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It starts like it always does.
She’s floating limp in space, the vacuum cradling her tired body, fragments of the red moon swirling around her like a halo of blood. He reaches out to her. Trembling hands grasp at skin that is supposed to be warm and brown but has turned cold and colorless. She’s monochrome, all her life gone. He sobs, but no sound comes out.
Frobo lays her down, and she cracks, skin like porcelain meeting the harsh stone ground. He cradles her hand and tries to plead no, no, don’t go, you’re my everything, I can’t live without you, please please please-
But no sound comes out. He chokes on his tears and sorrow, throat refusing to work. He’s desperate now, weak hands clutching hers. He sobs and sobs and sobs, but she still smiles weakly at him, tells him she only regrets not being able to see Love Choice 2. He doesn’t laugh. All his joy is gone.
Please please please-
She smiles again, and she’s gone. Leaves crumble like ash in his hands. They’re colorless, too, like her hair her eyes her clothes her smile no no no no no no no-
He sobs and sobs and sobs and sobs and waits waits waits but she doesn’t come back when he knows she should even when everyone else starts crying and day turns to night with no moon and she’s gone gone gone gone gone give her back PLEASE give her back he’ll do anything anything anything-
He starts awake, sobs dying on his lips as reality crashes back in. His chest heaves, and Sprig has to swallow back the urge to start hyperventilating. He wipes at his eyes and sits up in his hammock.
That’s the third time this week he’s had that nightmare.
It’s always the same. Anne using all three Calamity stones to blow up the Core, then dying and not coming back- and she did come back, he has to remind himself. Anne apparently met god while she was dead-dead and impressed them so much she was able to come back with shards of the Calamity stones and Terri got an actual portal open so Anne can see him and the others whenever she wants and she’s not gone-
He smacks the side of his head. There he goes again, going down that spiraling hole of it’s alright stop worrying you’re worrying- again. He’s really gotta stop that.
So he lays back down again and pulls his blanket firmly over him. He should try to get some more sleep. He’s been getting less sleep than usual lately and he thinks it’s starting to worry Hop Pop.
He scrunches his eyes shut and focuses on counting sheep-flies buzzing over a fence. One, two, three, Anne’s blank eyes- hey, no, stop that- one again, two, three, four, five, six, why are the sheep-flies beginning to look more like white leaves? Wait, no- one, two, thr-
He jerks up again with a frustrated groan held back by gritted teeth. This is stupid. Why can’t he sleep? Anne and everyone else is fine, no one important to him died, and he can still see his best friend whenever he wants to and they talk all the time with their phones. He should be fine. He needs to be fine.
Why isn’t he fine?
Sprig sighs and tugs his nightcap off, smoothing his hair down with a hand that’s only slightly shaky. If he’s not gonna sleep tonight, he should at least do something. Maybe he could read a book or work on that journal he started about everything’s he’s been through since Anne got dropped into Amphibia. Anything but being bored. Being bored is the worst.
He grabs Anne’s- his phone off his nightstand and turns on the flashlight function- though he does cover most of the light with one hand; don’t need more fireflies trying to ransack the house, after all- and pans it around his room, looking for a book or his journal.
After a minute of poking around, he finds a comic book Mr. Bee bought for him back when he and Hop Pop and Polly got dropped into LA with Anne and they were living with her and her mom and dad for a bit. Sprig smiles as he hops back up into his hammock. He really likes Mr. Bee and Mrs. Oum. They’re really cool and he’s glad he sees them a lot when he visits Earth. He wonders, sometimes, when nobody’s around, if his parents would be as cool as Anne’s if they were still alive. He hopes so. Maybe they would like comic books, too.
As he opens his book, he looks at the phone’s lockscreen he set when Anne gave it to him. It’s the selfie he and Anne took that one day when they went to the lake without Hop Pop’s permission. It’s really a horrible picture. He’s got no idea what’s going on and is making a really, really bad face and Anne slapped a bunch of sticker filters over it after she took it. It’s hilarious.
On a whim, he unlocks the phone and opens up the chat he and Anne have. The last time they’d talked, they’d been having a debate over whether or not they should introduce pain peppers to Mr. Bee and Mrs. Oum. Anne had been wondering if they would work well in Thai food, and Sprig had said they would definitely make the worst customers never come back. Anne had sent a keysmash in response.
A thought hits him suddenly, and he bites his lip. He knows it’s late over on Earth where Anne is, but…
His finger hovers over the text bar, and before he can second-guess himself, he types out a quick message.
found a cool rock :): anne? are u awake?
He hits send, and then immediately feels silly. Of course she’s not up. It’s the middle of the night and her sleep schedule is probably better than his.
He’s just about to delete the message when a response comes in.
bloo: ye
bloo: couldnt sleep much
bloo: u ok?
Against his will, Sprig tears up again, and he sniffles back the worst of it angrily. He needs to stop it. Anne is fine and he’s fine, too, so everything is all right.
He takes a deep breath and types back:
found a cool rock :): had a nightmare
found a cool rock :): just
found a cool rock :): wanted to make sure u were ok
He sends the messages, then watches as Anne’s typing bubble pops up, then disappears, then pops up again.
It takes a bit, but a message finally comes through
bloo: im good buddy :)
bloo: well. physically.
bloo: had a nightmare too actually
bloo: it was abt. u kno. That Day.
bloo: actually u wanna talk abt this? like over video?
A beat, and a small, watery smile.
found a cool rock :): yeah
found a cool rock :): thanks :)
bloo: np :)
A few seconds later, his phone lights up with the jingle of an incoming video call. He presses the answer button, and Anne’s face pops up on the small screen. The room around her is dark, the only source of light the glow of her new phone’s screen. He tries not to think about how the pale light washes out her coloring and makes her look monochrome.
