... I'm not apologizing at all😆
Recently, I've been checking back in with Welcome Home and have had my fancy caught buy an AU called Greyscale Wally AU by the superbly talented @sweetest-honeybee (I highly recommend it, it's AWESOME) and got this idea after seeing some spoilery endgame stuff that was posted
This will contain some spoilers for the AU, so you might want to check that out first before reading this, and this is purely speculation based off of what I've seen
This doesn't really have a title, but Trigger warnings/content warnings for abuse, manipulation, swearing, and humanoid Home being mean and scary
With that out of the way, ENJOY!
Sleeping was steadily becoming something that Wally was familiar with, along with the feeling of nearly unbearable discomfort in his entire body that rarely faded. The only real time it left was when he slept, thanfully.
But he also dreamed when he slept, and he resented it with every fiber of his being.
Each night, he would be haunted by a horrible visage of one of his friends shouting at him, hurting him, turning on him as if he had caused the desaturating plague that slowly, seemingly spread to the neighbors.
It had gotten to Barnaby, at least.
And Home won't tell me why.
Wally burrowed deeper into his blankets, letting sleep overtake him.
And he saw Barnaby and Sally, their colors muted and their demeanors drained and skittish.
Barnaby seemed more agitated than fearful, but kept his eyes averted.
A hand clapped onto Wally's shoulder, covering it entirely as a shadow loomed over him.
"What's the matter, Darling?" Home asked, speaking clearly rather than using the creaks and clatters Wally was used to. "Aren't you happy to see your friends?"
Words failed Wally in that moment, even when he craned his head up and saw Home.
Or, at least, some twisted visage of Home that had a face, one that was... rubbery as it moved, being stuff and movable all at once with enough edges and shapes making up his face to make Wally's head spin.
It would have been better to see Home as a body with Home The House on its shoulders.
But Home doesn't love you. He hurt you, remember?
"You're not," Home surmised, his tone light, but disappointed. "Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? Ungrateful as you are, you're never satisfied with anything I do for you."
Wally stumbled back as his eyes locked on Home's, Home towering over him.
He also managed to find his voice.
"I.. I'm not," he quivered. "Why should I be? You hurt them."
Home followed him, easily keeping up with long legs and an even stride. "I wouldn't have had to, if it weren't for you."
Wally cringed and flattened his hands against the sides of his head; foolish as it was, he couldn't stand hearing the careless tone Home used to say horrible things. "I didn't do anything!"
"But you did."
Home held Wally's hands on one of his own and caught Wally by the jaw, forcing the smaller of the two to meet his now dark eyes.
Wally pulled and twisted to try and break free, but Home shook him, adjusting his grip to grab Wally just under his cheekbones, nearly crushing Wally's face.
"And you just can't learn your lesson."
Wally whimpered when Home pulled him close and snarled loud enough to make Wally kick at the ground to get away.
"You have all of this because of me, you miserable mound of cotton!"
Home all but threw Wally into a turn, wrapping his arms around him, one trapping Wally's arms at his sides as he grabbed a fistful of blue hair.
Wally yelped at the sharp tug at his head, but it quickly numbed when he saw Barnaby and Sally, both with their mouths stitched shut as they gazed brokenly back at him.
Black fluid-like tendrils crept up and around their bodies, and both of them withered the further it climbed.
It wasn't like the discomfort he'd grown used to.
Instead, it hurt.
"Stop it," Wally begged, his voice quiet.
"I didn't want to do this, Darling," Home said ruefully, too close for Wally to bear. "But you left me with no other choice."
The inky black covered both Barnaby and Sally completely and shrank into the ground, then flattened against it.
He killed them.
A burning grew in Wally's eyes, one followed by a trailing dampness that ran down his face.
He killed them. They're my friends! He killed them, but they didn't do anything!
"I can always remake them," Home remarked, "it'd be easy."
He moved closer, forcing his poisonous words to drown out Wally's rampaging thoughts.
"But that means it would all happen again, if you keep being disobedient."
"Please," Wally sobbed, grasping onto Home's arm in order to stay standing. "Please, Home, stop it."
The harsh grasp on his hair turned gentle, long fingers with sharp nails combing through blue threads.
"Have you learned your lesson?"
Wally only cried harder, burying his face into Home's upper arm. "What did I do, Home!? Just tell me!"
The hand in his hair lowered to his back, rubbing circles and occasionally patting Wally's shoulder.
"None of this would have happened, if you'd just listened to me," Home mused. "All of this can go away, Darling, and all you have to do is accept that what you did was wrong."
A tugging at his ankles caught his attention, and a scream ripped through Wally as the black tendrils climbed up his legs.
"Home, stop! Please, Home, make it stop!"
The corner of Home's mouth curled upward before falling once more, his arms loosening as he stood and stepped away from Wally.
"I want you to apologize," Home said sternly. "And I want you to accept that you wronged me. If you can do that, I'll let you come back, I'll take all the pain away, from you and anyone else I gave it to, and everything will be the way it was before."
The tendrils continued to rise, trapping Wally's hands and dragging him into the ground.
"But I don't know what I did!" Wally shouted as he thrashed and clawed to keep himself above the ground. "What did I do to make you do this!?"
Home smirked and crouched down as Wally was dragged further down, cupping his face with one large, clawed hand.
"Think about it, Darling."
The tendrils wrapped around Wally's mouth and eyes, silencing his screams, but also intensifying them.
He only knew how intense they were when he opened his eyes and saw Frank and Eddie over him, both shaken and wide eyed, but overly relieved to see he'd awoken.
Even if they'd done it in the dead of the night.
"Easy, bud," Eddie murmured as Wally shakily sat up. "Just us. Just came to check on you."
Wally hugged his knees to his chest, eyes brimming with tears.
Frank lightly placed a hand on Wally's forearm. "You wanna talk about it?"
Wally only lunged and threw his arms around Frank's torso, and Frank carefully hugged him back.
"It's okay," Frank soothed him. "You're gonna be okay."
Wally barely heard him, not with two raging and terrifying thoughts tearing through his mind.
I hate this.
I hate Home.
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