Chapter Text
When he first started existing, Pineberry was just a normal Startime Sprout, the variations of the 'special' skins were notable because they'd be stand ins for kids who liked the special episodes and events, he'd spend most of his time at boys space themed parties and in the kitchen with other Sprouts and Cosmos trying to prepare things for big events. He never really ran into the original Sprout, and didn't feel like he needed to. He was himself. He just thought it was weird that he had a bracelet when as far as he knew he didn't have a matching Cosmo, after all- the startime episodes were always only ever the mains.
After a few months, things changed, more episodes had come out and more of a high demand for 'special toons' from the audience happened. Plus, they found out that some people were allergic to most of the Cosmo's that wandered around, so more Cosmos (as well as his cousin) were being mass produced to account for it, different chocolate flavorings and colorings, and every Cosmo came with a line of toons to match because of how the machines worked. all kinds of mains would get pulled into rooms by Delilah and Arthur often to be looked at and referenced for the lines of toons so nobody looked too out of place. When Pineberry and his line of mains got pulled in, he was confused.
"So... you think that to help with chocolate allergies, making a bunch of... white chocolate cosmos will help?" Lightscreen Vee sounded annoyed, and Delilah sighed. "You are the twelfth Vee to say something like this, we're accounting for all types of allergies and trying to make sure the colors are matched up as well. Normal Startime Cosmo is just colored dark chocolate. The one you're getting is actually made of vanilla despite his name."
Supernova Astro blinked and opened his mouth to talk, only for Nautilus Shelly to be first- "Do we have to treat these toons like they're ours?" "No, Shelly, you can just ignore them if you want." "So why do you need to talk to us about it again?" Lightscreen tapped her foot, a question mark appearing on her screen to hide her rolling her eyes. "Because if you guys don't interact properly in front of the kids there will be questions, so you need to know your skinline." "Skinline is a weird word for it." Pineberry muttered, getting ignored by the rest of the arguing toons.
"Why don't I get a Dandy if Sprout is getting a Cosmo?" "Astro, you know that isn't how it works" "Why not?" "Yea no actually, how come all these Sprouts are getting like, their best friend or whatever out of this and all of us are still missing ours?" Nautilus crossed her arms, and Delilah frowned sharply, glaring at the lightline mains. "Because Cosmo is the problem, it was either we make a bunch of them or we scrap him from the show. Which includes scrapping Boxten," She glared at Vee "Tisha," a glare at Shelly, ",and most of the other support toons, like RnD." and a glare at Astro. They all shrunk back, and White Rock Pebble barked angrily, growling at the lady who gave empty threats. Not like his toons could read her like he could. Pineberry was shrinking down, he didn't like when people started fighting, and he was going to have the best outcome from this.
"I... wouldn't want us to scrap Cosmo" he spoke up after a second, voice shaky- only for all of the other mains to glare at him, making him shut up with a quick "sorry!" It happened anyway, and Pineberry woke up one morning a few days later to Delilah knocking on his door. When it opened, a Cosmo was standing at the door. "You two are assigned to one another. Pineberry, White Chocolate. White Chocolate, Pineberry. The rest of your skin line is in the projector room, Cosmo has the information."
Pineberry sat in bed, staring at the Cosmo who had been closed in, and White Choco stared back at him. Did he get the closest thing to a base startime cosmo? that would make sense. He examined him for a second, looking at the strawberry icing that was mixed with the white. Probably actually vanilla flavored then and not chocolate at all given how the other new cosmos had been designed. Interesting. He pushed himself out of bed and walked over, smiling as bright as he could. "Its nice to meet you, I'm your Sprout!" he announced it as happily as possible, and White Choco stared at him for a moment, before letting a calm smile spread on his face. This felt right. "Nice to meet you too, Sprout."
Time passed, and the two got closer, the skinline getting closer in general now that there were more of them and so many kids would request the startime toons. Pineberry found himself stressed often, no longer spending as much time in the kitchen or around other versions of himself. Gardenview had changed over the years and it had expanded, making more room for the toons that were produced as time went on and the show continued. He would be rushed around on elevators for parties with his Cosmo and they'd only have so many cupcakes they'd made for the day. His favorite kid to spend time around was Julia, she would ask for the OGs the most often but as she got older she got to understand and know the other skin toons were different people. She was almost at the age where she'd be too old to request toons, turning 13 this year if he remembered right. Plus Delilah would snap at them if they didn't get things perfect or act completely on script, which was the problem right now. White Choco was shrunk down and Pineberry was stood in a way where his arm and shoulder were in front of him, glaring Delilah down as she scolded them and told Cosmo to just get it right. He could be replaced, they all always could. She was getting worse mentally. Pineberry could tell.
