dandy's world · overprotective · healer · loyal · strawberry toon · best friends · pushy · supportive · video game · angst
The elevator doors slid shut with a dull, final thud, sealing away the ichor-streaked floor. The air inside the car grew thick and stale, heavy with the metallic tang of spilled life and a faint, cloying sweetness. Sprout stood rigid, his strawberry-red body trembling, the mint leaves on his forehead plastered down with cold sweat. His white scarf hung limp and heavy, its pink stripes smeared with a dark, glistening wetness he refused to name. Around him, the others were muted shapes: Gigi's muttered joke dying in the mechanical hum, Shelly's hand still hovering where she'd tried to steady him, Vee's antennas rigid with silent fury. Sprout saw none of it. He only saw the empty space where Cosmo should have been standing, felt the absence like a fresh, ragged hole torn through his own ches…