves, trying harder.. Without being disliked for it. 

Yeah, she probably just missed her competence. 

 

Her hands were absent mindedly turning a valve, the last couple of floors she didn’t listen in to what the others were saying, it was just noise to her. Some toons had called out for her multiple times, but she didn’t respond. She kept making sure to locate twisteds, but didn’t really talk. 

Thinking had never costed so much cpu. 

"Vee." 

She heard in the distance 

"Vee!!" 

It didn’t really matter, she was busy,

"VEE!! WATCH OUT." 

Only then did she hear the pattern of footsteps near her. In an instant she flicked over to the right to see what was making the loud noise distracting her from her duties.  

"What." 

Vee took a moment to adjust back into focus, when they did, a figure was roaming down the hall, about to turn the corner to her. A foot or two taller than her a head shape familiar to her, a faded tan colour. She was tall, really tall. Quickly looking Vee realised that their lower body stopped abruptly and was replaced by that of an enlarged velociraptor covered in the black liquid they’ve been extracting. 

“..Shelly?” 

At the mention of her name, Shelly turned. 

Eyes, a crimson red, ichor streaming as tears from them. Her eyes focused on Vee. A snarl erupted from Shelly as she pounced towards her. Vee didn’t, couldn’t react, Shelly knocked her onto the floor, as crash echoed through the halls, Vee felt her screen crack a bit. Shelly towered over her, about to swipe her claws over her stomach. 

“Shelly I-. It’s me, Vee-” The first times she’s stuttered. 

Vee didn’t know what to say.  

Shelly stopped waited for a moment, the ichor from her face dripped onto Vee’s face, their eyes locked. 

Shelly’s eyes brimmed with pain—then flared with rage. She was torn. Vee could see it. The ammonite opened their mouth, half of their face almost dropped off her head. And in a low raspy exhausted voice. 

"Your.. Fault" Shelly sputtered. 

".. I- I'm sorr-" Before she could finish, she heard the elevator open, and a claw dug into her shoulder. 

"Stay." 

SYSTEM ERROR, DAMAGED CIRCUITS LEFT SHOULDER  

Vee jittered for a bit, the damage and liquid mixing with electricity is not as good thing, she wanted to run, she couldn’t. 

In the distance a bark echoed, Shelly darted to it, leaving Vee on the floor. Laying there, there was a pit forming in her metaphorical heart. That stab, that stupid dysfunctional oversight that made her feel bad, it made her feel horrible about her actions. That pain Shelly was in, the desperation in her wanting company. The time was ticking, the elevator would leave without her if she wouldn’t get up. 

SYSTEM ERROR, DAMAGED CIRCUITS LEFT SHOULDER  

She didn’t want to get up. 

A voice called out 

"VEE!! GET UP DAMNIT!!" 

It was Seedly. He came to her, lifted her giving support. Clearly, he was struggling to carry the metal body, but he didn't give up on that. He was speaking, talking about something trying to drag Vee along but it didn’t register. He was loud but her sensors were focused on the pain and on. 

 

"Your fault." Vee muttered softly for just herself. 

 

They arrived in the elevator. She could hear Sprout talking to her, she just couldn’t hear the words he was saying. She could feel the elevator going up again, they made it to somewhere along the floors 19 or 21. Vee jumped and called out in pain for a moment 

ERROR, TAIL DAMAGED  

 She turned around and saw Pebble had taken a little nibble out of her cord to get her attention. She towered over him, not even realising eyes darting everywhere of her screen, her mannerism wasn’t composed, professional, she was a mess. But so was the rest of the group. She took a moment to look at everyone, they all had been bandaged up a bit and looked exhausted. She hated to admit it, but she was too. 

She sat down and pushed Pebble away despite his whining.  

 

Shelly looked so hurt, those eyes were imprinted into her memories. That was her fault, she could have been there, she could have helped her she, she was still Shelly, she just wanted her to stay,  

This horrible thing happened to Shelly because of Her. 

 

It’s my fault.  

 

The elevator was finally quiet. No one dared to speak up. Vee wasn’t displaying anything on her screen. They all just waited. 

And waited. 

 

And 

Waited. 

 

The elevator opened, everyone left to calm down a bit, Sprout stayed with Vee. 

"Feel like talking?" 

"No, go fix up yourself Seedly." Vee could see he was just as tired as her. 

He sighed and walked away, going somewhere else. Vee slowly got up, pushing against the wall. And walked out of the elevator, stumbling a bit. She pressed a button and the door fell down. She connected with the cameras to locate Shelly. 

 

She stumbled down the hall, barely holding together to get to Shelly’s room. Some toons called out for her; she ignored them. Her feet didn't want to move, her joints were heavy. Fighting to get past all the doors, barely holding together to get to Shelly’s room. She just needed to see she was doing fine. Reaching her hand onto the door handle, ichor stained the handle, she opened the door. A chipper voice immediately started to talk

"Heya! Who’s the-" 

"Hii Vee!!! Ho-" 

"ARE YOU OKAY??" 

 Vee didn't reply.

 

Vee walked, almost fell, forward, her body spammed her with requests to go her room and repair herself. But she didn’t want to. She stumbled to Shelly and grabbed the shorter toon.  She hugged onto her and a choked mix of cough and gasp of relief exited her. 

"Vee??? VEE???" 

Vee shut down on the spot, her worry was relieved. 

Notes:

OKAY IT'S A BIT OF A CLIFF HANGER DON'T TORCH ME!!!
Hope it was decent
I hope to have next chapter done swiftly!!
tbh I think this little fic will end around the 9 - 12 chapters, and after I'll just post shellevision art until I get another fun idea to write.
Actually rename this ship to History channel, I don't remember who started it but I love the name!!
Have a lovely lovely day!! I'll go sleep now, until next chapter!
Boopers out!!

Chapter 5: Panicked Repairs.

Summary:

Shelly is left with a shut down robot that's barely holding together, panicked she tries to get back her friend.

Notes:

Helloooo, how are we doinngg. It’s fluff time, mostly.
I don’t know a lot about machinery, enough to be able to program and somewhat fix keycaps etc, but like nothing of the advanced stuffies with robotics sooo there’s stuff that doesn’t make sense in this chapter, then again dandy’s world is also kind of nonsense.

Hope everyones been holding up alright :D!!
Swapping pov’s within chapters again, yipperss.
No mentioned dinosaur 3

/ / Shelly //  

“Vee?” 

Shelly was holding a somewhat broken robot in her hands; it was heavy to keep upright but she’s carried heavier fossils. Shelly pulled Vee closer to her to try and inspect if there’s any noise coming from her. Nothing, no clicking, no whirring of machinery. Just cold steel pressing against her cheeks. 

“Vee??” 

Shelly gently shook the robot but gave up, scared she’d damage something. She inspected the robot, a chunk of her shoulder was missing, seemingly crushed by something really heavy and sharp apparently seeing the damage to the wiring and the circuits. Her body in general had a couple of dents and was stained with ichor. Her screen had endured a couple of cracks. Shelly put her hand over the cracks to try and trace where they had originated from. Seeing the pattern, she guessed Vee had fallen. 

“What did you do??” 

Shelly sat down and laid Vee’s head on her lap. She thought for a moment on what to do. Then remembered seeing Vee in her room getting repairs from her handler, and this big threatening machine which was rearranging wires in her arm. Dandy also had to fix up Vee once, he however didn’t allow people to watch on.  

“Okay, got it.” 

Shelly lifted Vee with a bit of effort and pushed her close to her chest, as if that would keep her safer. She used her elbow to push down the doorknob and pushed open the door with her tail. She looked around and could see a bit of ichor on the wall left and right, too faint to really piece together a path, but just visible enough and frequent enough for Shelly to guess where Vee came from. 

She carried Vee to her room, struggling a bit, but she continued the journey. The hallway was never really a long trip, but it was only now that she realised how far back her room was from everything. She almost tripped over Vee’s microphone three times. But made it to her room. 

She waited for a moment in front of it. Waiting for permission. 

“There she is!” A voice called out, multiple questions from a couple different people ensued after. 

“How’d you carry her?” 

“Is Vee okay?” 

“Shelly what happened?” 

Brightney had found them, actually a couple of toons had accompanied her. Shelly was relieved the group went to check in on them. 

No, they didn’t check in on THEM, they checked in on Vee. Did they do that often? After she was injured, or missing they’d actually go looking? 

Shelly held onto Vee a bit tighter while staring at Brightney, holding back the urge to say something rude 

“I’ve got it covered Brightney, you don’t need to worry. Just go enjoy dinner.” Shelly smiled. 

“Oh, don’t worry Shelly you don’t have to fix this, I can al-” Brightney was cut off 

“Go, enjoy, dinner.” Shelly’s tone was firm and unwavering. She stared unamused at the rest of the toons that tagged along. It didn’t matter who they were to Shelly, they should leave. 

She groaned with frustration, walking into the room 

She stepped into Vee’s room and locked the door behind her. Vee’s room had green walls the same shade of Vee. Black floors and a lot of random machines that Shelly had no clue how to operate. There was something that she remembered seeing Vee charging up with. There were fluorescent lights, everything in this room looked extremely modern. There was a nice carpet on the floor but there’s ichor on it now.  

 She laid Vee on the floor trying to get her as comfortable as possible. She noticed a little cardboard box that stood out from the rest. It had a little tag on it with a signature rainbow flower. She opened the box, it was filled with plyers, screws, sanitizing tissues and a lot more. A little repair box basically, although not that little. 

On second thought Shelly shouldn’t have waved away Brightney, she might have actually known how to fix this all, too late for that though. She grabbed some of the tissues and tried to remove all of the ichor over Vee, which was probably the easiest part, it reminded her of cleaning fossils. Thought the wires, circuits and such seemed a bit more difficult, scared of injuring vee she gave up.  

Shelly sat next to Vee, unsure of what to do then looking up to see that little thingie she saw fixing Vee’s arm before. Although back then it had all these steel arms and such, right now it just looked like a really weird block. 

She carried Vee over to the work bench and laid her there, the machinery immediately started whirring noticing a change in weight. Shelly looked over to a little panel, and pressed repairs. The panel then shut off. 

“Did I break-”  

Before she could finish the sentence a couple of steel ‘arms’ folded out of the table and poked Vee’s body, before removing bits from her shoulder etc. Slow and precise. It also readjusted Vee’s laying position. 

“Huh..” 

Shelly grabbed a chair and sat down, staring at Vee. Witnessing this all happen. 

Time had passed and she heard a knock on the door. 

“Hey Shell, didn’t know where you were but you left a trail of ichor here, I have dinner and thought you could use some.” 

It was Tisha, Shelly smiled and walked over to the door and opened it using a button near it. Shelly was a little impressed by the door, pressed the button again, and again to open and close it repeatedly.  

“This is cool!!” 

Tisha looked unamused; she’s clearly been here before. 

“Right.” Shelly chuckled. The scent of some lasagna wafted around. 

She looked at what Tisha was holding, a plate with a pretty big portion of, who could have guessed, lasagna 

“Fresh too!!” Shelly’s tail wagged excitedly 

Tisha smiled and shrugged. 

“Something told me you weren’t going to show up for dinner and believe me as much as I’d like to stay with you, I don’t want to be in this,” Tisha was looking for words “Junk yard.” 

“It’s decently clean! And well organized” Shelly protested 

“1, it’s not your room so you don’t know, 2, I was talking about the random machines.” 

Shelly looked over, the room was kind of filled with random machines left and right, but it was decently clean though? Okay then again, it’s Tisha, nothing is clean enough.  

“Enjoy dinner, remember to sleep.” Tisha handed her the plate with some cutlery and started going back to the cafeteria 

“Thank you!!” 

“No need.” 

Shelly closed the door again and went back to her chair, eating dinner. It tasted really good, how do Cosmo and Sprout do it? Needless to say, she finished her plate quickly, and placed it on a table nearby, then resumed staring at Vee. It took about an hour or three till she was repaired. Vee was however still plugged to the worktable with the right side of her head. The charging/input port if Shelly remembered correctly. The other side had wires and a single port to connect with other devices for either output or other reasons. Shelly yawned and placed her head on the worktable, nuzzling Vee a little and then falling asleep on the not-so-comfortable-or-nice worktable. 

Shelly drifted off, slowly.. 

 

// Vee // 

SYSTEMS RECOVERED, BOOTING UP  

Vee's screen flickered once. Then, all at once, her systems surged back online. Her sensors kicked in—room scan, temperature, weight detection. Location: her room. Surface: repair bench. Status: operational. First priority: Shelly. She was placed on the work bench, She sat up. She looked around frantically, she remembered clearly shutting down near Shelly, where is Shel- 

She looked down at the little ammonite sleeping peacefully, her head on the table the same clothes as yesterday. Vee was surprised she had been able to even fall asleep on the table. Vee unplugged herself and got her legs off the table. She smiled at Shelly. She was okay, she was unharmed and peacefully sleeping. 

Something that also caught her eye was she was on the defect repair table; it hadn’t been working in ages, but it seems it had patched up her arm just fine. She turned back look at Shelly. 

Can’t leave you here, can I?  