"I'm exhausted" Cosmo announced as soon as the elevator door closed. and Pineberry snorted, caught by surprise. He looked down at his best friend, giving a reassuring smile. "Me too, only a few more parties to go." Cosmo nodded, and they stood in silence for a second. "...Sprout, are you okay?" Pineberry blinked, did he look that tired? Compared to Cosmo he felt like he looked brand new! He laughed and swung an arm around Cosmos shoulder. "are You okay?" and a sigh from Cosmo mixed with a laugh as he moved his hand off his face to hold Pineberrys arm. "Cmon Sprout, I asked first." "I asked louder!" Pineberry held Cosmos hand and focused back on the elevator door as the elevator stopped. Cosmo stared at the door also, squeezing Pineberrys hand. "...I'm okay." and Pineberry squeezed back "Then I'm okay too. Another party, lets do this." and the doors opened.
The years went by, and Pineberry and Cosmo watched members of their skin line be moved into different ones and them get assigned new ones that were made for them as they were 'now', and Pineberry never really got to see any of his favorite kids anymore, they were all older, and the older kids always got toons that were made to be more mature. Him and his Cosmo were for the younger ones, and the 'stupid kids', as Arthur and Delilah oh so lovingly referred to them as.
He tried to spend his freetime being the right kind of Sprout, he kept his Boxten (Porcelain) and his mains close to him and protected, trying to make sure he was attached to the right people. Whenever he saw his Ginger he spent every waking second making sure she and Cosmo and him were all spending time together, it wasn't a worry of being replaced as much anymore as they'd still be allowed to interact and still be the related skinline, they just wouldn't be allowed to do parties or events together anymore- which Pineberry still cared about. The toons he loved were all anxious and needed him in some way, at least from his perspective.
Delilah was getting older, and she was calmer, Pineberry found himself in her office often, talking about the things going on with the kids and asking about Julia and her family. Julia was in her teens now, considering getting a job at Gardenview once she was old enough, Pineberry wondered if she'd become a startime skinline handler and hoped vaguely for it, he liked familiar faces more than the new people that showed up and treated the toons so differently, it was like social norms were changing outside and nobody was telling them.
Pineberry was more exhausted than he thought he'd ever be or been in his life these days. Things seemed to drag on the same everyday and he always had to say the same things, he was starting to understand the adults he'd hear complaining at the parties. It all was starting to be too loud and too much on him, which didn't really make sense. But- hey, he'd seen some other toons going 'off script' as Delilah called it the older they got and more they'd been through. Apparently toons developing mental problems could cause it, which wasn't something Delilah and Arthur accounted for when they'd initially created them, and the OG toons seemed to either not have that problem or not seem as affected by it, so they hadn't tried to fix it.
Pineberry just wondered what his problem was. His door opened. "Sprout? Are you in here?" Cosmo. He rolled over and looked at his friend through the darkness, and Cosmo smiled softly at him, closing the door and entering properly. He came to sit on the side of the bed. "Are you feeling alright? We have to be somewhere soon y'know, I don't really wanna do our shtick with another Sprout." Cosmo spoke first, and Pineberry stared into the darkness, a pit in his chest at the idea of being around people. "Yeah, I'm alright." and he sat up, smiling at Cosmo without missing a beat.
Cosmo stared at him for a second, and leaned into him. "Are you sure? I can do it with someone else if you need to rest." "No, I'm fine I promise." Cosmo stared harder, and Pineberry felt like his eyes were boring into his soul, the pit tying itself around his stomach and making him start to feel like the room was closing in. He tore his gaze away with a forcibly calm breath. "So, whose party is it?" "its some kid named Leo, I don't know him, says hes like six so hopefully we shouldn't need to do much?" Pineberry nodded after a moment. And Cosmo grabbed his arm. "Are you okay, Sprout? You look sick." "I'm fine, are you ready to go?" "You don't have your cape on. Are you listening to me?" Pineberry stared at him, feeling bile rise in his throat. Had he eaten today? He swallowed. "Someone is feisty today." He spoke after a second, and Cosmo blinked, before snickering and rolling his eyes, standing up.
"Well, if you want to talk about it, we can. But we have somewhere to be." and Cosmo started to move out of the room, glancing back at Pineberry as the sprout began fastening his cape on his shoulders, putting his scarf on and glancing back at Cosmo. He wanted to say something, he just wasn't sure what. The door closed behind his best friend. And Pineberry stood up quickly to follow. Only a few months had passed, and Pineberry and Cosmo had entered a relationship- it was natural really, only a matter of time. It ended up as a slipup, during cooking with Porcelain, Cosmo had accidentally called 'honey' across the kitchen in referal to Pineberry, and Pineberry had frozen up, going as red as a normal sprout would look.