“Hey, dude,” Anne smiles sleepily at the camera, pushing a few stray curls out of her face.
“Hey,” he says back quietly, not wanting to wake Hop Pop or Polly up. Just because he can’t get any sleep doesn’t mean they can’t. “…did I wake you up? ‘M sorry.”
“Naw,” Anne shakes her head. “don’t be sorry. I woke up a couple of hours ago. Nightmare.”
Sprig bites his lip. “Do you… wanna talk about it? I mean,” he says quickly, hunching his shoulders. “you don’t have to if you don’t wanna, but you know what Hop Pop says.”
Anne scrunches her nose up all funny-like and sticks out her tongue. “Yeah. It’s better to talk about it, even if you don’t want to.
“I mean,” she sits up quickly, the camera shaking badly as she does so, “sure, yeah, okay, but it sucks to relive it, y’know? Even if you do feel better afterwards.” She waves her arm around over her head. “Ugh. Emotions.”
She says that last bit in such an over-exaggerated tone of disgust that Sprig can’t help but break out into giggles. Anne grins victoriously as he tries to staunch them with his blanket.
“You feeling better?” she asks once he’s quieted down. He nods, and her eyes soften.
“Hey. If you wanna talk about your dream, I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, okay? We’re not all right, so we need to lean on each other. I think, after living with you guys for a while, that’s one of the biggest things I learned: support systems are the bomb, dude.”
He snorts, then sighs. He doesn’t really want to tell Anne about this nightmare, but, yeah. It’s better to talk about it. She’ll understand. Hopefully.
He sinks deeper into his blanket. “It was about… that time you used all the Calamity Stones,” he starts, and Anne settles down on her side of the screen. “and how you… uh.”
“Died?” Anne smiles, and it’s sad. Sprig thinks the sorrow in her eyes matches his. “Yeah, that sucked.”
“Yeah,” he agrees in a whisper. “and you didn’t come back. I was alone, and it hurt. It really hurt.” He doesn’t mention how he always remembers the feel of Anne’s body turning to ashes and leaves in his hands. He needs to talk about that at some point, he knows, but he’s not ready yet. It hurts too much.
Anne’s eyebrows pinch in the pale light of her screen. “I’m sorry,” she says.
He points at the screen. “No, Anne, it’s not your fault- you had to do it, ‘cause we would’ve all died if you didn’t.”
“Yeah, but-“ she grimaces, and it highlights the bags under her eyes. “it still hurt you. And everyone else. And I’m sorry about that.”
Sprig frowns. “Is that what your dream was about?”
Anne scrunches up her face unhappily. “How do you always hit the mark on these things?”
“Talent.” he shrugs with a grin that’s maybe a little too sad. “Also, we’re best friends.”
“Fine, all right, yeah,” Anne gives in, sighing. She grabs the Domino 2 plush Sprig made for her back when she first started living with them from offscreen and squeezes it. “I dreamed about how I died- which, in retrospect, is pretty horrifying, not gonna lie- but I didn’t come back, y’know? That god dude didn’t let me come back. I just had to watch all of you be really sad and it sucked, dude. It hurt that you were all sad because I died and crap and I couldn’t tell you guys I was okay.” There’s tears in the corners of her eyes, and it hurts to see her sad like this. “I was stuck. I hate being stuck.”
She looks so mad and sad and it hurts because that’s his best friend and big sister. She’s gone through so much to keep him and the others safe and it ended up hurting her because everything was so bad and Anne’s just so selfless that she took it all on herself to protect them. Sprig doesn’t really think anyone could ever repay her for literally blowing up the moon to protect Amphibia, but that doesn’t mean he can’t say something, does it?
“I’m sorry,” he presses his fingers against the screen. “I know that doesn’t do anything, but… I’m sorry you had to go through that. It sounds really not-nice.”
Anne sniffles out a laugh and presses her fingers to the screen on her side of the video. “Thanks, bud.”
“Hey, do you feel better at all? Because you talked about it?”
Anne tilts her head into her Domino 2 plush. “A little. Thanks for listening to me. I think that helped. Did it help you?”
“…Yeah, maybe it did. It still hurts, though.”
“I think it always will,” Anne says quietly. “but it’ll hurt less and less over time. And the more we talk about it, the more we can figure out how to make ourselves better. It wasn’t okay, but it’s okay that we’re not okay. We went through a lot, and we’re only kids! I think we’ve got time to work this out.”
“Dang, you’re smart,” Sprig laughs into his blanket. “have you been hanging out with Polly lately?”
Anne sticks her tongue out at him. “Hey, I can be smart if I want to!”
He laughs harder, and Anne starts laughing, too.
“You’re terrible,” she wheezes. “terrible best friend. Terrible little brother. I should-“ she breaks down into giggles again and doesn’t finish, and Sprig just laughs at her.
Eventually, though, they quiet down, and Sprig yawns, Anne following.
“Man, I’m beat. Maybe I can sleep now.”
Sprig nods in agreement. “Hey, Anne?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. For listening to me.”
She smiles blearily at him through the screen. “Anytime, buddy. I’ll always be here for you.”
“Same. Actually, you wanna hang out tomorrow? I think Stumpy’s just started serving boba with insect eggs.”
Anne’s eyes light up. “Oh, frog yeah. That sounds great.”
“Yessss.” Sprig pumps his fist. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yep. No school tomorrow, so I’ll be there real soon.”
“Okay. ‘Night, Anne. Love you.”
“Love you too, dude. See you in the morning.”
They smile at each other one last time, and Sprig presses the end call button and puts his phone back on his nightstand.
He sleeps better, after that.
Fin
