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Usually, Gardenview was carefully organized and adjusted for winter. The Christmas toons would come out to help decorate and set the holiday mood. Each floor’s heater would be switched on, and each toon’s sheets would be replaced with ones made to make the season’s cold more bearable. Warm clothing, food, and beverages were available to all of the the museum’s employees as they needed them, no matter the hour.
Now, though, the museum was shut down. There was no power running to the heaters or ovens to bring heat to the place, nor were there staff to bring the warm blankets and sheets for the toons out of the locked storage rooms, and Dandy was suffering.
Most toons could stand the cold, thinking of it as nothing more that a minor annoyance, but Dandicus was different. No matter how much he tried to convince himself that he’d be alright and no matter how much he tried to bundle up with what he had, the cold was needle-sharp and agonizing. He shivered and sniffled endlessly as if he were terribly sick, and, without any means to mitigate his condition, Dandy felt his body and will weaken gradually as the pain continued to debilitate him.
It was just a week into the first winter since Gardenview closed that Dandy finally understood why the weather seemed to bother only him so significantly. The shopkeeper was shivering out in his little garden, watching the last of the flowers on his favorite plant droop in the cold and fall unceremoniously to the pavement when it hit him. Most flowers whither and die in the winter weather, Dandy remembered suddenly, heart sinking, Its usually warm enough here, but now that it’s cold…? Does that mean that I’m going to…?
Dandy didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t even want to admit that it would make sense, but every symptom and struggle he’d had in the past week pointed directly towards that answer. The Gardenview founders weren’t exactly careful when they were creating me, Dandy thought bitterly, Hell, I couldn’t even breathe right for over a week. Making me suffer and die during winter would be just typical of them.
The flower toon didn’t know what to do. He needed help fast and he knew that, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to be calling in any favors, no matter if he’d been manipulated and forced into doing the awful things he had.
Maybe I just have to suck it up and fight through it, Dandy thought, because what other hope did he have? Winter couldn’t be that long, could it? Besides, too many toons needed him in his shop to sell run supplies and heals for him to hide in his room and panic about it, right? He would just act like he usually did. Just as cheerful and positive as always… Maybe if he stayed optimistic then he’d realize that there wasn’t nothing to worry about all along and no one would notice that there’d been anything wrong in the first place. Perfect.
Except no single part of his plan went as perfect as he’d hoped. As it turned out, trying to be cheery and helpful when you were actively dying wasn’t as easy as he’d thought it would be. Everything hurt. His head was pounding, and his thoughts were static and fuzzy. All of his limbs felt heavy. He felt like he was about to pass out… or worse.
To add to the list of ways his “plan” blew up in his face, his happy-go-lucky mask wasn’t anywhere close to being convincing. The moment Dandy opened his shop on the ride to floor two on the first run he attempted to attend, Astro’s jaw dropped.
“Dandy, what the fuck.”
Despite the fact that Astro usually spoke to no one so sharply and the moon was nearly always more than gentle to him, Dandy wasn’t too phased by the sudden outburst. It wasn’t too uncommon for him to be yelled at by other toons whenever he had a poor selection of items in his shop, after all.
“H-hey, Novalite!” Dandy said, smiling as wide as he could and wincing at the shiver in his voice. “I have—!”
“Dandicus, what happened to you?” The concern in Astro’s voice was evident now. He marched up to the counter of Dandy’s shop, took the flower’s face in two of his hands, and stared at him as if he were a sad, hurt puppy.
Dandy froze up. His mind went blank. First of all, Astro’s hands were very, addictively warm. His body, so deprived of any sort of warmth for over a week at that point, naturally leaned into them. Second, Astro was holding his face. Astro. The only toon who still treated Dandy like he was worth something. The man Dandy had been hopelessly in love with for as long as he could remember.
It took a moment for the flower toon to realize that he’d been practically melting into Astro’s hands for nearly half a minute. Fuck. He yanked himself upright, away from the astral toon’s warmth, and prayed he wasn’t blushing as visibly as he felt like he was. Thank God Astro was on a solo run.
“I-I’m perfectly fine! I-I don’t know w-what you’re talking about!”
“Drop the act, Dandy, it’s just me, and I know better than to believe that. Please, just… just look at yourself. Look at your petals…”
Dandy’s blood went cold. He knew he was in rough shape but his petals? What did Astro mean by that? Was he getting worse? Disregarding his attempt to act like himself, Dandy dove under the counter of his shop to find a handheld mirror and nearly let out a cry of horror when he saw himself.