Vee got off the table and stood next to the chair Shelly was resting on. She reached out her hands to pick up her friend when a pair of eyes slowly opened. 

“Oh, didn’t mean to wake you up.” Vee spoke in her normal monotone voice. 

“VEE!!” Shelly jumped off her chair, eyes tearing up a little and pounced onto Vee 

Her claws were going to pierce through her screen, get up, GET U- 

 

Shelly harmlessly sat on top of a startled Vee and hugged onto her.  

It’s just Shelly. She’s fine and so are you.  

 

Vee wrapped her arms around Shelly, holding her close. Shelly was here, she was fine, she IS fine. Nothing bad will happen to her, not as long as she will hold her.  

WATER DETECTED NEAR SCREEN  

Vee lifted Shelly off of her for a moment, looking into some big round teary eyes.  

“Oh Shelly..” 

“I’m- Sorry” sniffle, “I just, you were, you-” Shelly rolled off of Vee to wipe away her tears and not cause Vee to short circuit right after she’s been fixed. She sat down next to the still laying Vee. 

Vee got up and placed her arm around Shellies shoulder. Pulled her in a little bit closer. 

“It’s alright, we’re both here.” 

Shelly pressed her head against Vee, Vee’s head got a bit warmer. 

“I was worried-.. You just stumbled in covered in ichor.. Can- Can I hold you please, I-”  

Vee had beaten her to it. She brought the toon into a warm metallic embrace.  

The two of them stayed silent for a bit. Neither talked, just cuddling and calming down from previous events. Vee’s tail curled around Shelly; Shelly leaned into Vee. They just sat. If neither of them had things to do, or responsibilities they would have stayed for ages, but Vee had curiosities and questions she needed answers to. 

“I wonder, how did we get here?” Vee asked 

“I carried you.” Shelly replied happily 

“You what?” 

Vee blinked a couple of times and tried to process, Shelly carrying a chunk of solid metal filled with wiring a head and a half taller than her. 

“Like.. Alone?”  

“Yup!” Shellies tail wagged excitedly 

Note to self, do not make her angry under any circumstances.  

“I’m... Impressed...” Vee said, mildly concerned. 

Silence befell the room again. 

“We should get you something to eat, and I should get back to ichor business.”  

Vee let go of Shelly, stood up and started walking, but after setting even one footstep towards the door she had to stop as her left foot was not moving. She looked to the floor and realised Shelly had clung onto her leg and was not letting her move. 

“Nu uh.” 

“What?” Vee tilted her head slightly. 

“You are NOT going back to extracting, you’re taking a day off and then celebrate weekend with meee~.” Shelly said in a little sing song voice 

“I’m fine though, I have no injuries, I can go-” Vee was cut off 

“NO!!” Shelly shouted and then awkwardly coughed-laughed 

“I mean.. No, you deserve a break, anyone else who had just LOST A SHOULDER would deserve a day off to recover from the stress.” Shelly insisted 

Vee sighed (kinda) 

“Okay okay, still you need breakfast.” It was 7 after all, hopefully they hadn’t woken anyone up 

“Nooo but I wanna sleep hereee with youuu.” Shelly pouted and put on her cutest face. 

It probably would have worked, if it wasn’t that Vee worried about Shellies diet and health. 

“Nope outside, now.” Vee forcefully dragged her left foot forward, causing Shelly to drag along the floor with her. After a couple sounds of disagreement she got up and walked after Vee to the door. 

With a short tap on the buttons, the door opened. Vee walked through and waited for Shelly. 

Shelly sprinted to her and grabbed her hand, holding it and looking very proud of herself. Tail wagging and sparkling eyes. Vee sighed and squished Shellies hand for a second and continued walking to the cafeteria. It was early, they’d be fine. 

The two of them walked. 

 

“What happened yesterday though?” 

“.. Nothing too bad, just twisted and well injury.” Vee left out the whole SHELLY TWISTED part. Probably not a good thing to start the morning with. 

“Reaally though??” 

“I mean it happens to the others all the time no?” Vee shrugged 

“.. Yeahh but- I.. I’m happy you’re okay.” Shelly sighed 

“Same here.” 

Shelly bomped her head into Vee’s shoulder affectionately and smirked then started sprinting, dragging Vee along. 

“WHYY-” Vee protested for a moment but ultimately gave in. 

“HEhehehe!! Breakfast time!!” 

Who hadn’t they woken up by now... Vee sighed. 

The cafeteria was in sight. Vee felt.. Worried and let go of Shellies hand, Vee felt a gaze stare into her, but she ignored it. Looking into the cafeteria, no one was there yet aside from Sprout and Cosmo. They were busy making toasts with melted butter, some with sugar and some with, well fruits and chocolate. The two had also baked some eggs, Ginger had also made biscuits with cute little flowers made of strawberries. 

Shelly excitedly ran to the chefs and smiled. 

“Oo!! Can I help pleasee!!” Shelly was beaming with joy 

“Oh yeah! Can you help with assembling the toasts?” Cosmo replied. 

Vee shrugged and picked a comfy looking chair to plop down on. She was usually early but never really engaged with anyone yet. She remembered seeing Shelly try to bake with Cosmo and Sprout a while back but didn’t realise she actually helped in the kitchen. Vee waited for the rest to show up. 

 

Brightney, stereotypical of her, showed up first. She waked into the cafeteria and stretched out while walking. 

“Morning everyone!” Some voices from further in the cafeteria spoke up and said some form of greeting. Brightney looked over to Vee. 

“Oh Vee! How are you feeling?” Brightney walked over and sat next to her. 

“Not much different. However, Brightney do you mind if I take today off?” Vee asked 

“Ah, well of course, although you usually never do, is there anything bothering you?”  

“No. Just wanted to rest a bit.” 

“Alright then, can you help set up the board though?” Brightney stood up and started walking to the ‘meeting’ table. Vee shrugged and walked along with her to help set up the area. 

They got sticky notes ready, got the board in place, and started discussing teams. Vee made sure Shelly wasn’t on any teams. 

I should have helped with the teams yesterday too.  

After they were mostly done with the assembling groups majority of the other toons walked down the hall, definitely Shrimpo did; “I HATE YOU” could be heard echoing through the wall. 

Shelly sprinted over to the board and quickly snooped who was going where and when, then looked over to Vee excitedly. 

“Is the food ready Shelly?”  

“Oh yuh! I’d offer you some but, well yeah.” Shelly giggled nervously 

“I appreciate the thought. You two get something to eat.” Vee pointed towards Shelly and Brightney.  

“I already ate!!” Shelly protested. “Could we go somewhere?” 

“It’d be more formal to at least see the other group off, right? After that we can go do something.” Vee looked over to see Brightney had already disappeared to get her portion of breakfast. Vee looked back at Shelly who stomped her feet on the floor jokingly and then sat down with a very dramatic scoff. 

 

// Shelly //  

Waiting has never been so boring. 

When the other toons showed up to eat and such, took about 15 minutes, she already felt like falling asleep. The whole ichor planning was usually interesting to listen to, but NOT TODAY. 

Shelly was constantly tapping her foot on the floor, waiting for it to be over. At least she sat next to Vee and, oh. Rodger was on her left; he looked at the pair puzzled and then chuckled. They had been caught, although if anything Shelly didn’t mind. She’d announce to the whole cast of Gardenview that she cared about Vee, and that they were close. Vee had.. Other opinions on that. 

Shelly sighed and closed her eyes while waiting for it all to be over. After a short nap she was woken up by Vee. 

“Really?” Vee sighed 

“W-Oh yeaaah sooo what?” Shelly said half still sleeping 

“Ah well. Anything you wanted to do?” 

“Uh... I don’t know actually.” 

Vee stared at her, Shelly felt scared that Vee might be disappointed. She then sank in her seat a little out of shame. 

“How about we go craft something? Or well bake something with the other chefs still present, sure they could use some help.” 

“Yeah!! We could bake, then take the snacks to go uhh fold little origami!! And then if we have time, we could also make little dream catchers, or dainty little bits of clothing!!” Shelly was overjoyed to just sit down and do something not ichor related with Vee. 

No one was really in the Cafeteria. Except for Ginger and Bobette, Ginger seemed to be baking up cookies and treats, Bobette being a taste tester. Shelly held onto Vee’s hand and smiled whilst walking to the kitchen with her. 

 

Baking!! Heck yeah!!  

Notes:

So I think I've gotten the AO3 author curse
First I get like, crazy sick, while writing chap 1 - 4 my keys work poorly, then I have to get repairs and etc etc.
I'm afraid what this is turning into..

Anyways!! Happy to have posted this, I decided to wait with the little date part seeing this was already 3k, also feel free to literally say anything in comments, I love reading that and replying :3 I don't bite, I swear.
SEE YOU ALL NEXT CHAPTER
BOOPERSZ OUT!!!

Chapter 6: Creating Snacks

Summary:

The sillies make some yummy foods. And Shelly eats most of them
Vee also has difficulty expressing feelings as usual.

Notes:

HEYYY PEOPLE
I'M ALIVE!!
Vacation happened and man I was dragged to everywhere. I did NOT get a moment to breathe whatsoever. Anywhom HERE WE ARE.
I tried to put a bit more effort and make the chapter a lil longer than usual ones as compromise.
As usual: drink some water and get cosy, I love fluff and I hope you do too.
Actually we have some serious moments in this one but like, shhhh
THE SILLIES!!!
MENTIONED DINOSAUR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaurus

/ / Shelly / /   

The two of them walked into the kitchen, Shellies hand was placed into the metallic one of Vee, her tail wagged upon feeling Vee affectionally squish her hand. The kitchen was a bit of chaos as pretty usual; Ginger was desperately trying to stay calm while balancing plates and Bobette was helping her by carrying the rest of the plates, well at least the kitchen wasn’t on fire! As Cosmo and Sprout had somehow managed before. Sitting in the corner is a tired-of-life Coal with a colourful party hat on her head.  
Besides the plates and such the tiled floors were smeared with condiments of all kinds and candy. The candy looked surprisingly edible still, but Shelly had no clue how long they’ve probably been there. 

Shelly let go of Vee’s hand to wave at the two toons,  

“Heya!! Do you mind if we make some ehh food?”  

“Uh-.. No-” Ginger was wobbling a little, Shelly questioned how she even got a plate on her head.  

“Oh yeah don’t worry we don’t mind! Don’t forget to clean up though!!” Bobette smiled and walked over to the cabinet to open it and place away plates.  

Shelly’s hand found Vee’s again who seemed lost in thought staring at the floor, mildly judging the state of the kitchen. Shelly walked towards one of the counters they had standing there. She crouched down to grab a couple of pots from the cupboards. While reaching out for a saucepan,  

“Uhm.. What were we actually making?”  Shelly asked and looked up at Vee whilst a clumsy grin appeared on her face  

“Are you feeling like anything in particular?” Vee tilted her head.  

“Well.. No not really, do you want anything special??”  

“I’d rather you choose the food seeing you’re going to be the one eating most of it.”  

“But like, you’re also making it? WE are making it... so...”  

A silence to the ear fell between the two but was quickly broken by a snort then a collection of giggles from Shelly. Vee smiled back at her and crossed her arms.  

“How about. . Ooh! Something sugary that doesn’t spill everywhere or leaves too many crumbs?” Shelly continued thinking  

“Alright. We could make fruits covered in chocolate.” Vee suggested  

Shelly gasped excitedly, “We could cover them in sprinkles too!!! AND MAKE COOKIES”   

“Didn’t you want the snacks, not to spill?” Vee had a perplexed look on her screen.  

Shelly made a small pout, “But.. Sprinkles”.  

“Alright.. Let’s just start with the fruit and use some of the leftovers for the cookies.”   

Vee sighed and started looking around the cabinets and cupboards, collecting some chocolate chips, sprinkles and fruit from the counter. Shelly focused on pans, cutting boards, bowls, skewers and some cutlery to stir with.  

Vee passed the fruits to Shelly to quickly rinse them with water and tap them dry with towels. After cleaning off the fruits the two started chopping and peeling fruits. Apple slices, Tangerine parts, and banana slices. The grapes were left as is.  

An apple slice fell off the cutting board. Shelly picked it up and presented it to Vee, asking; “Can I eat this one?”.  

“It fell on the floor.” Vee raised an eyebrow.  

“...”  

“. . .”  

Shelly quickly ate it before Vee was able to stop her. She grinned and stuck out her tongue playfully  

“You did not.”  

“I diiiid.” Shelly smirked.  

The two stood there for a moment, Vee sighing eventually and continuing with peeling tangerines ever so carefully.  

Shelly grinned and got back to chopping, glancing over at Vee gently tearing off bits of the tangerines. Expert hands and precise, Shelly admired the focus Vee had, the dedication and carefulness. She smiled softly and her heart fluttered a moment being this close. She looked back at her own plank and placed the rest of her slices in their respective bowls. Each coloured as the fruit is coloured (per Vee’s request to have everything neatly organised).   

“What’s the next step?” Shelly looked over to Vee.  

Vee grabbed some of the wooden skewers, “Take the fruit bits and skewer them. We then dip then in chocolate, lowering the previous dipped fruit on the skewer before adding the next ones.”  

