Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dipsy sat back against the chair. Although the peak of the sun was cresting over the distant hill, warming the crisp air, the plastic was still cold against him and he shivered. It was hard to tell if his tremors came from the cold, or the sobriety.

This was one of his rare moments of clarity, where he looked out at the green fields and felt content, like perhaps he could live this life, in this world, without the help of something else, some substance.

His peace was shattered from behind, with a quiet voice, raspy from sleep, greeting him with, “Uh oh.”

He closed his eyes, fighting the bubble of annoyance rising within him as Tinky Winky settled into the empty chair to his right. Be polite.

He forced a “Uh oh” in return and continued watching the world lighten. He could do this. The world was warm and bright and beautiful. The sun was rising to give him another chance. He was-

His thoughts were burst with the sound of the can in Tinky Winky’s hand being opened.

“So beautiful, innit mate?” the purple teletubby said, taking a sip from his can. Dipsy knew then his peace was gone for good. He wondered if the tubby was oblivious to his hatred for him, or just ignored it. Maybe social interaction was different in England, and over there, they might actually be friends. Dipsy wished he would go back to England and never return.

“Yeah, it’s great.” The green humanoid reached for the unopened can in Tinky Winky’s other hand.

For a while now, Dipsy had come out here every morning, to watch the sunrise, hoping it would inspire him to make a change, to do something. After a few days, Tinky Winky had begun joining him, two beers in hand. Maybe the purple fucker thought he enjoyed drinking with him. Or maybe he knew that drunk was the only way Dipsy could stomach conversation with him.

They had started out alright. In the beginning, they got along fine, even had the start of a friendship as coworkers. But then came the press, and the rumors, and the management thought it would be so great for the show if all four stars lived under the same roof. He had grown to hate all of them, but Tinky Winky was the worst, the only one whose mere voice was enough to set Dipsy off.

There might have been something more than that, some genuine grievance that set him off, but the details were lost in a custard haze. He knew he should quit, but god, living in this hell house (hill house, whatever you called it), putting up with Tinky Winky and that self righteous cunt Laa Laa, everything that happened with Po (which he tried not to think about), and his disaster management led by that demon sun baby, well, who could blame him?

This was how it always started, his little routine.

He got his hopes up, started making plans, and then that first drink with Tinky Winky and it was all over. He would finish his beer, then go back into the hill house, the purple nuisance following him, until they settled on something to eat or drink or do, and he found an excuse to slip away and shoot up in their shared bathroom.

Shitty management couldnt even get him his own fucking bathroom to waste away in. Fucking sun baby. Fucking Tinky Winky.

Dipsy stood. The risen sun glared off of Tinky Winky’s TV, giving him the start of a headache. Dipsy didn’t even bother sighing when the other tubby stood to follow him.

Tinky Winky stretched, smiled; “Should we stop in for some breakfast, mate? I’d kill for a full english.”

Dipsy didn't care if the resentment he felt was reflected on his face. He could think of nothing worse. But he forced the shadow of a smile. “You get started without me. I’ll be right in.”

The purple brit started going off then, yapping about something or another as he waddled back inside. Dipsy left him still talking as he headed for the bathroom.

Another day.

He wondered if he would remember the hope he had felt this morning after the custard hit his system. To be honest, he didn’t really care. Custard haze was infinitely better than this hell.

Chapter Text

Laa Laa closed her eyes as the rising sun peeked through her window. She had begun waking up earlier, finding it gave her motivation. These past few years had been awful, but finally she caught a glimpse of the light at the end of the underworld.

It started as diary entries, but now this idea, her book, got her up in the morning. It had helped her see how much the others had wronged her, how much of a victim she had become.

She could hear the vague sounds of conversation from downstairs as Dipsy and Tinky Winky came back inside. They had started going outside in the mornings, beginning their day drinking in the first rays of sunlight. It was pathetic. Laa Laa was no hypocrite. She had been known to enjoy a tasteful glass of wine on occasional afternoons, and sure, in worse days maybe she would have drunk too much at a wrap party, or sampled some tubby custard on a night out, maybe even a line or two of bubbles when the others were involved. But that’s all it was, peer pressure. She wasn’t like them, and they knew it. She might feel bad for them, but she knew they were jealous of her, of her talent. If they wanted to get sober, they would. None of this recovery and relapse bullshit that Po was pushing. Laa Laa knew for a fact Dipsy was shooting up every goddamn day, she had seen the needles, and Tinky Winky didn’t even bother to hide his drinking. Pathetic. With her book, she could change this, make them see how wrong they were, acknowledge how they had hurt her.

