Chapter Text
Astro's knees and palms touched softness.
He could not describe it. Everything about it was soft and its texture unless to try and guess.
His itchy eye couldn't see properly, he scratches and scratches before the feeling disappeared suddenly. The sky is dark and stars are bright, his favorite blanket on his shoulders. The moon reflected his own star he has in his other eye.
Trees looked flat and drawing-like, children always drew them like fir trees. Dots of purple and pink adorned its branches. Wild birds danced high in the deep blues.
His mind as foggy as the birds, he gets up with difficulty. Since when Astro weighted as much as a whole brick house? Even himself couldn't answer it and somehow his mind didn't turned its attention from the flower seemingly waiting for him.
It just felt right to know, to go to that flower with a big smile on his face.
"Dandy?" Astro called from afar.
No, he's close now.
Dandy waved, "Hi Astro!"
Astro couldn't get a answer out of his mouth. He tried and tried to ask what is happening but once again his vocal cords betrayed him.
"I know I did something wrong," The black —no remember.— rainbow toon spoke up. Holding his hands in front of him, he looked nervous and Astro gripped his blanket tighter with both pairs of arms. "But what else could I do? I needed to try and... I don't know, be sure of every possibilities we had?"
The moon opened in half to reveal humans arms, they gently held birds in their fists before abandoning them in a cage that came out of nowhere. Astro couldn't focused on the both of them at the same time and he decided it was better to look at Dandy, he couldn't bear the birds screams.
Dandy looked bright, even brighter under the moon and its screaming birds. They changed into puddles of black goop but the screaming didn't stop.
"Everybody makes mistakes, right?" Dandy asked, talking once more in a light voice. One he uses in the show. "It doesn't make me a bad person... A bad toon. I am just more nuanced than the others, y'know?"
"Mm-" Astro forced his mouth to open, ending with all of his hands trying to open it. Dandy watched Astro carve himself a mouth, it disappeared minutes ago and he had to make it from scratch. Nothing came out of the wound, just a mouth.
"Ah." He tested. Unphased by the fact he had to re-open his own mouth.
"Everytoon is nuanced..." he finally said. "Just differently."
"Haha, you're right. Sorry. It's lame to think about it but sometimes, I wish I was like the other toons. They don't mess up like that." Dandy smiled bitterly. He held his elbow and rubbed it. Seeds came out of it and flowers blossoms from the dirt? floor.
Astro ignored it too. The birds are dead. Dandy was in the center of the picture and he only counted in his eyes.
"But with everything... You're still here." Dandy stared at Astro.
"I would never leave you." Escaped from his makeshift lips. Words directly from his heart, "You're my best friend, I believe you didn't make this on purpose. You were desesperate, we all are." The blanket on his shoulders fell on the floor when Astro moved his hands away.
He felt ichor bleeding from his chest, his heart bled and made a mess on the blanket on the floor. His eye lowered slowly and he saw a puddle already forming. It dripped from his chest down to his stomach, thighs and feets. Warm like Dandy.
"You only say that because you want to comfort me Astro. You know I'm dangerous..." Dandy took a step back.
"I don't care...!" Astro took one forward and almost slipped on his own ichor, his heart still bled but nothing hurts. He almost displayed proudly the open wound. "I can't lose you too... I won't be able to bear it, Dandy!"
"I made toons cry and choke on their own ichor. I'm not the one you knew, Astro... Please be reasonable. Listen to Sp-"
"No! I don't want to listen to him. He... he'll understand one day..." two of his hands clutched tightly his chest, trying to stop the bleeding now that is overflowing. His eyes darted from his wound to Dandy. Unconsciously he knew he had to focus on his wound and not Dandy but his heartbeats are louder. "He was made to be someone's best friend too...! He knows the pain of being away from his best friend... we both understand..."
The birds transformed and yelled for mercy. Yet the cage remained close. They hit and shook the golden prison. The moon watched them in silence.
"I'm a monster." The sketch of Dandy sighed before turning normal again.