“When a skewer is filled, we simply place then on the planks to cool.” Vee recited.  

“Alrighty.. Got it!” Shelly took the skewer from Vee’s hand and stuck some fruits on,  

“Oh.. Right chocolate.” Shelly placed the fruit down and filled one of the pots with chocolate chips.  

Vee added a slight bit of milk and a tiny bit of honey.  

“Why’d you do that?” Shelly tilted her head.  

“So it doesn’t burn as much, and I assume you’d like the sweetness.” Vee said while turning on the stove and letting the chocolate melt.   

Vee frequently stirred the pot to make sure all was melting, it took about 4 minutes to have most of it melted. The entire duration of the four minutes Shelly just admired Vee, eventually leaning her head on Vee’s shoulder. She enjoyed the moment she had together with Vee, she clung onto it desperately as if it could end at any moment.  

“Shelly, can you turn down the heat a bit.”  

Shelly got a little startled from the comment and got some distance between her and Vee, “Sorry!!”. She wasn’t invading Vee’s space that much, right???   

Vee looked at Shelly confused. “No the stove, can you turn the stove down.”  

“OHHH.” Shelly walked back and turned the knob  

That... was dumb...  

Shelly grabbed the skewers and stuck on fruits. She dipped them in the chocolate and tried lowering the fruits with her hands  

“Ouch-” Shelly flinched and shook her hand. Hot.  

“Don’t touch them directly, it’s warm.” Vee handed her a fork to lower the fruits.  

“Ah.. Thank youu.” Shelly continued with the other skewers. Her hands getting more stained with chocolate during the process, though less ouching.  

“I’d help but-”  

“Yeah, don’t worryyy. I get it, sticky hands and all that.” Shelly said happily while skewering more fruits.  

After making about 18 skewers Shelly had no more fruits. She looked at the plate, proud of her accomplishment of chocolate fruits. Vee had sprinkled on some colourful looking sprinkles while she was busy. The little snacks looked messy, but very palatable. Shelly grabbed one and ate the snack. It was decently fresh and extremely sweet.  

“Mhpf, really good.” Shelly’s tail was swinging energetically. She could catch a glimpse of Vee smiling at her while she was enjoying the skewers.  

“We still need to bake the cookies, place those in the fridge and grab two eggs, and butter while you’re at it.” Vee mentioned.  

“Okaayyy...” Shelly followed the instructions and got back to work.   

Vee looked for flour, sugar, baking soda and chocolate chips. After a small moment of panic, she realised the chips were already on the counter.  

“So what’s the plan?” Shelly asked yet again.  

“200 grams of butter, and 300 grams of sugar mix in a bowl together.”  

Shelly added the ingredients, dipped her finger in the sugar and licked it before grabbing the whisk and squashing fork. She mixed the components together without too much difficulty.  

“Add 2 eggs, 400 grams of flour, a teaspoon of salt and baking soda. Keep mixing until kneadable.”  

Listening to Vee’s guidance, Shelly continued combining and eventually had a playdough consistency of dough.  

“Add 200 grams chocolate chips. Knead in and let rest in the fridge for at least an hour.”  

“AN HOUR??” Shelly asked shocked.  

“Patience is important.”  

“Man...”  

“We have the fruit snacks while we wait. And we still need to preheat the oven” Vee mentioned while crouching to turn on the oven.  

“OOO, you’re right!!”   

Shelly added the chips and set the decently large bowl in the fridge. Additionally, she took out the fruit skewers and snacked on a couple.  

“They’re really good, You want any?” Shelly asked  

“. . .”  

“Oh right. My bad”  

Shelly got some chairs and sat down on one right next to the fridge. Vee sat next to her.  

 
// Vee //  

She watched Shelly scarf down the skewers. Her chest warmed up a bit, Vee felt at.. Ease. Some odd feeling of nostalgia hit her. Sitting next to Shelly, doing some stupid things together, meaningless things to spend time together. She enjoyed it a lot.  

She wanted to say something.. But words failed to aid her. Vee chose silence over embarrassment. She simply watched as Shelly enjoyed the fruits they had coated in chocolate and sprinkles.  

“Mmph these are gooood. Gah refreshing and they got a good crunch to them. I could eat a mountain.”  

“Probably not a good idea.” Vee noted.  

“Buuuut whyyy nooot?”   

“The sugar levels are not healthy for your body to consume in large quantities, or very frequently.”  

“Okay okay I get it.”  

Vee felt a bit of pride reciting knowledge. Her legs folded and her eyes drifted to the ammonite, simply at ease watching her. The kitchen was mostly silent, just some chattering in the distance of Bobette and Ginger and some noises from Shelly enjoying food. If Vee could have her way she’d do this every day, but one cannot have only fun in their life. The group needed ichor to run most of the things here. Lights and such worked on ichor. They needed to extract fuel to keep the place running.  

Vee felt fuzzy and stared out into space, thinking.  

Shelly and she had actually made food before with each other. With the other mains, they all got to make some food together. It was supposed to be a bunch of fun, but it eventually turned a bit chaotic. Vee didn’t like how the rest was adding ingredients on a whim and not sticking to the plan. But it worked out eventually, the food was edible the rest had said.  

Vee heard her internal clock ring, an hour had passed. Did they really just sit in silence for an hour? God that must have been awkward for Shelly to just sit there. She hadn’t noticed Shelly resting on her shoulders.   

“Ah, the dough is ready.” Vee got up and Shelly almost fell. Vee caught her in time.  

“WEh- Oh yaaay!!” Shelly seemed excited.  

She did not sleep at all last night.  

Vee took out the dough and placed it on the counter. Shelly shoved the chairs away and appeared beside her.   

“We need to make these into little shapes and place them on a tray. We should get about 24 – 28 of them.”  

“Aye captain!” Shelly opened the oven door, and a wave of heat hit her.  

“Oomph-” Shelly stepped back and grabbed some oven mitts to safely take out two trays. And then closed the oven door  

The two rolled up some cookies. Vee made perfectly same sized cookie balls, Shelly on the other hand made little 2d dinosaurs out of them.  

“Cookie dinos!!” Shelly grinned and picked up a t-rex shaped one, “Rawrrr!!” Shelly said playfully.  

Vee pressed the snout of the t-rex. Shelly giggled and Vee felt warm again, not from the oven though.  

After getting about 25 unbaked cookies, Shelly opened the door, and Vee simply placed the trays in. She was a bit more fire resistant than Shelly.  

“ 170 °C/340 °F for 14 minutes.”  

“Better than an hour.. Do we still have fruit skewers?” Shelly asked.  

“You ate them all.”  

“WH- All of them?!” Shelly looked disheartened   

“I’m equally surprised.”   

“Why didn’t you stop meee.”   

“You seemed to like them a lot.” Vee shrugged and sat back down, setting another timer for the cookies.  

“Gah... Now we don’t have any for tomorrow.”  

“We’ll have cookies if you don’t eat them all.”  

“True!!”  

Vee smiled. Tomorrow was the official weekend day they had. To let everyone take a break from the ichor operation and simply enjoy the moments for a bit. Doing more silly things together sounds like an amazing past time. Vee began cleaning up the counter, scratching off chocolate with a tissue, Shelly joined her quickly with cleaning. Shelly was.. Much better at this, Vee organised not clean. After about 10 minutes their side of the kitchen looked MUCH better. Vee glanced over to the other toons. Coal had approached the oven and sniffed the door, probably lured by the scent. Bobette and Ginger seemed to be cleaning as well and chattering happily, actually it was Bobette seeming extremely cheerful and Ginger listening and agreeing with most of what Bobette was saying with the occasional comment. Vee looked back at the oven, approximately a minute remained.  

“Cookies are almost done; grab a platter I’ll get a spatula.” Vee walked over to the drawer and took out a spatula, Shelly returned with a platter.  

“Get ready to hold it in front of the oven, I’ll scrape out the cookies.”   

“Got it!” Shelly stood next to the radiating machine and crouched down.  

“Alright, done.” Vee opened the door, heat flushed throughout the kitchen and got her sensors overwhelmed. She reached into the oven and got out the 25 cookies. She then closed the door quickly and turned off the oven. The round ones Vee had made had melted to perfect circles with lumps of chips on the top and inside. The dinosaurs had bloated a little and looked stubbier, they were still recognizable as dinosaurs, but they weren’t as cute as before.   

Shelly tried to pick up the dinosaur and immediately Vee caught her hand before she snatched one.  

“They’re ridiculously hot, don’t try it.”  

“... But..”  

“No.” Vee placed the platter on the counter and shoved Shelly a little back, suddenly she felt a weight push her left leg.  

Coal seemed to be attempting to reach up to the counter to try and eat the cookies. Vee also shoved her to the side with her leg.  

“Oo, you made cookies?” Bobbete approached the trio. Vee sighed exasperated and lowered her head.  

“Yes, we did. Once they’ve cooled, we can share.”   

“Oh amazing! We also made some treats you should ABSOLUTELY try!! Ginger, can you show the little caramelized apples?” Bobette waved over Ginger who grabbed a plate with a couple of caramelized apple slices.  

“They’re... Hopefully not salty, we accidentally added some.” Ginger sheepishly held onto her elbow after placing the plate on the counter next to the cookies.  

“Can I have some!!?” Shelly asked with an extremely happy grin.  

“Duh! Food is to share.” Bobette spoke with a chipper voice, then quickly turning to Ginger, who nodded with confirmation.  

Shelly excitedly consumed a slice, and immediately went to take another before Vee stopped her. Placing her hand on Shelly’s shoulder before the slices disappeared. Shelly smiled awkwardly and stepped back from the plate.  

“They taste amazing though!!” Shelly smiled. Ginger exhaled a sigh of relief and leaned back into Bobette,  

“I told you!!” Bobette smirked  

“Yeah.. Well you always like everything I make, even when it is really bad..” Ginger playfully poked Bobette’s side causing her to flinch a little.  

“ARE THOSE COOKIES?!” A wildly energetic voice boomed across the halls. Vee quickly stepped aside.. Can she and Shelly have like another quiet moment together, is that so much to ask?  

Yatta quickly ran into the kitchen, causing ginger to quickly jump back almost falling, Bobette held her arms open to hug the chaos gremlin running in, “Yatta!”  

Yatta’s attention quickly shifted to the open arms of Bobbete, and changed direction to instead of running into the counter, crash into Bobette, getting candy to fly everywhere.  

“Whoa-” Bobette barely kept herself upright.  

“We just cleaned it up here...” Ginger sighed, shoulders drooping.  

“BOBETTE HII, CAN I HAVE YOUR COOKIES??”  

“Ah! Actually, we made them!” Shelly spoke up, trying to get the attention of the bouncy ball incarnate that is Yatta.  

“Oh... CAN I HAVE SOME COOKIES?”   

“Yeah of course!” Shelly went out to grab one  

“Wait they haven’t-” Vee was too late.  

“YOUCH” Shelly quickly pulled back her hand after holding a scolding cookie, “Okay.. It’s not thaaat warm but I suggest you wait-” Shelly waved her right hand aggressively to cool it off.  

Vee facepalmed. This place was getting chaotic already, they were in the kitchen after all. Yatta sighed dramatically and started picking up candies she dropped and giving up after dropping the candy she just managed to pick up. “But I can’t waaaait, that’s not in my vocabulary.”  

“That’s severely not our problem.” Vee helped place some of the candy in a bowl, then placing the cookie platter in the fridge,  

“2 minutes give or take. Then they’ll not burn you.” Vee said calmly  

“GAH Fineee!!” Yatta walked out of the kitchen again, leaving a subtle trail of gumballs to where she was walking.  

“Well.. We’ll be in the lounge if you need us!” Bobette walked off together with coal to the lounge and while walking, ate some caramel slices. Ginger walked after her and Yatta trailed behind, seemingly intrigued by the slices, completely forgetting the batch of cookies.  

“Finally, peace.” Vee sighed.  

“Well, the crowd is pretty fun! Toons all together, there’s always something to do.” Shelly spoke ever-so chipper as usual.  

“Can’t say I agree with you, but I suppose it passes time faster.”  

“You always had audience though?” Shelly remarked,  

“That’s, Different.”  

Vee took out the tray from the fridge again and placed it on the counter. It was still lukewarm but at least at a more practical temperature. Shelly grabbed one and while eating,  

“Still hawt-” Shelly muttered  

“Can’t hear you.” Vee teased  

Shelly quickly finished the cookie and cleared her throat. 
“Still hot, but extremely good.” 

“We’ll put the circular ones in a bowl, and let people eat those, we’ll take the dinosaurs ourselves.”  

“All of them?? Are you sure you can fight those?” Shelly joked.  

“What?” Vee processed for a moment,  

“It’s.. A joke- never mind I’m not good at those.”   

“Oh, it was funny.” Vee replied dryly.  

Shelly’s eyes lit with excitement and grinned. She then placed the cookies in their separate bowls. “Soo where are we eating these?”  

“I was thinking we watch something in the lounge and just chill there, or we could do something.”  

“Movie sounds good but... Don’t we just have kids movies?”  