She had started in this industry young, talented, and blinded by love, and they had been jealous. They tried to take it all from her, but she wouldn't let them, and now with her book, the whole world would know her story.

As she sat up, Laa Laa started, realizing that the scraps of paper containing all she had written were still scattered around her bed, the pieces of her life strewn about, fluttering in the slight breeze. She swore under her breath and scrambled to collect the scattered pages. What if she had lost one? Or worse, what if one of the other tubbies discovered one? Laa Laa knew she owed them nothing, but those leeches would still spin it into a betrayal.

Papers safely collected, the yellow tubby carefully placed them in their hiding place: a last season Louis Vuitton bag usually hidden under her mattress. She felt a smug sort of satisfaction as she smoothed the bedsheets with her fingerless hand, not a trace of the incriminating chaos that had been there a moment before.

Maybe it was a betrayal, what did she care? They had betrayed her first, every single one of them. It was written in those pages, clear as day, when the sun baby had snubbed her out of her own solo episodes, when she had asked for encouragement and no one, not even Dipsy, had replied, when she had stumbled backstage at that Nickelodeon party and seen Tinky Winky’s hand on Po’s thigh, the way they looked at each other, the way that Tinky Winky had let Po snort the bubbles from his own hand. It no longer made her sick to think about, but it still hurt. Her relationship with Po would have never worked out. They were too young, too naive, fresh out of drama school with big dreams but only one of them with the actual talent to achieve them. Laa Laa didn't blame Po for the split, but Christ, with Tinky Winky?! It was disgusting, and terrible, and Po would just blame it on the bubbles. Everything was blamed on the bubbles.

Laa Laa could remember before Po started using, back before they ever got their own show or even met the other tubbies, when it was all giddy smiles and surprise flowers, coffee shop dates and movie nights, warm, fingerless hands on her back and gentle kisses down her TV. It felt like another life, another person. That person Laa Laa would feel bad about betraying, but that person was gone, replaced with a pathetic, self righteous tubby who couldn't tell her yellow wife from her purple coworker.

She was sick of them, all three money hungry, self-absorbed, talent-stealing junkie hypocrites. And soon the world would know it.

A quiet clatter arose from downstairs, as Tinky Winky and Dipsy did whatever it was they did after getting a head start on their drinking. How someone was expected to live in these conditions was beyond her. The mess that duo left in the kitchen was enough to have Laa Laa firing her manager (if only she could afford to find a new one). She needed quiet, to think and reflect, to write, to plan.

The yellow tubby retrieved her last season's Louis Vuitton bag that contained the precious history that was the key to her bright future. Escape. Justice. Retribution. That was what this book meant. That was what she deserved.

Slinging the bag over her shoulder, and pausing for a moment to admire how the designer bag reflected her natural yellow complexion in the vanity mirror, Laa Laa stepped out of her room, letting the circular door slam behind her. She heard a start from the room, next to her, Po mumbling something incoherent.

Laa Laa sighed in contempt. She didn't have time for this. Again and again Po tried this. For most of the others, the guilt tripping was casual, the gaslighting slipped into conversation as if it was nothing at all. But Po, god, Po, was the absolute worst.

Through the crack of her open door, Laa Laa could see just the circle atop her red costars head, as she was sprawled across her bed. Based on the mumbling, it was unclear whether the red teletubby was groggy from sleep or hungover or high or drunk or some combination of things that only her contrived, lying ass could think up, but it made no difference. This was how it always went.

Before, before Laa Laa had begun writing her book, sometimes she would enter Po’s room, and approach her on her bed or her floor or her chair or wherever she had passed out that time. She would trace her mitten-like hand down her cheek or sit beside her, as if this contact could bring back a love they both knew was long lost, could bridge the bad blood between them and reconnect the two people they had once been.

Sometimes, she would respond to the tubby’s murmured calling, and Po would try and make plans, claim that they should do something together, that they could fix things, that they could hang out, or say she was sorry, and that she missed her, and that she looked beautiful, and that she would never forget the things they had shared. Their conversations never got very far after that point. Lying or preparing to lie. That's all the red bitch did. That's what Laa Laa reminded herself.

