Chapter Text
“Hey sprout!”
“Cosmo!”
Cosmo ran over to sprout in the kitchen, and hugged him. They were going to try out a new recipe today, chocolate strawberry muffins. Sprout had seen it in a recipe book he’d gotten from brightney, and wanted to try and make it. Besides, Cosmo always loved strawberry flavored things, so he’d like them even more.
“You got the ingredients?” Cosmo asked, pulling back from the hug.
“I do! You got here a little late so I had time to set them all up,” sprout said, gesturing to the bowls of both dry and wet ingredients on the counter.
“Great! Let’s get started then!”
Cosmo and sprout had always loved baking. They were made to love it. They usually cooked for all the toons since garden grow shut down, but it was easier than cookie for the hundreds of kids that would come in every day, even if they did get human help.
Sprout dumped the mixture into the bowl as Cosmo was mixing.
“…we’ve been best friends for a while now, huh?” Sprout commented.
“Yeah, I, guess we have,” Cosmo stated, as sprout now mixed the wet and dry ingredients.
“Why do you mention it?”
“Oh- uh- no reason,” sprout said.
“It’s never going to happen, seedly.”
“What?”
“I said we’re never going to be able to bake these if you don’t open the oven for me silly!” Cosmo repeated, now holding the muffin tray.
“…oh- yeah, right. Sorry!” Sprout said, quickly opening the oven. Cosmo put the muffin tray inside, closed it, and set the oven to 20 minutes.
“There, now not much else we have to do today, right?” Cosmo said, looking at sprout.
All of a sudden, something popped into sprouts head.
“…hey, Cosmo? I have to tell you something.”
“What is it sprout?” Cosmo asked, smiling softly and tilting his head slightly.
“…I…” sprout hesitated, the words and purpose for speaking up escaping him.
“…it’s, something important. I need to get this off my chest, I… uh…”
“…well?” Cosmo pushed, his smile faltering.
“It’s- I’m not sure, how to…” sprout stuttered.
“…I’m not sure how to word it, I just…”
“Do you actually have something to tell me, or are you just messing things up, sprout?”
“…messing things up? What do you-…”
“…ok. You made the muffins burn.”
“What?” Sprout said, looking at the oven, only now realizing the intense heat radiating from it. It smelled of smoke, before fire crept out of it. But sprout couldn’t find it in himself to grab the fire extinguisher. He just watched as the fire burned the muffins, and Cosmo turned away.
——————————————————
Sprout woke up in a cold sweat. He tried to steady his breathing, and regain his bearings. Where was he? Oh, right. He’d been having a sleepover with the other mains in vee’s room. He looked around for a second. Vee was fast asleep on her bed, and Shelly was out cold with pebble sleeping on her stomach. Astro seemed to be watching over Shelly, but was now looking at sprout, having heard him wake up.
“Sprout?” Astro asked, softly.
“Are you ok? Sounds like you had a bad dream.”
“…yeah, I’m- I’m fine,” sprout sighed, holding the back of his neck.
“…it’s stupid, I was dreaming me and Cosmo were trying to bake something, these, strawberry chocolate muffins, and they burnt in the oven and caught on fire. Just an average nightmare.”
“…that’s, sounds bad,” Astro stated.
“If you want I could watch over you-“
“No! No, I’m, I’m good. I don’t need the free home invasion,” Sprout joked.
“Alright, if you say so,” Astro sighed, shifting away from Shelly and sitting against the wall.
“If you need to talk about it, I’m here.”
Sprout paused. It was an odd dream. He’d never had anything like this before.
“…guess it wouldn’t hurt,” sprout muttered.
“Alright, so, I was just baking something with Cosmo, and all of a sudden it felt like I had something to tell him, but I had no idea what. Suddenly- he asks if I actually wanted to tell him something or if I was… messing things up? I had no idea what he was talking about. And then the muffins were burning, it started as smoke but turned into a huge fire. And then I woke up.”
Astro hummed to himself as him thought over it for a moment.
“…it could mean conflicting feelings,” he started.
“Maybe you’re just scared of ruining your relationship with Cosmo, ending in the fire. I’m not sure why you’d feel that way though, aren’t you and Cosmo the closest pair in Gardenveiw?”
“We are,” Sprout huffed.
“I guess I’m just being anxious or something. Thanks Astro.”
“Anytime, friend,” Astro said.
Sprout laid back down in his sleeping bag. Why would he be scared of ruining his relationship with Cosmo? Was something happening? Was this one of those weird premonition dreams people got? He didn’t really believe in them, but… there was a first time for everything. He sighed, and tried to go back to sleep.
—————————————————————
“Sprout, you ok?”
Sprout snapped out of being lost in thought as Cosmo spoke up.
“Oh- yeah I’m fine!”
Currently, they were on a run along with Glisten, Poppy, and Goob. Rodger and Boxten had already died earlier on, so they were only doing another floor or so, just so get as much ichor as they can to make up for the losses.
“You sure? You seemed lost in thought,” Cosmo commented.
“Is there anything on your mind?”
“Ah, I guess I’m just a bit tired,” Sprout stated.
“I’ll be fine.”
The doors to the elevator opened, seems like they were in the aquarium.
“Glad Finn isn’t here for this, he just won’t shut up with the puns when he’s here,” glisten commented.
“Ohhh, I love looking at all the little fish!” Goob said excitedly.
“Or I did. When they come back I wanna come down here! And the big fish too! Ooo I remember they had that big shark with the sharp teeth! I can’t wait for him to come back.”
“…you know Gardenveiw is shut down, right?” Glisten stated for what felt like the hundredth time.
“I know! But when it reopens, I wanna see the fish again,” Goob said.
Glisten and Goob kait’s looked at each other for a second.
“I like fish,” Goob stated as he stepped out of the elevator.
“Yeah we know you do, bud,” glisten sighed fondly.
The floor didn’t seem too dangerous. As sprout checked for one of the six machines, he noticed he couldn’t find any twisteds yet. Goob must be doing a good job at rounding them up. Crossing into another room, he saw Cosmo doing one of the machines.
“Hey cos, I could take over if you want me to,” Sprout offered.
“No, I’m good,” Cosmo declined.
“I’m trying to get better at these, it comes so easily to you and the others that I’m not sure-“
A loud buzz could be heard as the machines light flashed red. Cosmo missed the skill check.
“…oops,” Cosmo muttered.
“Well, at least it doesn’t-“
“WATCH OUT!”
Sprout tackled Cosmo as twisted goob’s two stretchy claws reached for him. The blare of an air horn rang through the room, along with a quick “SORRY!” From goob as he got the twisted’s attention.
“…Jesus, that was close…” Sprout said, looking down at the pastry under him. It was an odd sight to see him like this, pinned under him, looking up at him like that,lips slightly parted…
Quickly, sprout got up and off of him before it could seem weird, silently offering a hand for him to get up.
“Wow, that was a close one. Thanks sprout!” Cosmo said.
“Yeah, no… no problem,” sprout muttered.
What was that? That feeling of, heat? What the hell was that?
“…sprout? You ok?” Cosmo asked, noticing him staring.
“…nothing! Nothing at all, I’m fine, sorry,” sprout quickly stated, walking off to find another machine. He had a sinking feeling this was going to be trouble.