“I thought you liked them”  

“I- Well I do but like-”.  

“Good, then we’ll watch those.”  

“Won’t you get bored?”  

“No.”  

Yes, I will, but I’ll endure it if you’ll smile at it.  

She might not understand it herself but seeing Shelly smile at a story which she’s seen so many times before she’ll happily agree. Honestly, it’s hard to try and show she cares, it feels weird trying to recite information she knows or compliment others. How does she express how she likes being around Shelly?  

What If I’m not enough.  

She looked away for a moment but quickly snapped back to what’s important.  

“Alright off we go then.”   

Vee picked up the bowl and waited for Shelly to follow behind with the other one. Walking to the lounge, hand in hand, steps falling in similar rhythm. Shelly held onto her non-occupied hand tightly, Vee squished back softly.  

Touch. Touch is usually a good thing.  

For a moment her mind flickered back to the claws that pierced her shoulder.  

The twisted version of Shelly.  

 
Vee’s hand twitched just the slightest bit at the memory, but she wasn’t the only who noticed. Shelly’s gaze immediately met hers in confusion, but there was something else behind those eyes something Vee couldn’t understand. She felt bad not being able to interpret that. 

All that echoed in her head;  

 

Is something going to go wrong?  

 

/ / Shelly //  

Is this moving too fast?  

Vee twitched her hand, did she not like holding hands? Is the moment over? Was Shelly too close? Did she blow her shot?  

The two paused for a moment right before the lounge. Shelly only felt FEAR in her heart, but her face fought hard to not show it. It’s not over, it’s not, she promised this was permanent.  

Never again. She promised it.  

Shelly awkwardly scratched the back of her head,  

“Is, something wrong?” She asked cautiously, praying she was wrong.  

“It’s fine.. Something about the ichor run but it’s okay, what movie were we watching?”  

Shelly felt relief hit her.  

“Ah well we’ll just watch whatever is on the stack!” Shelly smiled optimistically again,  

 y eah promised.  

The two sat down at the chairs, greeting Bobette, Ginger, Yatta and the craft siblings whom all seemed to be doing their own thing. Shelly walked over to the tv and grabbed an animated movie of some cute cats; it was about something family related.  

“Everyone okay with watching this film?” Shelly held up the disc.  

There were faint murmurs of agreement amongst the crowd. Shelly was about to insert it when Goob spoke up,  

“Could I pick out the next one?” He smiled enthusiastically.  

“Of course!” Shelly grinned  

Goob returned it with sharp teeth and got cosy sitting down on a bean bag, then dragging his sister into his arms.  

The group of toons all sat down somewhere. Vee and Shelly sat next to each other, Shelly resting on Vee’s shoulder and Vee attempting not to stare at Shelly the entire time. The others had also found a way to be comfortable and Shelly snacked on her cookies, which she reluctantly shared with the rest.  

Eventually the movie ended, and the next one played. Somewhat of a movie marathon, the crowd eventually grew drowsier. Snacks were refilled by Cosmo, really sweet of him, and Shelly dozed off on Vee’s lap.  

 

/ / Vee / /  

She pat Shelly’s head, the little goober fell asleep again on her lap. Vee patiently waited for the third movie to end and proceeded to carry Shelly to her room. Dismissing the other toons in the lobby, walking towards Shelly’s ochre bedroom.  

She opened the door, it creaked. Vee hoped it didn’t wake up the little ammonite in her arms, Shelly slept like a rock though. Vee chuckled softly and continued forward to Shelly’s bed. She gently placed Shelly on her bed and stood watching her, Shelly shifted strangely. A part of her kind of wanted to stay, and curl up next to her but. . . Ah she didn’t ask permission, and how would she even lay next to her? It would get weird.  

She shrugged and slowly walked out of the door, casting one last glance at Shelly. She smiled softly closed the door, making sure not to wake her.  

Vee sighed once she reached the halls again. She stared at the ceiling, at the lights. What to do tomorrow? What activities would Shelly enjoy without Vee’s bland view on majority of things dulling it out. She sighed and continued off to her own room and walked in, connecting herself to a charger. She set an alarm and stared out to the wall.  

“Stay.”  

“Your fault.”  

How does she stop Shelly from feeling, forgotten?  

How does she teach herself something like that? Her systems didn’t offer answers to that.  

She stared out and eventually after pondering for 1 hour 32 minutes and 27 seconds she shut down.  

Just.. Forget about it for now.  

Notes:

So about ao3 author curse; My charger broke and I'm using a really poor quality one that doesn't actually charge enough battery.
I refuse to write on phone so I was praying to finish this before my laptop died out. OH and I got dragged to another country for like a week or more.
Hehehe
Also this is longest chapter so far? Crazy dude, channelled all of my writing that I had stored up from vacation-
I'm considering adding the easter event toons but I probably wont in this fic, seeing how it's going according to my planning I don't there there will be enough time to have them appear and be important.
I hope to end the curse soon because I swear if more whimsical things happen I'll go crazy.
BOOPERSZ OUT!!

Chapter 7: Weekend break

Summary:

The two take a little time off, though they would have planned it together some others intervene.. Oh and Shelly has a nightmare.

Notes:

Hello hello It's Boopers again
I'll be honest I usually wait till there's atleast one comment on a chapter until I feel it's been validated so I can write the next, but honestly there's plenty of people that just read and like things, so heck yeah I'll just post when it's done :3
No particularly mentioned dino here!!
I may or may not have gone overboard with the word count here! !! Get something to drink and have fun!! :3

/ / Shelly / / 

Soft carpet under her feet, familiar but strange walls surrounded her. Everything felt blurry, everything felt distant. At the end of the hall she saw a group, she approached and recognised the toons. She looked to the group of mains. Astro, Dandy, Sprout and Vee. They were talking happily. Shelly walked closer to her friends, waved over to them and greeted her friends, they didn’t respond. They didn’t register she was talking; she spoke again and again and again. She noticed one of the toons growing mildly agitated, but she couldn’t tell from what. Couldn’t they hear her? Or.. Was it on purpose? Shelly grew more despondent and walked closer to Vee. 

Desperate she placed her left hand on Vee’s shoulder, who immediately turned around with a disgusted look, her eyes looked full of hatred. Shelly flinched and stepped back, quickly letting go of Vee, 

“Don’t touch me.” She said coldly 

“Who even are you?” Dandy asked 

Sprout looked away mildly agitated and ignored her. 

Astro was saying something, she saw his mouth open and utter some noise, but she couldn’t register what he was saying not that it mattered. His eyes seemed conflicted, but mostly annoyed. 

“S-el-y w-ak-e -p.” 

The room started spinning, growing blurrier as she fell to the floor, crying. Her hands trembled and her legs didn’t have the power to stand up. No one liked her, no one cared about her. The group of mains had already moved back to their conversation and moved away. The emptiness and hatred gnawed at her heart, the feeling of being forgotten yet again. By her friends, the kids, and every toon handler aside her own. 

She could hear laughter as the group left her behind, on her own. They didn’t even turn back to look at her. They just left her alone.  

All, 

Alone. 

 

. 

 

She woke up with a cold sweat staining her forehead and pillow. She looked around, Vee was gone. She’s gone, where did she go?? Did she leave her??? Did she grow tired of her? Was it really moving all too fast?? DID THE TIME THEY SPEND EVEN MA- 

“Shelly!” a concerned Astro was at her door. Holding it open with one hand and using the others to stabilize himself and catch his breath, 

“A-h Oh Astro.. Hi..” Shelly curled up against the wall. Her blanket sliding off slightly. 

“I.. Saw you were having a nightmare.. I came to check.” 

“Oh- I’m okay-” Shelly looked away, anywhere but his gaze. She couldn’t let her emotions be bothering him, or her tears make him cry too. 

“I.. You can talk about it with me you know?” Astro cautiously walked closer and sat on a box. 

“I..” Shelly looked at her hands, her shaking hands. She felt a tear fall down on them. “I-..”, yet again she just stared down. 

Astro remained quiet but got a little closer to understand what she was saying. Not too close to invade her space close enough to comfort her. He held onto his blanket and waited patiently. Tilting his head ever so slightly. 

“I’m scared. I’m scared I’m going to lose you all. I’ve been hanging out with Vee recently and it’s been awesome I just- What if she goes away?? Am I being too excited about this?? Do I look desperate? DOES SHE HATE ME??!” Shelly pulled her legs closer and completely turned into a ball by lowering her head onto her knees. Shelly opened her mouth to speak again, 

Does she like me back? Shelly bit back the words, too scared to admit them herself. Too scared to confess that, instead fighting the urge silently and closing her eyes. 
 
The air felt harder to breathe, Shelly’s strained breaths were the only audible thing in her room. 

 A careful hand placed itself on her shoulder and gently softly rubbed there to bring comfort.  

“Shelly... That’s not going to happen.” Astro said calmly, he crouched a little to attempt making eye contact, but Shelly hid away from him. 

“... H-how do you know that.” Shelly barely got out through her sobs 

“. . Why would we leave?” Astro asked softly. 

“Cause.. I’m- Not.. Good enough? I’m, annoying, I talk too much. I’m too energetic, I don’t take the situation serious.. I- I'm not worthy, I-..”  

Astro patiently waited, then spoke up again. 

“Have you ever heard us say that? Better question, would you ever leave us?” 

“.. No, No I would never.” 

“But I’m always so quiet and never there during the day cause I’m busy with people’s sleep schedule, Sprout is always overprotective of everyone and meddles with anyone's business, Dandy.. . .” Astro trailed off for a moment, before remembering what his point was, “Vee is always blunt and doesn’t understand empathy as well. We all have our flaws, but you wouldn’t just leave us for them. So why would we? You’re a dear friend of ours, we’ve just been busy.” Astro looked away out of guilt but then returned back to Shelly 

.. “I.. Guess so..” Shelly looked at the wall instead and sighed. 

The two sat in silence for a couple of minutes, Astro patiently sat with her in case Shelly still had something she needed to say or ask. Shelly tried her best to compose herself, attempting to stop sobbing and continue taking breaths at a normal pace. 

Shelly had regained her composure and stretched her legs out again, sitting more comfortably against the wall now. 

“I’m sorry.. You shouldn’t have to comfort me randomly in the middle of the night.” Shelly muttered 

“Don’t be.. Besides I’m awake anyways to make sure no one’s feeling too bad.” 

The room went silent again. Shelly shifted awkwardly, 

Astro broke the silence, “You able to go back to sleep?” 

“... Yeah.. But can I have a specific dream?” 

“mhm?” Astro tilted his head gently, 

“Can I ride a trex.” 

“I, well yeah but, are you sure.?” Astro contemplated if it might be a bad idea 

“Yes. Completely.” 

“Alright then..” Astro conjured some sparkles in front of him, and they changed colours for a moment, then flying over to Shelly and sinking into her skin. 

Shelly yawned, “Nighty night.” She plopped down onto her mattress, a bit more at ease now.  

“Sleep well Shelly.” 

Shelly drifted off again, this time in the prehistoric era, a lot nicer and more fun. 

.  

. .  

. . . 

. . 

. 

Shelly was woken up by a knock on her door. She slowly got up and blinked a couple times. 

“Shellyyy, you up?” Tisha knocked on her door. Waiting for response, 

“mh? Oh yeah.. One moment.” Shelly crawled out of bed and fought to keep herself up right. She stretched and yawned loudly; she walked over to her closet. Looking in the mirror and rubbing her eyes, after a quick examination she walked towards the door. She took a deep breath and placed her hand on the doorknob. 

“Morning!” Shelly energetically greeted. 

“.. You smell of cookies.” Tisha remarked immediately, “and there’s stains on your overal. And..” Tisha stared at Shellies eyes, her happier tone faded as she wanted to say something but cut herself off. 

“First of all, where’s my good morning? And well yeah I was baking with Vee yesterday.. OH VEE!! We have another free day today!! YUHH.” Shelly got ready to sprint off excitedly, but Tisha caught her, 

“Well.. I was kind of hoping you’d go with me to a tea party with teagan. Like, after breakfast.” Tisha smiled kindly, but something about the question didn’t feel like she was asking. 

“Okay well.. I kinda wanna hang out with-” 

“Sorry I’ll correct myself, I said you’d go along with me cause we need to like, talk about you and, Vee.”  

“Wh-Why? Is something wrong or something?” 

“No just, concerned.” Tisha crossed her arms and looked over Shelly again. “Am I not allowed to as your friend? And.. A little birdy told me I should check in.”  

“Well.. I just think there’s not much to be concerned about? Y’know..” Shelly stared out, trying to ignore the fact she still felt worried. 

“Mhhhm, Anyways, we’ll have breakfast I’ll drag you to teagan after that.” 

“.. Fine.” She sighed but smiled, Tisha was always there for her. She didn’t have to constantly be the one reaching out to her. 

It’s nice to have Tisha. 

The pair walked towards the cafeteria Shelly was still stretching mid walk to try and get herself more awake. Tisha simply kept an eye on her to make sure she wasn’t walking off again. Throughout the many halls Shelly spotted glisten and Vee talking, Vee noticed Shelly and waved over as Tisha and her walked closer to the other two.  
 