Now, Laa Laa mostly ignored Po. She’d walk straight past her door and out into the world, fueled by her anger at whatever shallow lies she had called out that morning, on her way to write herself to freedom while Po lay rotting, calling out to no one because the other two tubbies were too lost in their own self pity to hear her.

Today, Laa Laa paused for a moment. watching through the open door, she saw rays of morning light illuminate the red circle that haloed her former lover. Desire hit her with a sharp, aching pang to her heart. Desire and hurt, at betrayals past and future.

“Uh oh,” came the silky voice from her bed, as the red tubby stirred, turning towards the door. The pair of humanoid females eyes met for a moment.

“Laa Laa-” Po began, what could have been desperation coloring her voice.

Anger flared up inside the yellow tubby, resolve stealing within her as she sneered down at her pathetic excuse for an ex. Fake longing, a trick. Or maybe desperation to be handed another needle. Laa Laa was done helping this selfish mess she used to call her wife. She'd done enough for her already.

“Fuck off.” It was quiet, but final, and Laa Laa knew Po heard it. Marching down the stairs, Laa Laa clutched her bag tightly, ignoring the sounds of Tinky Winky in the kitchen, the shadow of Dipsy under the locked bathroom door.

She was sick of all of them. She deserved better than them, than this. She wouldn't let them take everything she had, not after they'd already taken her time and her youth and her trust. She was getting out, and god himself could not stop her, even if she had to throw every single one of those useless technicolor parasites underfoot to do it.

Chapter Text

Po was dreaming. She was lying on one of the green hills surrounding their home, the grass waving and shifting around her like a thousand tiny hands. The sun shone down brilliantly, golden rays hazing her vision. To her side, Laa Laa lounged, the yellow tubby's eyes closed to the sun, her TV displaying a vague mix of dancing colors, bright oranges and pinks swirling and half-forming shapes that almost reminded her of something she couldn’t quite place.

Po was happy. Not really. It was some of that strange dream logic. She was lying there, thinking, I am happy, wondering at the tranquil beauty of the scene around her, even while something bitter and dark curled in the pit of her stomach. Fluffy white clouds drifted above, screaming with their every move. It was a low, pressing sound, something that could only be described as loud silence. It pressed on her ears and her heart, crushing fear deep within her, like a hand packing down sand, like some careless child making sure it was pressed deep into every crevice and vein of her body.

Terror coursed through Po's veins, her bones hollowed and shaky, and still she lay in the bright grass, and thought I am happy. Deep within, her waking self, the self that knew she must be dreaming, formed a shadow of the thought that that wasn’t true. But it meant nothing, as the red tubby turned to Laa Laa beside her. She was beautiful, and bright, practically glowing in the abundant sunshine.

Laa Laa reached towards her red lover, tracing a warm hand down her cheek. It felt unbearingly real. The smart part of Po, the conscious part, thought about memory, although whether she was thinking she hoped to remember this or that this touch could only be a memory was impossible to tell.

Her hand was warmer than it ought to be. Po basked in the beauty of Laa Laa’s gaze, softer than it had any right to be, and ignored how her wife did not cast a shadow on the grass surrounding them. The clouds droned on, louder than could be heard in the quiet meadow.

Po focused on Tinky Winky, on his warm purple hand caressing her cheek. The conscious part of her knew this had changed, that it hadn’t always been Tinky Winky, that this meant something important, and she whispered discontented screams to bring back Laa Laa. The dream part of her ignored this, pushed it under the sound of the clouds and the swaying of the grass, and looked into Tinky Winky’s brown eyes. There was a look in them that had never been there before, a kindness, a love, like Laa Laa’s shadow had seeped into the face of the purple humanoid, softening the corners and sharpening the curves, combining fantasy and reality between the two figures until it became something new entirely.

Deep within herself, Po felt a rising discomfort. Her dream conscious thought that this must be because of the love she felt. Too much love. Remember this, this is pure happiness. Po ignored the way this happiness made her sick to her stomach.

The dream changed. Almost imperceptibly, the grass had gone from mystical and soft, waving and caressing around her form, to scathingly scratchy, like long nails being raked across her body with just enough pressure to leave a mark. She was suddenly conscious of the dirt beneath her, the cold of the ground seeping into her skin despite the relentless scratching of the grass.

Tinky Winky’s hand was cool. It no longer felt real. Po closed her eyes as the pit in her stomach widened and stretched, a yawning cavern big enough to fall into, as physical a feeling as the ground beneath her but still as unreal as the purple hand on her cheek.

