Pink Elephants on Parade (Wally Darling x reader)

Worth it.

You've put the tapes on your kitchen table, and you have been walking in circles for a while now. Once in a while, you would glance at them, and each time you did, you would quickly look away with a groan, holding your head. Now that they were right in front of you, you didn't know what to do anymore.
What the fuck do you do with these now?!

You could destroy them, or throw them in the trash. You could put everything back in the attic and hope to forget again. You could give it all to the Welcome Home Restoration Project, that would become their problem then. You could even sell them! These were – as far as anyone knew – the last remnants of a popular and beloved kids show from the 70's. Fans and historians would give you their entire bank account for just one of these tapes! You were in the possession of a gold mine there. But to you, they represented more than monetary value.
This could be the key to all those locked up memories you've suppressed. But it could also be a part of Wally's plan, if he even had one. You tried to think of all the scenarios that could happen if you watched them. Some purely logical, some featured some televised demonic ritual that would be completed upon witnessing it.
You sighed, running a hand through your hair. You stayed motionless for a moment before grabbing one of the six tapes and leaving the room.

You entered your living room and faced the Wally puppet. You got him out of your bedroom as soon as you had the suspicion that he could be alive. He was now on top of the closed toy box, where you put everything back.
"I found this." you showed him the tape. "There were six of them. You wanted me to find them right?"
A moment passed. Nothing happened. Your eyes narrowed and left again. You soon came back with something behind your back.
"Now... The obvious thing to do...that I should do, is-"
You threw the tape on the ground and smashed it to pieces with a hammer. With a huff, you looked back at him, hoping to have caught him off guard. He hasn't moved at all, and nothing happened as you waited. You sighed again, you could've sworn this would've gotten a reaction out of him.
"Well I don't even have a VHS player!" you exclaimed, like he was openly nagging you. "It's not the kind of thing people use nowadays..."

You went out to buy one. You had to go to several hardware stores, since VHS players were old enough to not be in any modern day ones, but not old enough to be found in vintage stores either. It took you almost the entire day of going all around town, looking for the damn thing.
But finally, you found one. At whatever price it was, you bought it. You groaned when you stepped out and saw that the Sun was setting. You hurried back home and started setting it up to your tv before it got dark. But it required you to plug in the three little wires for image and audio, the plugs for which didn't exist on modern tv's anymore. Overall it took you a couple of days to set up.
You knew it would be so much easier to just go to your mom's and take the old equipment you had there. But if you did, she would totally figure out what you were planning. And besides, she was still using it to this day.

Finally, you leaned back with a long sigh, wiping the sweat off of your forehead. You took a moment to admire your handy work. Then you put the VHS player as far away from the tv screen as possible, for safety precautions.
If anything gets even remotely creepy, you will stop everything and smash that tape to pieces, that was the plan.
You tested the tape player with another one, containing an old animated movie from your childhood. Everything was good to go. You looked over at the five remaining Welcome Home episodes and grew hesitant. Did you really have to do this? Couldn't you just stop?
No. You couldn't 'just stop'. You literally couldn't. You've come this far, there was no going back now. If anything could make you remember the past, this would be it. You were *this* close to the truth. Your mind, your curiosity, and your guts just wouldn't let you give that up.
With your heart beating like a drum, you grabbed episode seventeen and played it, the hammer firmly in your hand.

You were on episode twenty now. So far, it has been just a normal kids puppet show from the 70's. There was nothing creepy about it, not even a hint of scary happening in the background, not even a weirdly deep phrase. Just Wally, talking to the viewer and hanging out with the other characters.
The feeling of joy it brought you upon watching was overwhelming. A few times per episode, you almost lost yourself in the nostalgia. Whenever you'd answer out loud to Wally's question without thinking, that was when you would snap out of it and frown again, glaring at the screen.
'Don't forget about all the weird freaky stuff that has happened!'
But then, a little while later, your eyes would soften again and you would smile. Watching this show brought you so much happiness. Those were just recordings after all, they had nothing to do with what was happening right now.
Good thing those tapes weren't evil or anything. That meant you could keep them! You could watch them whenever you'd be sad, which was all the time.
"It's right there Wally-" you stopped yourself again and groaned, you even gave yourself a little slap.