“Hey Shelly, do you hav-” 

“Nope, Tea business” Tisha quickly cut her off, Vee stared at her. Vee never really got mad, but this might be the first time Shelly saw her flicker her screen of anger. 

“Can’t she say that for herself?” Vee leaned against the wall a little staring Tisha down, Tisha was completely ready to for a rebuttal, but Shelly quickly shoved her slightly to keep the argument from falling off her tongue. 

“Uhm.. Well.. I was apparently invited for tea! So.. Yeah..” Shelly awkwardly scratched her arm, giving a glaring look to Tisha to keep her from saying anything, then turning to Vee with an unsure expression. She felt sweat beads form on her forehead as she looked away again. 

“. . Alright. Would you be available later today.” Vee tilted her head slightly and awaited response from Shelly, who was frantically attempting to calculate how long a tea party would last. Shelly found it difficult to focus from the bizarreness of this situation to her eventually turning to Tisha for an answer. 
 

Tisha was biting her tongue to not say something bitter in front of Shelly and instead took a breath. “I’m pretty certain you’ll see her at dinner time if that gives you a time.” She scoffed and walked off, gently tugging Shelly along, who excitedly waved to Vee to cover up her fumble from before. 

That.. Never happened.  

Shelly thought about it all during breakfast, she’s never really had the situation arise she had to choose between different people. It was a bit overwhelming really having to pick her words carefully to not upset anyone. She absentmindedly ate the food and stared out into space, her body felt strangely heavy. She was surrounded by people but felt weirdly alone. Had she been ignoring these feelings for so long? Where’d they show up from? Where did they go in the first place? Was it Vee that made her forget those things? Why was it so loud here? Why didn’t she notice it was so loud, and her head was buzzing, her eyes darted around but didn’t give her more vision of the room. Her hand twitched slightly as Shelly resisted the urge to continue the crying from yesterday. A gentle voice spoke from beside her. 

“Shelly?” Tisha made eye contact with the ammonite who quickly regained her senses and smiled to reassure Tisha. 

“Yeah?” Shelly tilted her head slightly sideways. Sniffling ever so slightly and fought desperately to smile, a mix of exhaustion and stress oozed out of her. 

“... Let’s just go say hi to Teagan, I’ll pack up the leftovers.” Tisha looked around the cafeteria, Shelly nodded sheepishly and stood up, walking to the cafeteria door. When did everything get so overwhelming? Or better question when did it stop? She waited at the door and felt people staring at her, usually that wasn’t a bad thing but right now she felt like her skin was scrunching up, could they see her red dried-out eyes? The fatigue from crying? Was she being judged? 

She didn’t even notice it, but her feet were moving down the hall. It was the change of texture under her that made her understand they moved away. Tisha seemed to be keeping in check with her to ensure Shelly didn’t walk into a wall.  

“Whoa- stop.” Tisha gave a soft bonk of her feather duster on Shelly’s noggin. 

“Wh-huh?” Shelly turned to her and then realised she just walked past Teagans door. 

“We’re here.” Tisha knocked on Teagans door, a moment later she heard in a calm tone; “Come in!”. 

Tisha looked over at Shelly while opening the door and gestured for her to walk inside. 

“Ah Shelly! Tisha urged me to-” She looked over to the door behind Shelly, coughed her throat. “Sorry I mean we haven’t had tea in a while.. And you look out of it really.” Teagan offered a warm comforting smile before tapping on a pillow next to the coffee table, an offer to sit there. 

Shelly walked over and sat down, uttering some form of greeting before adjusting to her surroundings. She looked around the fancy well-kept room. The walls were right between a shade of yellow and orange, with a teacup pattern adorning the walls. The dressers and furniture all were neatly shaped with patterns and figures carved into them. Mostly leaves, vines, flowers and you guessed it; teacups. 

In the middle of the room was an elegant coffee table, the centre piece of the room. Surrounded by the puffiest pillows Shelly had ever sat on. There was a steaming pot of tea, white gilded with golden leaves and engravings, with matching fancy cups though some of them were painted with vibrant colours and little doodles. Teagan poured the three some tea. The scent of roses, ginger, aniseed and some other herbs wafted around the room. Shelly sat and relaxed a bit, inhaling the scent and breathing in and out deeply. 

“So, is there anything troubling you that you’d like to share?” Teagan’s posh accent spoke calmly, she was often seen as the empath of the group, kind and caring and understood emotions decently well. She slowly took a sip from her steaming cup and carefully blew some air on it. 

“I. .” Shelly was shivering a little, she was uncertain about it all. She took a breath,  

Those thoughts that have been plaguing her. Before the storage thing, she was just tired. And now she’s just tired and confused. What if she messes up.. 

“I’m just.. Worried..” She scratched her arm a bit and got a playful bonk on her hand from Tisha.  She stopped for a moment to consider if she should continue 

“Mhm hmhm.” Tisha nodded but refrained from interjecting Shelly, who regained her composure and continued talking, 

“...Lately I felt good but.. It’s all crumbling, I’m scared about that. I don’t want this to end, but if I was actually... enjoying the moment why would it crumble at all??” Shelly frantically clutched her sleeves in her hands to keep her grounded, “I just.. I don’t know why I’m doubting everything. I’m... I- I want to stay with Vee as much as I can, and I just feel anxious, more than I already did. Prior to this I just, well I also felt anxious but now we’re talking? Now that I’m supposed to be all happy about us spending time together?! I feel scared, afraid I feel terrible?” Shelly let go of her sleeves and held her heavy head trying not to sob in front of the two ladies with her. 

“Like before we- didn't talk-” Shelly was slowly forming tears in her eyes that she didn’t have the energy to keep to herself. “And now we do! But before all of this I was a bit afraid she didn’t like me and now we’re hanging out? We spend the last two ish days together?? We're suddenly sleeping in the same room again?? I don’t understand why I’m so anxious about this!! I don’t want to lose her but what if doing so much together is overwhelming her, what if she hates me?? And I and I-..”  

Tisha remained quiet looking at Teagan for advice, who finished another sip of tea and calmly sat waiting for Shelly to finish her thoughts.  

Shelly took a deep breath, and sighed very audibly 

“It terrifies me, that I like her too much and that she’ll leave me for it.” The words felt so heavy to her, saying that out loud, admitting that she does. Shelly eventually stopped and drank a bit of tea to calm her nerves. 

“I see..” Teagan stirred her teacup and after another sip, placed it down on the table. Folding her hands on her lap and calmly looked over to Shelly. “I think to me it’s obvious, I doubt she’ll leave you suddenly because of you liking her a lot”, she took a moment to pause, “Afterall Vee’s very direct about her opinion. From what I can tell she might just be worried about her own side of things.” 

Shelly heard the words, but she didn’t hear them. “I.. Get what you mean but.. Why do I feel so anxious about it?? Why do I feel so.. Unsure. It makes sense that what I’m saying doesn’t, but it doesn’t feel that way!!” 

Shelly sighed again. 

“That’s love.” Teagan said calmly, with a warm expression. “You doubt yourself a lot because you want to be the best version of yourself for them, you want to impress them. I can’t say for sure that Vee likes you back in the exact way, but I can tell you, she doesn’t hate you.”  

Shelly looked up at her, watery eyed and looked back down at her cup, it was about half full. She took a sip again but now with the weight off of her shoulders, she actually focused on the nice soothing flavours with just the slightest tinge of honey. She looked back at Teagan and asked softly, 

“You’re sure..?” 

Teagan chuckled a bit, 

“Yeah I am.”, Teagan looked over to Shelly’s cup of tea and her eyes lit up for a moment, “I could read your tea leaves if that would make you feel better and more confident about it.” Her smile persisted. 

“.. Sure, that sounds.. Good.” Shelly nodded and looked over to Teagan. “How.. Do you read tea leaves?” 

Teagan opened a drawer under the coffee table, which Shelly had never noticed before, and took out a little leather journal with golden engravings and some colours carved in on the book on random offsets. Tisha seemed equally surprised at there being a hidden compartment. 

“Well let’s see,” She opened the journal which had handwritten instructions in the most beautiful lettering Shelly had seen in a journal for a while now. “First, hold the cup in your left hand, and silently ask yourself what you’d like to know about the future.” 

Shelly held the almost empty teacup thought for a moment and whispered to herself, 

How are me and Vee going to end up?  

She then looked back at Teagan, awaiting next command. Teagan nodded and continued, 

“Swirl the cup counterclockwise, gently not to spill anything although there shouldn’t be a lot of tea in it at all. Then here,” she handed Shelly a porcelain saucer with a tissue on it, “Place the saucer upside down onto the cup, and then flip the cup.” 

Shelly raised and eyebrow but followed through the ritual and placed the saucer on the table, 

“Oh no sweetheart, could you hold it? Place keep your claw-hands on the cup and keep them there for a little bit” Shelly looked confused but followed through. 

After a couple of seconds Teagan pulled the tissue away from under it. 

“Alright, now please give flip the cup again via the right side of it and pass me the cup.” 

Shelly nodded along and gave her the cup, she peaked over to try and see what kind of leaves and herbs were in there. 

“Well... let’s see..” 

Teagan inspected the leaves a little and looked at her journal. 

“I can see something vaguely resembling a heart, that’s a good omen.. Although I think on this side,” she pointed a bit more to the left side of the cup, “This means trouble is brewing ahead, though you will prevail through it.” Shelly seemed excited, “what else?”. 

“It seems you’ll be prosperous after the event has passed.” Teagan placed the cup down again and smiled towards Shelly. The previous tantrum her heart had been throwing disappeared completely. 

“So.. Does it actually work?” Tisha tilted her head. 

“It certainly helps with the nerves, and I like to believe it does!” Teagan smiled again 

Shelly looked down at the cup and smiled a little.  

Prosperous.. That sounds good.  

Shelly looked back at the other two and grinned, “Thanks for inviting me.. I think I needed it.” Tisha elbowed her side, “Told you!”  

“Well time for biscuits and chitter?” Teagan got some delicious looking cookies (biscuits cough cough) and a couple of fudge blocks, and sandwiches! She clearly prepared to stay here till lunch.  

Shelly did kinda feel sad about missing out with Vee but, even having a crush on someone doesn’t mean you neglect others or your friends for that matter. She smiled and started talking and gossiping a little with the others. 

 

/ / Vee / / 

You’re kidding me.  

Vee scoffed seeing Tisha drag Shelly out of the hall towards Teagans room. Oh well, it happens. She walked off to sit with Glisten in the lounge to listen to him complain about whatever while she adds facts to his rambles. She sat with him but wasn’t really paying as much attention as usual. Her systems were locked onto a different toon mentally. 

“Okay but like, what’s it with the power not being allowed to go to the stages and My goodness do you know how few good things there are left?!? Like my fabulous show isn’t even available here ugh! Dandy’s cool and all usually but can’t he like find us something better to watch on those tapes?? Movie night is getting more repetitive.” 

“Mhm.” Vee absentmindedly nodded with whatever her converstation partner was saying. 

“And I swear to- wait what. Did you just agree with Dandy not being a piece of shit??” Glisten looked flabbergasted and raised his left hand in front of his mouth while audibly gasping. 

“What? No. I simply agreed with some of the things you were saying.” Vee quickly retorted, but the small slip up was evident. 

“Oooh, okay so where’s your head at? I’m curious now.” Glisten leaned in a bit closer to pressure Vee into talking, unfortunately his ‘intimidating’ didn’t really work on someone like Vee. 

Vee hesitated, folding her arms tighter. “...Not really your business.” Vee folded one of her legs over the other and stared at Glisten disapprovingly. 

“Ooo Wait is it Shelly?? Is it??” Glisten guessed, confidently enough to make Vee flinch for a second. “IT WAS!! Omg what have you two been up to?! Did you k-” 

Vee immediately slammed her hand against Glistens mouth to shut him up, he simply started laughing and fell backwards onto his back, quickly complaining and getting up as if it was intended. 

“None of the sorts.” Vee replied coldly. 

“Oooo but like, you like her riiight?” Glisten smirked 

“.. I. Think.” Vee hesitated for a bit, which caused Glisten to frown for a moment and sit back next to Vee with a more concerned and confused tone. 

 
“You, think? What does that mean, follow your heart!! What does it say?” Glisten made extravagant hand gestures to sell his point and sound more convincing. 

Vee felt bad suddenly.  

“What heart.” Vee retorted quickly her tone sounded a bit more defensive and irritated, not that annoyed to cause a scene but definitely noticeable. Glisten shut up for a moment scared he accidentally hit a snare that was too far. 

“Wel- It’s metaphorical but you like being with her right?” Glisten stopped some of the theatrics and calmed his tone a bit. “I know you’ve been meaning to talk to her but like, you did it right?” 

“Yes. We talked and such.” Vee replied  

“Okay well did you enjoy talking with her?” 

“. Yes?” Vee sounded unsure of herself, how does one measure that? She’d definitely want to do so again so yeah, good thing. 

“Do you wanna spend more time with her?” Glisten continued 

“Yes.” Vee was much more certain on this one. 