A barrage of sensations assaulted her as soon as she abandoned the peaceful scene. Her vision was double, as it often is in dreams, and she saw at the same time swirling dots of color under her closed eyes, and the unreal, threatening, lovestruck gaze of Tinky Winky beside her.

She thought she could see some haze of a memory or former dream that looked like Laa Laa or Dipsy about to do something awful. She might have been imagining it. The calling of the clouds shrieked and roared until she could hear nothing else, although in her half sight she could see her friends mouths moving in unison. The scratching caresses of the grass turned to a hundred needles pressed in her skin, a dozen hands groping and tracing her body, cascades of bubbles falling in lines down her back and front, TV and face.

The conscious part of her found this unbearable. She thought to herself that she should wake up.

It could’ve been seconds or hours or days or minutes or years or months or no time at all, but at some point she did. She couldn’t tell if it was gradual or quick, but the ebbing and flowing of pain abated, and Po knew for certain that the only feeling that remained from her dream was the sickly blackness in the pit of her stomach.

Her senses of reality had returned to her.

She could smell herself on the warm, sweaty mess of her sheets, pressed up against her face. There was a noise coming from downstairs, like someone in the kitchen. Without opening her eyes, she could feel the sun beaming in through her circular window, pressing against her and warming her bed.

She let the dream fade from her memory, like waves of her consciousness endlessly erasing markings in the sand.

Po lay still. She had slept for so long it had come around and made her tired again, but her mind was clear. Empty.

She didn’t want to sleep again.

She didn’t want to dream again. These days, dreams had so much more to say than the daytime.

She didn’t want to get up.

She was drained.

She wished someone would come in, crossing the threshold with quiet footsteps, shaking her shoulder gently, murmuring that it was time to get up, that they had something to do that day. That’s what someone would do if this was a dream.

She wished she could know that something would be waiting for her if she sat up.

She wanted wonder, adventure, something waiting for her at the edge of her bed, so that she could know all she had to do was reach out and touch it.

She wanted it so badly it hurt, a dull ache in her heart.

She opened her eyes, sick of the darkness pressing against them. Po turned over, groaning an “Uh oh” as she stretched half-heartedly. Something caught her attention through the morning blur of her vision - a shape, a yellow figure in the corner of her vision.

Po locked eyes with Laa Laa, hovering like a guardian angel in her doorway.

Something sparked like a crack of lightning through the blackness of Po’s insides, something electrifying and yellow as the skin of the former lover looking down at her. Everything Po wanted crashed down on her in a single wave, a tsunami of want, of need, of knowing that to have would mean healing, that everything could be okay again, if she could and Laa Laa could just be again, if she could have the yellow tubby’s fingerless hand on her cheek, have her golden skin just a step closer.

Laa Laa was what it felt like to dream. Or at least, that’s how Po remembered her.

“Laa Laa-” She croaked, desperation welling up and spilling out of her so quickly it felt like panic.

“Fuck off.” The yellow angel’s cold words hit like a slap in the face, like a plunge into ice water. Except, instead of making everything clear, they brought Po back to reality.
Laa Laa was gone. The red tubby didn’t see her walk away, she was just… gone.

Dimly, somewhere, everything Po wanted screamed agony against her temples, constricting her heart, but she stopped listening. Stopped thinking.

Her vision was blurry. Had she even seen Laa Laa? She decided, with the shadow of a thought, that she didn't care.

Pain was easier to bear when you didn’t have to think about why it was there. (Funny, how even in the shadow of a thought, dragged up from the yawning void she spent her days in, she could still lie to herself.)

Dully, her heart ached.

Not so dully, her head ached. Had she been drinking?

Her bones were heavy, her skin felt raw. Had she been with someone?

A dull, screaming silence pressed against her ears.

Sweat and the stench of however long it had been since she last showered filled her nose.

Po pressed her face back into the pillows. Deep within herself, she remembered times when she spent her entire days, her entire life, awake and up. Moving. Talking. Thinking.
Po didn’t think these days, she just felt. And she felt damn too much, in her opinion.

So, as the warm light of morning streamed in through her window, Po blocked out the sun with her little cocoon of bedsheets, enclosing herself in her own filth like if the blankets spent enough time stuck to her skin, they would start feeling like the comfort of someone else.

Sounds drifted towards her from outside her room, a conversation, a stove lighting, a door closing. They barely registered. The red tubby covered her ears with her fingerless hands until screaming silence was her only company.