Porcelain had been embarrassed to be caught in the middle of it, apologizing over and over when Pineberry and Cosmo had remembered he was there after they had their little conversation. Pineberry reassured him that it just made him the ultimate Boxten because of course Boxten would be their third wheel, and they'd continued cooking- though this time Pineberry stayed close to Cosmos side. It stayed like that, Pineberry started staying close to White Choco constantly, basically never seen without him even in bed, and Cosmo didn't mind, infact a lot of the time he preferred it this way. Pineberry loved him, and Pineberry loved carrying him, and Pineberry was happy. Instead of sick all of the time and not wanting to move, so this was right. Most of the skinline toons were just happy to see Pineberry acting like a Sprout again.
Pineberry was doing better, ultimately. He wasn't as anxious anymore and he could focus more on baking and on his partner instead of trying to Be Sprout, he still went to parties but they didn't feel as bad, and at this point he was just waiting to see Julia get a job here, but apparently she'd scheduled a final circus act to watch before she picked up the job, he'd been hearing rumors around from the other toons that it was coming up in about a month or so. It was exciting!
The weeks passed and he got happier and happier, he'd pick up Porcelain in the kitchens and carry him around on his shoulders and play more games with Toodles (Whiteball) and the other toons, finding himself enjoying a lot of time around his Teagan (Ivory) and inviting OG Sprout and Gigi to the baking lessons sometimes. He was at a tea party with his Cosmo and Teagan when an announcement went over Gardenviews loudspeaker saying that Dandy was sick and going to be kept at the bottom floors for his and the others' safety for the time being.
A week passed since the announcement, and Pineberry was baking with White Choco and Porcelain. They were on a time crunch because the afterparty was in 30 minutes and they were on the last two things. They were finally both in the oven and Porcelain sighed with relief as he closed it. Cosmo laughed, wiping sweat off his forehead and looking at his partner, who was stood next to him with a large smile on his face. Pineberry was sad he missed the performance, but happy he was going to be able to do something for Julia and the other teens he grew up with, he knew all of their favorite things and made sure it was all perfect, all the best it could possibly be, he’d even considered having Gigi (Cozy) come help them for a moment but from what he knew Cozy as well as the rest of the light line (or the white/silver line as some of his toons called it) were out at the performance.
The elevator dinged and Pineberrys smile fell, oh no. He and Cosmo and Porcelain all turned towards the elevator at the same time as Flutter (Satin) came out, buzzing exasperatedly as soon as she saw the situation. “Yes, i know they’re not all done! You don’t have to point out the obvious, Satin!” Flutter rolled her eyes at Pineberrys outburst, directing a question at Porcelain.
Cosmo and Pineberry flushed with embarrassment as Boxten confirmed, snickering under his breath. She chittered another question and Cosmo sighed. “We just were distracted, Pineberry likes being around me all the time and theres not really enough space for that. Sorry Flutter, i know its almost not enough time to bring them up- we can help you!!” She chittered worriedly, looking over the three of them and then pointedly at Pineberry, who huffed. “We aren’t too tired, Flutter. Besides I think we’d all like to see the tail end of the act, Dots (Looey) is like. One of the funnier ones.” Cosmo nodded in agreement, hearing the oven ding and turning around-
Only to be beat by Boxten who was already getting them out and setting up the frosting supplies. Pineberry jumped on it, starting to frost the cupcakes while Flutter started fanning the cookies to cool them down. Cosmo watched for a second before sighing. If they really were going all the way to floor 75 he should probably get ready. “Sprout, I’m gonna grab something to drink!” he called over the commotion, and Pineberry glanced at him for a second, considering coming with him and then looking at the cupcakes he was decorating.
“Alright, come back quick love!” he called instead, and Cosmo beamed at him before walking off. When Pineberry went over to go ask Cosmo to come with him to bring the cookies up, a loud ringing began to go through the announcer, causing Cosmo to drop his glass of energy ichor in shock and begin rubbing at his arm where it'd hit him, and stared as it continued to leak out of the machine, which light had turned red.
“Are you okay?” Pineberry asked after a second, also eyeing the machine in a confused way. "What's happening, turn the dial off!" He stepped forward to twist it, finding that it was infact turned off, and he paused, staring at Cosmo, who was now looking at his arm as he continued to rub at it. "It's not coming off..." he muttered, and Pineberry frowned, going to go check on him.