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Sprout has been running for what felt like hours, the hallway seemed to be never ending yet the end seemed so close.
He heard the swoosh of ichor as another tentacle emerged from the floor in an attempt to grab him.
He turned his head back to look at the twisted who was chasing him, it was his own of course. It always creeped him out seeing his own reflection so broken and wrong.
The beast gurgled out a foul roar, speeding up a bit more, or maybe it was Sprout slowing down.
Sprout turned away from it as tears streamed down his face, how long has it been since he started running?
How many times has he cried so far?
How many times has he felt the air hit him as his twisteds claws just barely miss him?
How many times has he thought about the other toons?
About Cosmo?
Are they looking for him?
Do they know he’s here?
Did they assume he was long dead?
Is this hel-
A bright light of brilliant blue interrupted Sprout’s train of thought, it was coming from the end of the hallway. Sprout looked at it in awe, despite its brightness it didn’t hurt his eyes and it was oh so beautiful.
Sprout almost stopped on instinct, but the twisted didn’t seem to be bothered by the light and it continued to chase.
Sprout ran as fast as he could, he just knew whatever that light was, it was an escape, it was safe.
His legs and lungs were screaming at him to stop, but he had to reach the light.
He felt an ichor tentacle graze his leg right as he jumped towards the light.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment, and as his arms were submerged into the light he swears he saw the shape of a crescent moon amongst the glow.
Sprout awoke with a gasp, he shot up from his bed looking around his room. Beads of sweat trailed down his face as he pushed out struggling breaths, he thought back to that nightmare.
He’s had plenty of dreams about getting chased by twisteds, but they usually end with him getting caught or just end suddenly because he overslept and Cosmo woke him up.
But that light was new.
Sprout checked the clock on his wall, 3am.
He laid back down, deciding to try and get some more sleep, but the image of his twisted chasing him stuck to his brain like a parasite.
The thought of him one day becoming the one chasing, of the ichor running down his face and suffocating him, drowning him.
Sprout tossed and turned in his bed, he could feel tears swell in his eyes every time he thought about what might happen if it caught him or if he caught them.
He glanced back at the clock, 4am.
Shit.
Yeah, there was no way he was going back to bed. Might as well get an early start to the morning
He got out of bed, walking to his closet to get dressed for the day, but he froze when he heard a knock at his door.
Who could possibly be here?
He walked towards the door and slowly opened it, a light glow emanating from the crack revealing no other than the blue moon himself, Astro.
“Astro? What are you doing here?” Sprout asked, opening the rest of the door.
“I heard you stirring in your bed, so I figured you needed help sleeping.”
Now, Sprout’s and Astro’s rooms are on the same floor, but their rooms are the furthest away from each other out of the mains, there is absolutely no way Astro could have heard him moving unless he was sitting ear against the door.
Sprout raised an eyebrow at Astro, Astro clearly realised Sprout didn’t believe him.
“I uhm-” Astro stuttered. “I just… I couldn’t access your dreams so I figured you were awake.”
The way Astro said it didn’t make Sprout believe him any more, but he was tired and he didn’t feel like playing detective.
“Alright, you can help me sleep.”
Astro exhaled a sigh of relief before giving Sprout a small smile, Sprout felt his heart start beating a bit faster, but he didn’t have time to think about that right now because now he was following Astro to his room.
He has been in Astro’s room plenty of times, but seeing it when the lights weren’t on was something else.
There were multitudes of glow in the dark stars and moons littering the room and with the darkness made anything that didn’t have a sticker seem almost pitch black.
Astro guided Sprout to the bed making sure he didn’t trip on anything in the dark.
The two of them sat beside each other on the bed in silence, Astro turned his head to Sprout.
“Are you going to lay down?” Astro asked.
“Oh yeah sorry” Sprout said, trying to pretend like he hadn’t just zoned out.
Sprout laid down flat on the bed, pulling one of the many blankets on Astro’s bed over him. Astro gave an approving nod before turning away and he started to hum.
Sprout listened to the lullaby for a while, trying his best to let it lull him to sleep, but the image of his twisted self started to creep its way back into his mind, jeez what was with that dream that creeped him out so much!
Sprout cracked an eye open to look at Astro, maybe say something about the hum not working, but when he looked at Astro he noticed he was doing… something?
His eye was glowing pure white and so was the star (Honestly Sprout had no idea if he could even see out of that thing), all four of his arms were grabbing and moving things Sprout couldn’t see.