Dandy’s once colorful, radiant petals were now noticeably dull in color and drooping to the point that his red petal nearly drooped over his eyes. As if they didn’t look terrible enough already, the ends of several of his petals were crinkled and brown like the leaves of a dying tree. The flower didn’t just look sickly; he looked as if he was just a breath away from keeling over and dying.
Shit, Dandy thought in a panic. “Shit,” he cursed aloud. Not knowing what else to do, the flower yanked at the lever to close his shop and quickly began to descend.
“Wait!” Astro yelled to him, trying to stop the shop from closing to no avail. “Shit, Dandy, please! Let me help you; you can’t just let yourself suffer like this! ’Dands!”
But the moon was already too late. The elevator shop closed and locked, and Dandy had already spiraled much too far to respond to any of his best friend’s desperate protests. He’d known his condition was getting bad, but seeing it so visibly made it real for him. I’m going to die. I’m—
From the elevator above him, Dandy heard the moon toon make a frustrated sound and felt the elevator begin to move back up to the surface. When they reached the lobby and Dandy’s shop re-opened automatically, the flower, still blind with horror, attempted to clamber out of the shop and escape to his room, but was caught by the arm by one of Astro’s magic stars almost instantly.
“I-It’s fine, Astro. J-just let me go,” Dandy mumbled out, but was too numb from both cold and panic to fight when Astro began to drag him off.
The flower, who’d assumed Astro was too angry with him to say anything back at all, was surprised when the moon responded gently.
“Please just follow me, Sunny; I’ve got you.”
Dandy could have easily ripped himself away from the main—his stars weren’t really all that strong, after all—but he couldn’t bring himself to at the concern in Astro’s voice. Astro didn’t deserve to have to deal with all his issues, but Dandy really couldn’t afford to pass up any help at the moment. He followed Astro distractedly, awkwardly dragging himself forward from behind him, until he was led into Astro’s room.
The moon whipped towards him the second the door closed behind him, looking and inspecting Dandy up and down so intently that the flower’s face would have been bright green if he wasn’t so terrified.
“What happened to you?” Astro whispered, horror struck, “Did… did somebody do this to you? Are you sick?” The man delicately ran a hand over one of Dandy’s dying petals again, sending relieving warmth through it for just a split second. The feeling sent chills up Dandy’s already violently shaking body.
“I-it’s n-nothing you should have to w-worry about, Astro,” the flower choked out, “I’ll… I’ll figure it out…”
Astro looked him over again, eye widening. Clearly noticing how badly the toon was shaking, the moon took one of Dandy’s hands in his own and muffled a sound of utter terror.
“Flower, you’re freezing,” he exclaimed, stating the obvious, “You need to—”
Dandy expected him to say something along the lines of “You need to bundle up!” but, instead, the astral toon gave up on the sentence entirely to tug Dandy into his many arms and wrap himself and his blanket entirely around the flower.
Dandy’s last bit of self control crumbled and vanished in an instant. He gasped, choked out a sob of relief, and went limp in Astro’s arms as his warmth flooded through him. Instinctively, the flower squeezed his best friend closer, shuddering and sniffling as he buried his face in the moon toon’s neck. Astro clearly hadn’t expected Dandy to even accept the embrace but, despite his surprise, held the shaking toon close until Dandy didn’t feel so painfully numb and his breathing evened.
The flower could have stayed in Astro’s endlessly warm arms forever, not freezing his petals off or worrying about his imminent death, if it weren’t for his common sense coming back to him the moment his brain began to work again. He forced himself to stand up on his own, pulling away from Astro slightly. His face paled in fear of what Astro must think of him now.
“S-Sorry,” Dandy stuttered, speaking quickly. Fuck, how am I shivering again already? “I, um, d-don’t know what got into me; I-I can go—”
“Relax, baby, you’ve done nothing wrong,” Astro whispered reassuringly, repositioning Dandy so that they were inexplicably close again, “How about we lay down for a bit, and you can tell me what’s been going on, okay?”
Dandy nearly sobbed at that. Leave it to Astro to instantly know exactly what he needed and make him feel more loved than he ever had in his life. Before he could come up with another stupid reason to try and leave or pretend that he was alright, Dandy let out an embarrassing whine and nodded his pounding head.
Astro audibly sighed in relief. He lifted Dandy up briefly in all of his arms with surprising strength and set him down on the bed like he was something valuable and delicate. The winter’s cold rushed back to the flower’s body quickly, but Astro didn’t let him so much as shiver before he was in his arms again, laying directly on top of him and pulling the covers and his blanket over them both.