"You're someone who's made a mistake... You don't deserve what is happening to you." Astro let his body lead him close to Dandy. "I won't leave your side just because you failed once... We can find a solution."
"There's no solution. I tried almost everything."
"That doesn't mean everything...! Try them on me...? I swear I won't get mad if you make me sick." His eye widened in joy, Dandy doesn't step away from Astro.
"...You won't leave me...?"
"No..."
"Abandon me?"
"Mhm! ...No!"
Dandy took a step forward and took Astro's hands away from the wound. His other pair, lower, tried to do the same but failed, ichor still fail even if it's slower. Astro still bled and still ignored the poor untouched birds who were trapped with the changed ones. They bit and ate their flesh. The birds cried but nobody took the time to look at them, the cage is close anyway.
"You will stay by my side until the end?" Dandy asked, his tone begging. His eyes pleading and thumbs caress his knuckles.
"I will always be with you. Since day 1 I've been with you..." Astro gulps. "Dandy, do you understand? Right or wrong has no meaning if you disappear again... Don't let panic get to you."
Dandy shook his head. Holding him tightly.
"Astro, will you help me? Help me until answers are found and we'll be able to help everyone?" Dandy let go of Astro's hands. He found amusement in Astro's disappointed face, holding his cheeks with his palms, he smiled. Dandy became his sun and he was so warm with kindness it made Astro's head buzz. "I swear I did what I did for Gardenview. I'm not selfish."
Astro smiles too, he breathed before being cut off by Dandy who suddenly spoke with a ceremonial tone. "I take you as a my best friend, promise me you'll honor that title even if others will hate you. Even if their trust in you will rot into a paste of bittersweet memories and all they'll have to do is threw away the dish."
Dandy's words were aggressive, demanding, holding Astro's face the flower took a step back and made Astro slipped in his own ichor. Right, the wound- his stupid bleeding heart.
The ichor is cold now and his knees are even more messy. He tried to get up but fatigue overtook him and all he did was hold Dandy as a anchor in his slippery mess, his legs made an X.
Why is this so tiring? Why is he so dirty in Ichor? All he did was show his heart's insides! He wanted to show them to Dandy and prove to him that he wasn't lying!
"You won't help me? Astro, if you need help. You can just say so." Dandy said, this time he wasn't warm anymore and yet his brain wasn't paying attention. He's the sun of course he has to be warm. It's just Astro's fatigue who's playing tricks on him... Dandy is there, looking at him from underneath once more. Looking at the lonely moon with his cage on his lap and hands sticky with black.
"...With this Ichor on my hands, I will follow you until the sun will set one last time. Until the moon wouldn't find its way in the dark, until my sun looses his brightness and abandon himself." Words came faster than he could move his lips. Yet nobody is speaking for him.
Dandy finally came down on one knee, his claws held Astro's face so so gently it almost felt like a spike drilled into his brain. "I will share my misery, stay in sickness and never leave your side."
"For the better,"
"Or the worst,"
"In health,"
"Or sickness."
Dandy preyed closer, he opens the cage and took an egg. With his sharp teeths he bit off the cap of the raw egg and ichor dripped down his mouth, lips and neck. Mesmerizing Astro as the other spat it out.
"'til death do us part?" He asked. Waiting (im)patiently.
"...Until death do us part..." Astro closed his eye, let Dandy kiss him and poison his mouth with the yolk. Ichor stuck to his throat and the moon drank it fast. His hand trailed from his cheek to the back of his head, gluing their two lips together.
The sweet taste grew insanely bitter, delighted disgusted Astro let go of the cage in his illusion.
His fingertips touched the ichor on his lips, the mess even contaminated his neck. Giving the birds to Dandy, he lost focus on the cage.
When the sun took the cage, every single bird in its hold grilled the instant he touched the handle.
•☆•
That night the moon married the sun and birds stopped singing for him, the wild ones made sure to be far away from the sun and his companion that became the shadow of himself.
Losing his pure light, the moon drank the birds blood when his own misery got to him and red colored the walls in the sky. Stars escaping the scene.
The sun is no longer away from the moon.
But the moon is away from the birds.
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