Sprout sat up, but Astro didn’t seem to notice. Sprout waved his hand in front of Astro’s face and again he gave no reaction.
“Astro?-” Sprout said, resting his hand on Astro’s shoulder. Astro jumped letting out a yelp, his eye(s) stopped glowing as he turned to Sprout who had removed his hand from his shoulder.
“Sprout! Oh my goodness I thought you were asleep!” Astro exclaimed, clutching his chest.
“What the hell was that?”
“What?”
“The thing you were doing! With the glowy eye and moving your hands around.”
“Ah.” Astro looked away with a flustered expression on his face. “I was… Watching over dreams.”
Sprout was silent for a moment, has he seriously never seen Astro watch over dreams? I mean it makes sense, the only time he’s ever slept in the same room as Astro was during main only sleepovers and he never watched over dreams on those nights.
“Really? I expected it to look a little…” Sprout thought for a moment.
“Different?”
“Yeah. Like I expected you to, you know, sleep, during it. Do you?”
“I don’t.”
“And you do this every night?”
“Yes.”
“So you don’t sleep at night?”
“I do! A little…” Astro confessed, Sprout raised an eyebrow.
“You worry about me not getting enough sleep meanwhile you barely get any yourself.”
Astro looked away guiltily.
“Well good news for you, your hum didn’t work, which means I can help you sleep.”
“It didn’t work? That nightmare was worse than I thought..”
“What?”
“What.”
“Agh whatever it’s way past your bedtime, c’mere.”
“Sprout, your not gonna force me to slee-”
Sprout grabbed Astro, using one arm to hold the top set of arms and with the other the bottom. Then he pulled Astro down so they laid beside each other.
Astro struggled, even with four arms he couldn’t rival Sprout’s strength.
“Sprout let me go!” Astro whisper-shouted trying not to wake the other toons.
“Nope! Not letting go till you fall asleep and don’t try pretending, I can see if your heartbeats slowed down.”
“This is horrible-“
“If you stop moving I'll bake you extra cookies.”
Astro froze, he slowly started to relax in Sprout’s arms. Sprout took it as a sign and hugged Astro closer, just in case!
They laid there in silence for a few minutes, even with the blanket over them Sprout still felt cold radiating from Astro, but it was nice in a weird way, like flipping the pillow over kind of cold.
“You still awake?” Asked Sprout.
“Mhm”
“Earlier you mentioned my nightmare, you saw it didn’t you?”
“Mmmmmmyeaaah”
“Do you know what that light was about?”
“What?”
“You saw the light, right?
Astro was quiet for a second.
“Yes.”
“It’s weird, I've had similar dreams before, I mean not as terrifying, but they’ve never ended like that.”
“You’ve had similar dreams before?-”
“Shush, not now, but do you know what it means?”
Astro went quiet again, but this time he didn’t answer.
“Astro, you hear me?”
“Mhm.”
“Do you actually know or not, if no then i’m just gonna think it’s a premonition of death-”
“It’s not a premonition of death!”
“What else could the light at the end of a hallway possibly mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything!”
“But all dreams have meaning, right?”
“Not this one-”
“Why?”
“Because that was me!”
A bang came from the wall behind them and a muffled voice shouted.
“CAN YOU BE QUIET?!”
“We woke up Vee…” Whispered Astro.
“What do you mean that was you?” Sprout asked in a whisper shout.
“I saw you were having a nightmare and you looked so… horrified that I had to intervene.” Astro said with a twinge of guilt in his voice.
“By… making yourself glow alot?”
“I didn’t want you to know it was me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, okay! I just… I felt bad… I didn't want to leave you there.”
“Astro, look at me for a sec.” Sprout said, loosening his grip around Astro, Astro turned to face him. Astro’s face was a deep shade of blue and his face was littered with glittering sparkles.
Sprout let out a snort, his laughter stifled only by his own hand.
“What?” Astro asked.
“I’ve never seen your face sparkle so much!” Sprout confessed.
Astro went still, his face sparkling even more. He covered his face with the blanket, burying his face in Sprout’s chest. Sprout giggled, nudging Astro’s shoulder gently.
“Aw come on, it’s cute!” Sprout chuckled.
“Don’t say that.” Astro groaned, barely audible from the muffling of the blanket.
Sprout hugged Astro, wrapping his arms around him and resting his chin on top of his head.
“You should cover your face less, it’s pretty.”
Astro just let out a muffled sound before going completely silent.
Sprout felt Astro’s heartbeat slowdown as he slowly drifted to sleep, with Sprout following suit completely forgetting about his nightmare.