Dandy knew Astro could most definitely hear how fast his heart was beating then but couldn’t help but freak out a little as the moon began to cuddle him and run his graceful hands up and down his body to warm him up. As if the universe decided the flower wasn’t already flustered enough, Astro put his top two hands on either side of Dandy’s head and his bottom two on the floral toon’s shoulders after a moment to hoist himself up until his arms were straight, hovering over Dandy as he pinned the petaled toon to the bed.
“Please, flower… Would you tell me what’s going on with you? …And don’t try to tell me you’re ‘fine’ again, I know that something’s up,” Astro said gently but firmly, seemingly not noticing what he’d just done.
Dandy’s heart skipped a beat at the intensity of Astro’s gaze. His face felt like it was on fire, but he managed to speak clearly enough after a moment of silent panic.
“It’s…it’s just some dumb mistake that Delilah made,” Dandy said slowly, wishing he sounded a little less worried about it, “She based me off of an actual flower—you know, to give me petals, and all—but she didn’t take how that would affect me fully into account, I guess. I know it sounds stupid and dramatic, but now that it’s cold out I constantly feel like I’m freezing or like… or like I’m dying like a real flower.” Dandy took a deep breath and looked away, too embarrassed to look at Astro any longer. “I-I’m sorry for taking it out on you, moon, really… You really shouldn’t have to deal with me or… or any of this.”
Dandy chewed his lip and twitched nervously when Astro was silent for a tense moment. The flower wondered distantly whether the moon just planned on wordlessly staring at him in concern forever when Astro spoke his thoughts aloud.
“…Does it help?”
Dandy looked back at Astro’s unreadable expression, confused. “What?”
“Does it help having me here? Like this?” Astro pressed his body a little closer to Dandy’s, consequently lowering his face, too, so that his and the flower’s were just over an inch away.
The flower toon held his breath. He looked up with Astro with massive eyes, fighting off the urge to squeal or scream like a hopelessly in love idiot before he trusted himself enough to speak.
“M-mhm,” Dandy admitted shyly, his face so close to Astro’s at that point that his lips nearly brushed the moon’s when he next spoke, “You’re all soft and warm… and all that.”
The petaled toon was instantly embarrassed by his own choice of words, but Astro’s face lit up. He put all of his weight back on Dandy again comfortingly and moved his face away from the flower’s at last, something Dandy couldn’t decide if he was relieved or disappointed about. When the moon shifted and nuzzled closer to him again, Dandy finally found the confidence to hug and cuddle him back, wrapping his arms around the moon’s chest and tucking his face into the space between his shoulder and neck. The flower absentmindedly drew shapes between his friend’s shoulder blades, trying to relax at the warmth and comfort he’d barely been surviving without for far too long, but couldn’t suppress his excitement.
He’s laying on top of me… We’re in his room, on his bed, and he’s cuddling with me as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Dandy could barely believe it. He knew the moon would never like him back—there wasn’t a chance of Astro forgiving him for the things he’d done and, even if there was, Dandy couldn’t even begin to imagine someone seeing him as “attractive” or Astro not being disgusted by the thought of liking another man. They had never talked about it—not really, anyway—but Dandy had picked up on enough adult human conversations from back when the museum was open for him to know that most people found any sort of nontraditional relationships repulsive… As much as Dandy would like to hope for the opposite, why should he think Astro thought of them any differently? Aside from the Ichor Operation and the ways Delilah had abused and manipulated him, knowing the moon would hate Dandy if he ever admitted how he felt and that it would be better for the flower if he let go of his hope was one of the major reasons Dandy grew so distant and forced himself into his cheerful character in the first place. Astro really deserved much better than him, anyway… Still, the moon toon’s closeness and physical affection were enough to make Dandy so giddy he couldn’t think straight. He hardly realized the fact that he was physically shaking with joy, his leaf-shaped tail wagging rapidly beneath him, until Astro pointed it out.
“You’re shaking, still,” the main toon noticed aloud, frowning, “Are you still cold, hun? You could have just told me, you know, silly.” Astro looked him up and down quickly, normal eye locking onto the flower’s drooping petals before Dandy could reassure his that he was just fine. Without a warning, Astro reached his hand up to Dandy’s fluffy, purple petal and, realizing how cold it was, took it gently in his heavenly warm hand and began to rub circles at the base of it with his thumb.
Dandy didn’t know what it was about his petals being touched, but the sensation instantly replaced all of his hesitation and worries with pleasure. He leaned into Astro’s hand and soaked in the warmth of his skin, smiling softly without meaning to, as if he were touch starved (which he, admittedly, was) or a house cat being scratched in just the right spot. The moon giggled at the flower’s immediate reaction and, realizing the touch had stopped his shaking, brought two of his other hands up to pet his soft, colorful petals as well.