“Marvelous,” Vee raised an eyebrow at the word, “I think you should totally tell her you like her then and like I’ll help set up something romantic for you tw-” 

“Glisten.” Vee sighed. “We just talked again in like a month or so, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

“But like didn’t you two watch movies together and bake? That’s practically a first date.. Did you hold hands? Cuddle?” Glisten got more curious. 

“. . . We did cuddle to sleep together two days ago-”  

“YOU WHAT???” Glisten jumped up in excitement, “this changes everything!! You haven’t confessed already???” 

“I don’t think I should.” Vee looked away, she felt upset. 

“Erm, pardon me?? Why not does Shelly not like you?? Oh, I’ll give her hell if she do-” 

“Glisten. I don’t think I should confess at all, I don’t have the capacity to understand our situation, I don’t receive any more updates to do so. Why would she like an over-glorified piece of technology.” Vee spoke, not realising she was repeating things she’s heard over herself. Finally, what had stuck what had been stuck with her for ages had been uttered. It felt strange saying that. 

The words hung there, heavier than she’d intended. And for once, Glisten didn’t have a comeback ready. 

The two sat for a moment and Glisten eventually broke the silence with a sigh 

“Vee... You’re kind of dumb for someone who hosts trivia, you know that?” Vee raised an eyebrow at the insult but didn’t bother to fight back. 

Glisten placed his hands on her shoulders 

“You’re a toon just like us, you feel the same way. Just because you were made slightly differently doesn’t make you less like us. You’re still Vee and a really awesome person. I think you shouldn’t underestimate yourself.” Vee simply stared at Glisten. 

“Says you?” 

“HAHAhah, this is about you and not me right now.” Glisten got some distance again and brushed it off like nothing. “But like you should totally make her something. A little gift to show you think of her sometimes or whatever she likes y’know.” 

“Why?” 

“Cause it’s adorable and thoughtful.” Glisten added.  

“What do I even make.” Vee groaned and slouched back 

“I don’t know be creative! I know you struggle with that but hey.” 

“You literally tried to make a copy of my gameshow.” 

“W- okay that’s just called appreciation of your work and being inspired, and mine was flawless.” Glisten scoffed. 

“Right, how many people watched it?” Vee tilted her head, 

“Enough!! Agh whatever I’ll go bother boxy boo, go think of something to make, look for scraps if you really can’t think of anything.” Glisten walked off strutting to go complain about something with Boxten. 

Vee shrugged and sat to think for a moment. What should she make, that Shelly would like. Vee concluded making a list would probably be best and see what she could make with that. 

Dinosaurs were obvious but she already had a lot of dino-related items. She’s picked up hobbies she heard. She likes food and watching movies. This proved harder than she thought. 

She had themes but she didn’t really have anything to do with them, no instructions to follow whatsoever. Okay fine maybe she should go to Scraps to see if she has anything better. The luck infested cat was probably better at this than her. She walked off to try and find the cat, where would she even hang around? Probably either her shared room or maybe hanging around the other toons.  

She walked down the halls and went towards the ‘rare’s’. Vee had programmed in everyone’s codes.  It was honestly strange they received those codes it felt more like experimentation names and such M-004. She didn’t question it. 

She wandered over to the craft siblings' room and knocked on the door to no avail, it seems they weren’t there. She had spotted them earlier at breakfast, but they went off with.. Connie, Flutter, Gigi and Toodles. Actually, Goob had gone off with Finn and Loeey. 

Now where would the girls have gone. She went back to the lounge to no avail. Maybe the main halls. She walked to the elevator to go to the main entrance. The station had closed down and the main entrance was practically abandoned seeing no power was rerouted there when not necessary. She did see some light emit from the gift shop though it was dim, as if casted by a candlelight. She walked closer to the window to see the group sitting in a circle with... a bunch of little candles and what seems to be paper lanterns decorated in different colours. Why were they making those??  

The halls echoed with chitter-chatter from the room, rustling of papers and snipping of scissors disrupted occasionally with laughing or requests to pass some form of instrument. 

Vee approached the entrance and was immediately noticed by the girls due to her emitting bright light. Vee stepped inside and locked eyes with Scraps, who seemed a bit jumpy and unsure. 

“I need help from Scraps specifically.” Vee said. 

“Oh well! We were making lanterns to place around the floors when blackouts happen so you can find them easier! And they look decently cute. Did you want to join?” Scraps asked. 

“No. I need advice.” Vee said ever so bluntly. 

“Okay..? With what?” Scraps looked confused and the rest of the group also started questioning Vee. 

“I.. Come outside with me.” Vee walked out and tried to hide around the corner, Scraps followed behind, and the rest of the group trailed behind on a distance to eavesdrop 

“Can you all leave?” Vee said in a tired voice. The girls left back to the lanterns, and very ‘sneakily’ poked their heads through the door to try and listen into the conversation. Vee made some form of a groan and gave up on the matter. 

“Sooo, what’s this about?” Scraps tilted her head and spoke in a chipper voice. 

“I need ideas for a gift.” Vee said directly. 

“Oh! Well, what kind of gift? For whom?” Scraps inquired. 

“For a dear one of mine, who happens to like prehistoric reptiles.” Vee attempted to keep the person secret as well as she could, but it seemed the paper craft had already caught on. 

“Hm...  Well, you could make a lantern for her! Join us and come cut out some papers and such!” Scraps took Vee’s hand, who reluctantly accepted, dragging her to the merchandise shop. Before they arrived the other girls quickly scattered back to their places, “Alrighty! Vee will be joining us in making some lanterns!” Scraps happily announced before going to her stack of paper and explaining the gist of it to Vee. 

Vee held the papers, glue, scissors and translucent papers, then attempting to make a dinosaur figure. Usually when drawing she’d get the outlines right in one go but she jittered a bit. 

“You good?” Connie floated besides her. 

“I’m doing immaculately good.” Vee replied swiftly. 

“Alright.. You’ve just buzzed a couple of times.” Connie shrugged met with an immediate counter, “No I didn’t.” Vee snapped back 

Connie just floated back and continued spinning papers in the air. 

Vee looked back at her dinosaur and saw some lines that looked off, she felt her shoulders sink down and frustration of some sort well under the surface. She sat silently for a bit. 

“Hey Vee,” Toodles piped up, scissors in hand. “Do you make things often?” 
Flutter wiggled around and mimed shaking her own head, as if testing for rattles. Something about asking if her head rattled when she shook it 
“Oh yeah!” Scraps chirped, grinning. “Are you solid metal? You clank when you move.” 

“So you got any parts I could t-” 

“SHUT UP, For Just, a moment.”, Vee raised her voice and then stabilised herself attempting to be rational again, “You there,” Vee first started with Gigi, “Stop trying to get any, it’s not like you ask any toon here for some of their fingernails do you.” She then looked back over at the other toons who she was debating if she still wanted to reply to. She instead felt too fired up to actually say something sensible. “No my head doesn’t rattle, No I don’t make things often.” Vee took something closely related to a breath to clear her head, then looked back up. 

“Okay well.. Sorry? No need to get so upset about it suddenly.” Gigi dared to speak. 

Vee groaned and moved her stuff over outside the room and continued on her own with the lantern. After a bit the rest of the girls left the room to go eat dinner, Vee still had to finish the lantern today, so she stayed behind in the entrance. While leaving someone stayed behind, creeping up to Vee. 

“I can hear you Gigi.” Vee sighed 

“Oh I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you.. This time.. But! I just wanted to apologize for being a bit erm... Insensitive. The others also wanted to apologise but we didn’t want to agitate you, again.” Gigi rubbed the back of her head awkwardly and then moved away not waiting for Vee to reply, after all dinner was being served! 

Vee looked at her leave, feeling a bit bad about lashing out at the group who (although not helping) didn’t do anything that wrong to be on the receiving end of her outburst. She sighed and got back to working on the lantern, it was a yellow wide cylinder with cutouts of dinosaurs that she had heard Shelly talk about more frequently than others additionally the bottom of the cylinder was decorated with plants.  

Time had passed and Vee’s hand was getting a bit numb from holding things down, making perfect incisions and NOT spilling glue all over the project and her more frequently twitching hands. After assembling it all she sat back to admire the unlit lantern, then decided to test it—she wanted it to be perfect 

She attached the paper lantern to some string and a stick, then placing a candle in the middle of the lantern. 

She held it up, letting the soft, golden light spill outward in warm waves. The shadows of tiny dinosaurs danced gently across the walls, flickering and swaying with each subtle motion of her hand. The paper felt warm from the candle inside, and for a moment, everything else disappeared, only the quiet hum of the station, the faint glow, and her creation remained, she admired the work staring at the wall when she heard a voice, 

“Whoa.. You made this?”  

The voice was soft, sweet, surprised, but gentle, with a subtle tone of wonder that made Vee’s processors stutter for a split second quickly piecing together who had just walked in on her.    

She turned around and as she had suspected. There was that smile. Bright, familiar, a little clumsy. Shelly stepped closer, her expression alight in the candle's golden halo. Vee stood still for a bit to enjoy the presence of a practically glowing Shelly. After a moment of star-struck silence Vee went back to the moment. 

"It- it was meant for you," Vee said, her voice quieter than usual. "I was going to bring it to your room later, when things were calmer."   

Her hand tightened slightly around the lantern’s stick. She tried her best to look confident but, the insides of her systems were running faster than usual as Shelly went up to her softly, even Shelly was ever so slightly shaking. 

Taking the initiative, Shelly stepped in and wrapped her arms around Vee’s torso with quiet certainty. It wasn’t a big, crushing hug — more like... warmth, pressed softly against her. Vee’s other hand hovered uncertainly before resting against Shelly’s back in an awkward half-pat. 

  

For a moment, neither of them moved. 

  

“I love it,” Shelly said, muffled slightly by Vee’s chest. 

  

Vee’s internal systems hummed just a bit louder. Her screen flickered faintly. Her fans whirred slightly faster. She didn’t know what to say but she did know, she didn’t want the moment to end. 

 

Had it just been a day?? Waiting for her had felt days longer.  

The pair embracing had caused Vee to almost fall over onto the floor,  

"Okay—Maybe we should go somewhere with a softer landing, hm?" Vee gently tried to disentangle the hug before either of them fell over. 

  

“Yeah!! My room we go!!” 

 

Before she could react, Vee felt herself lifted, quite literally, into Shelly’s arms. Her limbs jerked instinctively, several motors whining in protest. 

“Am I—uh—is this okay??” Shelly asked, tilting her head, her eyes wide and full of honest concern. 

Vee’s voice caught for just a moment then replied calmly,  

“Yes. That’s alright.” 

  

A delighted squeak escaped Shelly as she adjusted her grip and started walking. Vee looked up at her, stunned, unsure how to hold herself. But... she didn’t feel like moving away from her new carrier. Just a quiet buzz in her chest. A low warmth. 

The lantern swayed slightly in Vee’s hand, casting tiny dinosaur shadows across the walls as they went — two soft figures disappearing down the darkened corridor in a pool of gentle, flickering light. On the way to Shelly’s room they didn’t encounter anyone to disturb them. 

Just the two of them moving through the halls, it was late already so practically everyone had gone to bed already. They made it to the door, which Vee reached out for to open so Shelly didn’t have to bump into anything.  

Vee was placed down on a pillow on the floor; Shelly quickly sat down next to her. Vee had placed down the lantern in front of them as they sat next to each other. Shelly’s tail wagged ecstatically but was interrupted by a somewhat louder yawn. 

“Is someone sleepy?” Vee tilted her head and brought up her right hand to softly, teasingly, squish Shelly’s cheek. She simply stuck out her tongue in protest, “Nooo! I’m not, I’ll stay up all night with you Vee.” 

“I think it’s better if you go sleep.” Vee smiled a bit tired, she would love to stay up with Shelly but tomorrow was just another day they would go and extract ichor. Shelly reluctantly nodded, though suddenly she seemed less... at ease... Her shoulders were stiffer, and she turned cautiously to make eye contact with Vee 

“.. Could you stay here with me? Like.. W-we did a couple days ago, just sleep together?” The words quivered on her tongue; Shelly spoke softly as if trying to not disturb anyone nearby. Vee chuckled softly, slowly, “Of course, sorry for not being here yesterday then.” She smiled reassuringly. Shelly’s tail wagged again as she gave Vee a friendly head bump. 

“Oh.. I’ll go put on my Pjamas then!” She walked over to her clothes closet, threw a matching onesie to Vee and walked away to a further corner to go get dressed. Vee snuffed out the candle so it wouldn’t fully burn up and placed the lantern on a crate. 

Vee looked at the green coloured onesie and sighed while smiling. She changed into the soft fabrics and fixed up the sheets of the beds. She was practically tackled by Shelly while still busy arranging the pillows.

“I thought you were sleepy??”  

“Nuh uhh but seeing you wanna sleep soo badly I’ll join you.” Shelly made a playful smirk and rolled into the just neatly organised blankets. 

“No blankets for me?” Vee teased, she didn’t actually need them, but it felt nice to be included. Shelly un-rolled herself and dragged Vee underneath the blanket pile with her snuggling up closely with Vee. Vee repositioned herself slightly, so her arm wasn’t crushed. “Alrighty, sleep well..” Vee was about to shut off when, “Uh.. Vee?”  

