Chapter Text
Someone like Astrodude didn't need a lot in live to make himself happy, his pacific live was already enough for him, even if it was the bare minimum nobody would really wish for, except for Astrodude. The day's were all the same, waking up at 8 AM, getting ready for work, heading to work, working, going back at 6 PM, and repeat, over and over, and over again
Nobody who's sane enough would like to live like this, being in an endless cycle of work without any new social interaction while arriving home, no wife waiting for you to come home, no child to fill you with hugs... Except he did have some kind of contant, but not with something living and breathing like us, and yes his beloved patch of tulips.
Astrodude's routine would stand out by the little patch of flowers he grew, which he has been taking care of ever since he bought his first little seed as the old shop which has already closed its doors, but even then he made sure his non-sentient living creatures had the best life they could've asked for, if they were sentient to begin with.
Everytime an animal attempted to eat one of his beloved flowers or dig in the dirt, ruining the garden, he already treated it as an enemy to his beloved garden, but always making sure that the creature was safe out of his garden, because one of the things he was also passionate about gardening was watching them grow, and what's left to grow if there are no new flowers?
No one knows what he would be without gardening, having to live the old boring routine without gaining the awarding feeling of arriving home and watching his plants sprout, when he would buy the most expensive types of fancy dirt not knowing what they really did to help the garden grow, when he would throw his fruit and vegetable peels just so they would grown healthier...
Oh, everything was so pacific, yet so exciting.
Another day of work done, Astrodude thought to himself, opening the door of his house and taking off his sweaty work coat, he immediately heads to the back door to see his garden, who he has prepared yesterday for spring, filling it with leftover fruits and organic produce, expecting at least one or two of his beloved flowers to sprout up, but if they didn't, he would love to wait like always.
But as he looked down, reality gave him a reality check, as the garden was full of holes, the fruits weren't seen anywhere, and his flowers... His beloved little flowers were all chewed up, and almost nothing was left after all! A singular animal couldn't done all of this, so what monster destroyed his little garden? He never look for trouble with anyone, and loved helping, so who could've done this?
Bzzt... Bzzt...
The camera moved left to right, recording Astrodude's shock at seeing his beloved garden destroyed.
Wait, the cameras! It clicked inside his head, he bough a pair of cameras for this ocasion, in case anything or anyone went inside his little backyard garden, he ran to his room, opened his computer, and looked at the images from the night vision cameras.
Astrodudes smile went up after he saw that the last recorded footage was almost exactly when he left the house, looking carefully at the monitor, tying to spot anything or anyone that commited such a crime to his backyard. After carefully watching the footage for over 2 hours, his eyes spark as he saw the shrubs move strangely, being able to see a round, rock-like creature.
Some minutes later, another round, but now bigger and orange like creature, stepped out the bushes, producing a strange sound from its mouth, like a faint whistle, quickly, other little creatures stepped out of the bushes, one was big as the last one, but had a ring like structure and it carried even smaller little things at it's back...
What the fuck?
Astrodude carefully looked at the footage, thinking it was some kind of mistake made by the camera, maybe his camera came broken, but even then nothing like that has even shown up at his garden, and the footage looked real as life. He watched the creatures stepping out of the bushes and eating his tulips, while digging out some dirt to hide the petals, which they all left untouched.
The man was left shocked, stepping down from his chair to watch the garden troughout the window, attempting to not make any sound who could be heard even from far away, as he carefully spyed at the window, he heard some odd noises again, the bushes shaking as something was going out again.
A smaller, but fast beige like creature came out, already digging and getting itself dirty from all the dirt, while munching on the rest of the petals that were left untouched. He tried to move closer to the window, to watch it with his own eyes, but accidentally stepping on a bag of chips, making a loid crunchy sound who immediately scared the little one, who ran to the bushes.
He couldn't belive what he just had seen at that momment, slowly connecting the dots and finally realizing the truth... Small planets were living st his backyard, and eating his garden. And no one messes with Astrodude's garden, even if it's a planet! What are they going to do, send me to space? Pfft...
He had to do something about it, those things couldn't just eat all of his tulips, at least ask for them! And he needed to do it fast, or his little backyard garden would be doomed untill the end.
Astrodude then decided to devise a small plan to at least capture one of those creatures and attempt to talk to them, because violence was never the solution! He knew they were living, breathing beings who needed to survive, but no pest control would belive him if he told them he had a planetary case at his backyard, so he had to do it himself.
For the next few days, Astrodude watched the celestial bodies eat the rest of his dead garden, planning of how to communicate to them, and set the creatures free from the backyard, making mental notes about the behavior of each small planet and what they liked to do most.
Mercury likes to dig, Venus liked to bite, Jupiter liked to eat, Saturn took care of it's moons, Neptune liked to groom the smaller bodies when they got dirty, and the list goes on.
After carefully analizing each of the planets behavior, he decided to start by capturing Jupiter, who was the one who always stepped first at the backyard, probably being the established "leader" to the small group. Astrodude went down to the garden, planting his trap to capture the planet: a large box with roses in the middle, and a stick tied with a string, so that whoever entered could not leave.
After waiting for a few hours, before heading to sleep, he heard a loud noise coming from his garden, running down the stairs to see what happend and watching the box to move uncontrollably, hearing loud whinning noises coming from it, finally capturing the thing. The man grabbed the box and brought it home, sitting down at the sofa before finally opening it to reveal the beije like gas giant, shaking and whinning in fear, staring at Astrodude with big puppy eyes...
"Uh... Are you okay, buddy?" With a little remorse and fear, Astrodude carefully tried to pet the planet, testing it to see if it had any preffered spots, before obversing it totally calm down from getting pet at it's north pole, submitting to the man like a puppy, licking and rubbing it's surface to his circular hand.
The creature stopped whinning after a while of long pets, and instead started begging for more at it's back, bitting Astrodude's hand and dragging him to it's big gassy back, really enjoying and relaxing at the small affection, not after a while, Astrodude got up from the sofa, leaving the little one at the sofa, while picking up an apple and slicing it up.
"...You like Apples?" He sat down again with the little one, sharing the sliced apple with his new buddy, the planet stared at him in initial confusion, before bringing in the slices of apple and immediately lighting up with the sugar and flavour it never had tasted before.
The little one came closer to him, acknologing him as a high superior being with food, before running back happyly at the garden, hiding at the plain sight of the big bushes again before Astrodude could catch up on him.
That was... Interesting.