“Yeah?” Her screen lit up for a moment again. 

“Could you put us in a team together tomorrow?”  

“Duh.” Vee spoke, “That’s all?” 

“Yuh- Good night..” Shelly nuzzled closer somehow and started dozing off. 

Vee set another timer and before shutting off deducted, 

Objectively the best place to shut down is under this pile with Shelly.  

She then went unconscious as intended 

Notes:

I should've probably split the chapters? But it felt wrong to do so? Honestly if someone prefers that lmk ! ! !
I love candles dude, arson is fu- I mean, Candles are cute and romantic :3
The final two are in the workings and practically almost done, mostly cause 9 is an afterword and what I'll be up to next.
Oof no more 6/9 chapters 3

Yeah until then,
Boopers out !!

Chapter 8: The final run.

Summary:

The pair wakes up in the morning excitedly, ready to finish another run and spend the whole day together.. well that doesn't really go as planned..

Notes:

Ahoyy!!
omfg I'm so happy to have nothing on my schedule I love writing shellevision I love it I love it I lo-
Okay I promise no one dies on screen, I love the scrunklies too much for that.
ANYWAYS!! please enjoy the finale-
DRINK SOME WATER!!

/ / Vee / /  

It was warm, nicely cosy warm. A soft snoring was beside her; Vee pulled the snoring ammonite closer. Some would call the noise annoying, Vee thought it was quite endearing. She had about 70% power left. Enough for one full day. More than enough to carry Shelly through anything today might throw at them. She checked the time, 8:50, enough time to still get ready and eat breakfast then join the morning group. It was probably best to go as early as possible, so they had time later. Was that a bit selfish? Maybe. Did Vee worry all too much about it? No.  

She got up slowly not to stir Shelly too much and got out of the bed to change into her suit, bow and fancy but functionable pants.  

8:55. Hm  

Vee got Shelly a nicely clean outfit from her closet and placed it on the bed, where Shelly had started moving and twitching, searching for an absent robot to cling onto, face slightly turning sour at the lack of Vee. Vee simply watched her squirm around a bit and then proceed to ball up. She walked over to the blankets and gently shook around Shelly to get her awake.  

“Mrrwhaaat” Shelly murmured and rolled away from Vee to drown away in the blankets.  

“Nope, we’re getting up, quickly so we still have a choice in ichor groups.” Vee unrolled the Shelly-burrito made of blankets and started dragging the struggling toon out of bed. Shelly made multiple noises of disapproval but eventually settled with loudly sighing and grabbing the stack of clothes to change into in a corner of her room.  

Vee waited patiently on her to return, this time a lot less groggy and far more excited. Shelly sprinted to Vee, crashing them into the floor and clung onto her tightly.  

“Shelly.. We have to get out.” Vee sighed.  

“But I wanna stay hereee.” Shelly pouted and kicked her legs in the air a little  

“C’mon let’s go,” Vee lifted her up and put her down on her feetsies  

“Okaaayy..”  

Vee walked to the door and held it open for Shelly, “After you ma’am”, Vee bowed down a bit hearing a giggle emanate from Shelly, who was about to walk past but stopped right at the door frame.  

“The lantern!” Shelly quickly strode to the dresser and grabbed Vee’s creation then smiled at Vee, she felt something in her chest burn like the candle did yesterday. Shelly then walked out together with Vee.  

“Alrighty! Breakfast!!” Shelly trotted off with the lantern and Vee trailed behind. Meeting up with Brightney to discuss teams.  

It wasn’t too hard to convince Brightney to put her and Shelly in the morning, she eventually made sure the rest of the team was tolerable, Pebble, Flutter, Ginger, Teagan, Boxten and Razzle & Dazzle. All of them were pretty tolerable, the rest of the groups were sorted on how well they worked together and on their role in the team.  

 

/ / Shelly / /  

 
Shelly was preparing well for the trip, aka, pocketing as many snacks as possible in the meantime. 

After filling her pockets and a small bag she had gotten from cosmo for the food, she settled down on a chair and devoured her breakfast as fast as she could so she wouldn’t be late. The rest of the toons had already shown up and were gathering around the board to see where they would go. Tisha had sat down next to her with her own meal,  

“So, how do you feel?” Tisha sat next to Shelly with her omulettes and veggies.  

“Oh pretty good actually!” Shelly scratched her arm and immediately was slapped by Tisha to stop her from scratching, “owww” Shelly mock complained. Tisha sighed and smiled at her. “Well it’s almost time to go out, you’re prepared for everything? Twisteds, food, lights, everything?” Tisha patted down Shelly to make sure there were no creases in her skirt. She then located the overflowing abundance of snacks in her pockets and sighed.  

“ Just try not to orbit Vee so hard that you forget you’re on a team, alright? ” Shelly looked mildly annoyed and gave Tisha a careful playful shove. She then walked over to the boards with her and examined the groups, then got excited seeing Vee had managed to put them together. She scanned the room for Vee but couldn’t locate her. Shelly shifted from relaxed to frantic attempting to find her dear friend. She quickly ran out into the hall and saw Vee waited for her at the door.  

“You waited!” Shelly’s tail wagged excitedly, and her eyes lit up fully. Vee simply shrugged and smirked a slight bit. The two walked to the elevator where the others were waiting.  

After a quick debrief of Brightney, Pebble distracting, Flutter & Razzle as backup and Ginger as support. Teagan, Boxten, Dazzle, Vee and Shelly were extracting. Teagan excitedly waved over to Shelly and smiled at her and Shelly returned it. The group entered the elevator and descended.  

 

Yet another run.  

 

Shelly stuck close to Vee, the inches they were away from each other felt like miles, but Shelly refrained from clinging onto Vee. The first floor arrived; Vee did her signature skill of hacking into the cameras and broadcasting Twisted locations. It amazed Shelly how great Vee was at all of this. She excitedly followed her to machines while cheering on her friends. Machines were completed one after the other. Shelly had moved away from Vee, much to her dismay, to complete machines further out. She encountered Teagan on the way to the other side of the rainbow halls. She was already busy on the machine, so Shelly simply cheered,  

“Oh thank you dear.” Teagan replied softly, voice accented with a honey-sweet tone.  

“No worries!” Shelly was about to wander off, “Oh Shelly!” She quickly turned around again  

“Yeah Teagan?” Shelly went back to her. “I was wondering if you were perhaps working too much? You’ve been sent on runs almost every day, just making sure you don’t end up like Rodger and drinking coffee to stay awake..” Teagan chuckled but there was a bit of concern intertwined with the statement.  

“Oh don’t worry about it! I’ll be fine.” Shelly tried to reassure Teagan but the older lady simply chuckled and finished spinning the valve. “Well off we go sweetheart!” Teagan started walking back to the elevator at a slightly faster pace, Shelly quickly ran the same direction.  

The two made it back to the elevator, Razzle called out for Pebble who sprinted full speed to the elevator and jumped in.  

“Well done. We have a new record on our first floor completed. Forty-nine seconds.” Vee complimented the team, trying to sound enthusiastic but her monotone voice cut some of the praise down.  

“Great job everyone! We’ll just do that again next floor and we’ll be done faster than ever before!” Shelly excitedly chimed in after Vee, raising the team's morale a bit, she gently bumped her head into Vee with a smirk, who returned her a smile.  
“Hello everyone! Got any tapes to spare?” Dandy’s voice echoed off the sterile walls like a commercial jingle, bright, weightless, and wholly out of place. The facade’s mood soured instantly at the sight of Vee. Dandy, unfazed, ignored her presence.  Shelly noticed  the way Vee’s posture changed. Her shoulders stiffened, her hands flexed like she wanted to grip something, anything, tighter. Her face smoothed into a near-blank stare. Her smile had long vanished.  

Vee walked up slightly to Dandy, looming over him  

“Go back down into the floor, No one is interested in your junk.” Vee spoke sharply and determinedly. Her words flew like daggers to Dandy, who made a theatrical fall onto his counter and made some vague sound of a ‘sob’.  

“Oh boo! Cheer up Vee, if you’re not interested is fine, just don’t project onto the rest of the team! Your opinion isn’t the only valid one.” Dandy smirked and waved her off, looking to the rest of the toons who didn’t really seem excited about his stuff. Pebbles however did bring Dandy some tapes that he had dragged in his mouth to the elevator. Dandy rewarded him with a treat and went back down into the floor.  

“Coward” Shelly could hear Vee mutter.  

The group brushed off the remarks exchanged by the two mains and focused back on extracting, Shelly had stayed beside Vee mostly, cheering her on, and remembering to check in onto the others occasionally, making sure to follow Tisha’s advice so she doesn’t have something to black mail her with later.  

“Go get em!” Shelly cheered on Teagan who replied with some gratitude as Shelly wandered back into the elevator. The first 8 floors had flown past at amazing speeds Ginger had occasionally given Pebble a cookie to calm his nerves and the group bought something every now and then. Dandy hadn’t found anything good to sell, but the most noteworthy were probably some cables and three smoke bombs, which were distributed between Vee, Ginger and Dazzle(+Razzle).   

The further they went; Shelly was shivering more often than usual. She noticed it on the rest too.  Vee was probably the only unaffected, but she noticed it as well.  The group had grown a bit more sluggish as floors past by just a tad bit slower..  

It was barely noticeable at first until Vee kept stating the time.  

From the record of 49 seconds, it had subtly but steadily increased to a grand total of 6 minutes.  

The 9 th floor was completely dark; it was then Shelly realised she left the adorable lantern in the cafeteria with Tisha.  

Darn  

The 10 th floor had also busted lights, it took much longer to complete the machines due to attempting to locate machinery in the dark. After finally finishing everything, the group complained to Dandy and requested more batteries.  

Back again in the elevator after the 11 th floor, Shelly had noticed Pebble whining to Ginger, who checked her pouch a bit nervously. Pebble was still running well but slower, more tired. Vee had struggles trying to connect with the cameras as her signal was weak.  

The 12 th floor came; Pebble was called back by Ginger for a break and flutter took over for a bit. Shelly walked over to the little man, “Hey Pebbles, you okay?”. He barked excitedly in reply, but he laid still on the carpet, not even leaning in for scritches.  

13 th floor. The lights flickered and the power went out again. Though extracting went extremely slow due to T-Blot's arms blocking off pathways and guarding the machines. Midway the floor Razzle Switched out Pebble so he could catch a breath. Teagan started running out of tea.  

14 th floor was a problem, Razzle&Dazzle walked up to Ginger probably asking for something. Which wasn’t too concerning on it’s own, until the group had heard the harrowing words.  

“I’m out of cookies..”  

They still had to get to floor 15.. The entirety of the 14 th floor was handled with as much caution as possible to not get anyone injured. Sadly, bandages and medical supplies were the next to run out. The distractors seemed severely exhausted.  

The optimism had faded away; the grimness of the situation was painstakingly obvious. The group had gotten tired of it all, Shelly had gotten kicked by a stray T-Flutter.  

The 15 th floor wasn’t even being cleared anymore, it was being survived.  

The map depicted rainbow-walled rooms  It had one long hallway on the left side of the elevator, a box-like room in one corner, two smaller ones parallel to it and a hall in the middle with split up and had a smaller room at the end of one.  

The lights flickered and the power went out. The toons looked nervously between each other. Batteries weren’t going to last long. Eventually it was decided that everyone would go in groups so that flashlights could be swapped.  

The twisteds were announced by Vee a bit delayed as Vee had difficulty connecting with the camera.  

“Finn, Toodles... Goob and Scraps.”  

Pebbles, Flutter and Razzle(+Dazzle) all looked at each other before deciding Pebble would take Scraps, Flutter Goob, and Razzle would deal with the rest of them.  

The Three ran out to collect the twisteds and after the sign from Vee the rest did as wel. Shelly and Boxten went off to the left, Teagan Vee and Ginger to the right.  

And thus began the panic of clearing machines at a fast pace.  

“Teamwork makes the dreamwork!” Shelly cheered on an extremely nervous Boxten who had been trembling erratically while spinning his valves. Shelly ran off to do more machines in the long hallway when an ear piercing yelp echoed throughout the floor. Shelly saw through the window that Pebbles had fallen onto the floor, Twisted scraps seemed to have caught his leg with the mouth on her tail, Pebble was actively squirming to get out, eventually biting her tail and running off as quickly as possible to the elevator, stumbling every now and then. Scraps had attempted to chase the dog down but eventually gave up as Pebble had escaped. She retreated into the darkness and dissipated  

Shelly called out, realising she was on the last machine,  

“GET TO THE ELEVATOR! SCRAPS IS LOOSE!!” Shelly attempted to spin the valve of the machine faster but that caused it to make some strange noise, echoing throughout the halls. She desperately tried to finish this as fast as possible, eventually managing to finish it, only to get covered by some of the ichor causing her to move slower as the countdown started. She looked into the almost unending hall, the elevator was so far.  

Oh no.  

/ / Vee / /  

She had made it to the elevator together with the rest of the group, Pebble had retreated early, and Razzle(+Dazzle) had also lost their group of twisteds in a far corner away from the last machine. Flutter was still out there. The elevator opened and the group stepped inside. The elevator counted down.  

Flutter flew in after 10 seconds..  

The elevator remained open though.  

15..  

12..  

Wait.. They were missing someone.. Where..  

“Where’s Shelly?”  

Vee frantically looked around, the rest of the group didn’t seem to have any clue either. Vee cursed under her breath, where was Shelly?  

She looked over to the other hall and saw a fatigued Shelly run as fast as possible, but on the other side of the elevator stood a menacing figure, Scraps was checking around the corner.  

Damnit.  

The rest hadn’t noticed yet, calling out to Shelly to run faster, Vee saw how fast she was running and quickly compared her running to the amount of distance she still had to cross she started calculating rapidly. She quickly deduced, Shelly wouldn’t make it. Not only that, but Scraps would also probably maul her, she had nothing on her to protect her.  

“Shelly isn’t going to make it.” Vee stated coldly. She was going to be torn to shreds; Scraps had already locked eyes with her and aimed  

Not unless someone does something incredibly stupid.  

.  

Decision made.  

The elevator had about 1 second left when Vee had chosen her answer, Jumping out of the elevator. The group had screamed, cried, yelled out, panicked, worried, concerned. Shelly tumbled into Vee and couldn’t move any further, body was littered with scars. A loud clang echoed throughout the halls. It took her a moment to realise what had just happened.  

They were here alone  

The elevator was gone.  

 

They were trapped and surrounded.  

Neither of them had gotten time to panic about the lack of an escape, as Vee got violently attacked by Scraps’ tail. It bit into Vee’s arm who yelled out. Shelly started crying.  

“CLOSE YOUR EYES!” Vee quickly lifted Shelly onto her left shoulder, Scraps cut the distance between them, but before she was able to bite into Vee again, s he was hit full in the face with a smoke bomb. Glitter and dust exploded into the air and any twisted approaching immediately cried out in pain and agony of breathing in this strange mixture of dust.  

Vee quickly shoved Scraps aside and started to run down a path towards the corner twin rooms. Hastily running with Shelly slumped over her shoulder. Vee was definitely not made for running and she was not able to do so for long. She did have enough fuel to run towards the rooms. Crashing down into the floor, Vee quickly shoved a desk aside as cover and placed down Shelly, who coughed weakly.  

“Vee..?” Her soft, exhausted voice managed to worm out of her beyond tired vocal cords.  

“Sh-h.. Save your energy and stay-st-ay still, you’re dripping blood on the floor.” Vee analysed Shelly’s wounds and started ripping up her sleeves. Using the fabric as makeshift bandages. Slowly wrapping up Shelly’s arms and legs with intense care and caution.  

“Vee..” Shelly sputtered out, her eyes looked tired and severely weakened. Her left arm shakily reached up to the robot and found themselves a nice spot Vee’s shoulder. Shelly smiled weakly.  

“We’ll be.. .” Vee struggled to find words, no they wouldn’t be alright. What the hell were they going to do here? She bit back the words. “I’ll figure something out.” Vee’s eyes betrayed her confident tone. Flickering occasionally. She sat down and started thinking.  

Shelly’s exasperated breathing was the only sound. They both prayed, silently, that nothing would find them.  

“H-h-hey" Vee’s voice glitched slightly. “I. Cou-could connect with something here, to send ou-out a signal perhaps.” She steadied herself. “Stay here.” her voice was firm.  

She silently creeped up to a defect computer, looking where the cable met a power outlet. She crawled to it and unplugged the broken computer, connecting herself with the socket to try and sent out some electricity to upstairs, maybe something anything would flicker erratically, maybe someone will realise they’re still there. It was draining her energy significantly as she sent out signals more and more desperately.  

Was this even working? Was anything even being sent out?  

Vee stopped after having lost a significant amount of battery time. She would probably have less than a couple of hours. Snap.  

She sneaked back to Shelly and sat down next to her. Shelly leaned in on Vee for support.  

“.. Did you manage to send anything out?” Shelly asked, hoping for a positive answer.  

“... I hope so.” Vee replied coldly. She didn’t want to lie, but outright saying she didn’t think so would crush their hopes.  

.  

Time past.  

Shelly held onto Vee, it was cold, she had dropped her flashlight and the only light still illuminating the room softly was Vee’s screen. In the far distance in the dark they could hear some scuttling occasionally. It would only be a matter of time until a twisted would stumble across this room and check around the corners and desks.  

Shelly coughed softly, and then chuckled softly. “Hey Vee..” Vee looked over to her curiously.  

“If.. If this is how it ends.” Shelly turned to meet Vee’s gaze. “At least the view was pretty.” Shelly smiled with the most amount of optimism she still had left.  

“.. Don’t say that. It’s not over yet.” Vee clipped back, but she doubted her own words.  

Shelly rested her head on Vee’s, “I’m.. Going to take a nap.”.  

“Don’t do that. Stay awake. Please.” Vee pushed off Shelly and held her shoulders tightly, shaking the ammonite slightly.  

“You could just rebuild me too right?” Shelly joked, it was meant to be humorous, but no one laughed.  

“.. Shelly. I can’t do that. You’re not some machinery. And that won’t happen. I hope.” Vee went silent. There was nothing she could say.  

“.. Well then.. While I still have the energy to..” She took a deep breath  

Shelly positioned herself a bit differently, using her hands to keep herself upright, her gaze softly meeting Vee’s.  

“.. I love you Vee. A lot.” She smiled, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.  

Vee sat still, surprised, startled. She hesitated for a moment. “Why.. Me?”. Vee sighed. “Why would you love someone artificial? Why would you love someone who can’t even reciprocate love?.”  

“That’s not true. And I think you know that.. And I don’t care.”  

Shelly’s tone grew more firm.  

“I love you, just because you’re Vee. I don’t care that your skin isn’t soft like the others, I don’t care that you don’t eat or drink, I don’t care that you don’t always understand feelings. You try, that’s what matters to me. You try so hard.” Shelly let the words flow, she barely thought about them, just saying what her heart was screaming.  

“Even if your heart is behind a locked door, I’d wait in front of it for you, until it opens.”  

Vee didn’t answer, she didn’t even know what to say anymore.  

“I don’t understand how to love.” Vee sighed.  

“Well, I’d love to teach you how to any day you’d let me.” Shelly grinned.  

“.. What if I can’t say this back.”  

“That’s alright! I’d love you, even if you would forget everything we’ve ever done together. I’d still love you ever so much.”  

Silence grew between them; the cold filled the room. Vee could see Shelly doubting what she had just said, about to move away. She released the tension on her arms and was about to drag herself to the other side of the room, when Vee suddenly stopped her and held Shelly’s hand  

“.. I love you too, Shelly. Even if I can’t completely comprehend how much the weight behind it is. I’d spent forever with you if we had it.” Vee finally spoke.  

Shelly looked back at her; tears formed in her eyes. Vee got closer to her.  

The inches felt like miles as Vee finally lifted up Shelly’s chin and leaned closer to her, their faces met in an awkward way, but that didn’t matter. The warmth that exploded like loving waves in Vee’s chest, it all blurred away around them, the touch they shared, the ‘kiss’ they exchanged answering so many more “What if?” “Why me” questions.  

The pain, panic and worry from before had lifted, it didn’t matter in anymore, all that did was the two of them and the warmth they exchanged, the touch that connected them.  

Vee pulled back first, Shelly fell onto her lap smiling. Euphoria pulsated around the room. They simply looked at each other smiling. It was tiring, it was grim.  

“Y’know if we die here, I’ll always be happy I was with you here. I wouldn’t wish for anyone else.” Shelly spoke. “Well, I’d rather wish us out of here, but you get what I mean.”  

They both softly giggled and simply sat for a while, consuming the time they still had together. Roughly an hour passed without anything being said.  

.  

.  

The silence was broken by an off-tune chime.  

“Is that?” Shelly slowly got up.  

“No way..” Vee realised the elevator actually had come back for them.  

“C’mon!” Shelly held her hand out to Vee and pulled her up. She was about to run off when Vee stopped her.  

“No, there’s still danger out there.”  

“..”  

Vee took the lead, forcing Shelly behind her as she scanned the hall quickly, they had no time to waste, but they couldn’t risk a single injury. After deciding it was safe, Vee carefully led the two of them through the hall, sticking to the walls close to furniture to hide behind,  

“Almost there..” Vee saw the elevator, it was open and it’s flickering light barely illuminated the hallway, it would probably leave in a little bit.  

Dang it, we have to run  

Vee tugged Shelly’s arm, who immediately understood, The two of them sprinted off, Shelly dragging Vee along as the Elevator was about to leave again. This time though they charged in just on time.  

Falling onto the tiled floor, the pair made it in. Shelly immediately celebrated, then immediately stopped as her arms hurt too much to lift them up.  

They made it, they had actually made it.  

The two exchanged an overjoyed glance. They had actually survived it.  

Shelly embraced Vee while excitedly squealing while her tail erratically thumped on the floor. The moment felt like forever, but was ruined by a certain someone clearing their throat.  

Vee looked at the counter seeing a familiar face. But this time he didn’t have his usual charismatic smile, he looked pissed.  

“Do you know how much ichor it takes to get to specific floors? To have located you?? We have lost power for more than a months' worth of lights that we collected carefully. You flickered the entire light system throughout the centre. It was beyond annoying.” Dandy grit his teeth in anger, they looked strangely sharp. “You two were such a nuisance to find. GOD. I would have just preferred to leave you two if it wasn’t for the rest.”  

He was about to send the elevator back up, but Vee quickly jumped in.  

“Dandy, you LEFT US BEHIND. You could have opened the door again.”  

“And risk injury? Hell no.”  

“SO YOU’D RATHER WE DIE??!” Vee slammed her arms on the counter. “Did you do this because you felt upset that I actually called you out earlier? WHY THE HELL ARE YOU OKAY WITH THIS?” Vee’s infuriated voice filled the elevator.  

“SHUT UP, I’m helping you now, aren’t I? Be grateful you pile of junk. I always bring you supplies to repair, and I keep the lights on? Isn’t that good enough for you?” Dandy hissed. “Never mind don’t even answer that, nothings good enough for you. Just shut up and wait till the elevator gets up.” Dandy made his little counter disappear into the floor again. Vee wanted to strangle him so bad but refrained from doing so.  

The two waited together as the Elevator went back up, they both needed a dire rest.  

The elevator got back up. The two moved past most of the crowd to get Vee to her room to charge up again. Pushing past the group and retreating in the calmness of Vee’s room they sat together.  

Silently,  

Contently.  

They just leaned on each other smothered in pillows and blankets that they would have to clean in the future but it’s fine, they just found comfort and solace in each other's presence.  

Listening to the clicking and thumping of hearts in the room.  

Quietly,  

Comforted.  

 

They would be alright.  


/ / Shelly / /

Oh my universe, my dear  

My aching heart goes to you  

My forgotten heart flutters when you draw near  

The things you don’t understand you do.  

Hold my claws tightly in your hands.  

Hold my maw gently in your hands.  

Lean in, I’ll mirror you flawlessly  

Whisper that; you’ll never leave me.  

And you’d never ignore me again  

 

Yours truly, your forever fan.  

 

Notes:

Ehehehe
The next chapter will be released like not even an hour later, It's just the after word to reflect on this, my plans for the next works I have and that.
So uhm Hi! Please ask question next chapter, here comment something stupid or well whatever you want :3 I love hearing from fellow yuri enjoyers

Chapter 9: Afterword.

Summary:

/

Hello people!

First of all, THANK YOU FOR READING NEVER IGNORE YOU AGAIN!!

AAA!!

Holy shit.

I honestly cannot fathom we made it past 100 kudos and over a thousand hits. I genuinely feel so honoured to have this happened. Legit when I posted the first chapter I expected the chapter to be seen by like 9 people and to get approximately 1 kudo for it.

Well here we are.

I cannot stress how much I appreciate the peoples here :3. Legit every comment made my day brighter, every kudo allowed me to find more works and bookmarks that all of you amazing folks had saved.

I am beyond happy I even got the courage to post that first chapter here.

With all of that out of the way, here's my thoughts on this work and the works you can expect form me in the future, cause I sure ain't stopping now!! I could be in the hospital and damn right will I by typing away in my deathbed.

When writing about Dandy's world, I wanted to portray the little sillyness and shenanigans of the gardenview group being toons and such while also trying to combine the stress and fear of the fact they're in a horror setting, and all of the chaos that happens.

I'm definitely going to write a one-shot at some point that is intended to be a sequel of this, some slice of life Vee & Shelly date, but that's very low on my writing list. Shelly/Tisha/Vee is also absolutely on that list somewhere.. That fic is just meant to be silly, comfort and a nice breather of what else I'm going to be writing.. hehe..

I'm also contemplating adding some of my artworks in a fic whenever I make them.

That should be all.

 

Until then everyone.

 

ps, I WILL respond to comments here within 1 1/2 days. Incase you have a request, criticism or just hungry for spoilers of anything. I am ABSOLUTELY up to chatter about random sheit, feel free to join in  a random conversation if you see one here :3