Dandy couldn’t have stopped the purr that finally escaped his throat at that if he tried. It was rumbling and surprisingly loud, something the flower would have usually been embarrassed about if it wasn’t for his brain currently being a mess of blissed-out mush.
Astro actually laughed at that. He stared at Dandy in adoration, both eyes sparkling brighter than he’d ever seen them.
“God, you’re cute,” the moon whispered, tilting his head at the flower toon as if he were the most intriguing person in the world. He used his careful grip on one of his lower petals to tilt his head up towards where Astro hovered with his upper half over him, making Dandy meet his eyes.
“S-shut up,” the smaller toon protested, blushing a dark green, but let out happy whine when one of Astro’s thumbs found its way to a particularly good spot.
Astro shamelessly stared at him in awe, for a moment, admiring him as if he were a breathtaking piece of art, until the two toons’ wandering eyes met once more and they tensed simultaneously, realizing how close their bodies and faces had grown again. The petaled toon studied Astro’s mismatched eyes, flustered and dizzy with excitement again, to try and figure out what he was thinking. Not a thing in the world could have prepared him for the fondness in his soft, beautiful eyes, and just the sight sent Dandy spiraling.
Is there any chance he might actually…? Does any of this actually mean anything to him, or is he just messing with me? Dandy didn’t think Astro would ever do anything to hurt him purposefully, but there was no way he found this as intimate and non-platonic as the flower did, was there? I could kiss him right now, the part of Dandy’s head still preoccupied with how close their faces were realized.
Before Dandy had the chance to snap out of it and push down that dangerous thought, the soothing movements on his petals stopped, the sides of his face were taken by two blue, star-freckled hands, and soft, warm lips were pressed passionately against his own.
The flower couldn’t process what was happening. He froze up, eyes as wide as saucers, as he was kissed… kissed by Astro. Nothing felt real for a long twenty seconds as he lied there, starstruck, until Astro desperately nudged at his lips and he snapped back to reality. Oh… holy shit.
Dandy surged upward before Astro got the chance to assume that this wasn’t exactly what Dandy had wanted for all his life, kissing him back hard and wrapping his legs around the taller toon’s waist to bring him closer. Astro made an adorable, relieved sound into the flower’s lips and began to push further, sliding his own mouth open just a bit as if asking for permission to deepen the kiss. Dandy felt his heart leap, his brain still fuzzy with adrenaline, and responded with a jab of his tongue, pushing past Astro’s lips and purring again as his tongue slid against the inside of the moon’s cheek. Astro hummed in appreciation and curled his own tongue against Dandy’s, beginning to paw at one of the shorter man’s lower petals again just to tease him and smiling widely against the floral toon’s lips.
Astro gently nipped at Dandy’s lower lip as they together began to pull away to breathe, both breathless and lightheaded but far too euphoric to care. The toon’s eyes met as they gasped for air, chests heaving, and Dandy gawked at the flawless man above him, unable to comprehend what just happened for the life of him.
“You just— I— We—” Dandy squeaked embarrassingly high and hid his face with both his hands, tail swishing back and forth so quickly behind him that it was at risk of falling off. The flower watched Astro smile at him bemusedly from between his fingers and lean down to cover his temples and hands in playful, ticklish little kisses. Dandy yelped and squirmed beneath him, trying halfheartedly to “protect” himself with his hands as he giggled almost uncontrollably. The moon toon only stopped when Dandy gave in, lowering his hands and allowing himself to be pecked on the lips once more before shyly smiling up at the toon over him.
“You like me?” Dandy asked bashfully, overjoyed but disbelieving, “Like… like that?”
Astro snorted at him, jokingly rolling his eyes. “Yes, silly,” the moon responded without hesitation, kissing Dandy’s red petal, “I’ve loved you and missed you for longer than you’ll believe, darling. …Did you… did you really not know?”
Dandy’s cheeks grew warmer. “Well— well, I didn’t think you’d want anything to do with me, after everything, and— and it’s not like you told me! You should know by now that I’m no good at picking up hints!” The flower’s voice was clearly light and joking, but Astro’s smile turned a bit more apologetic as he responded.
“Mm, touché… I suppose when you grew all distant after the museum closed and the twisteds appeared everything just got… complicated. I didn’t think you’d even want to be my friend after that… even when I should’ve known, I wasn’t there for you when Delilah began to use you for the operation…”
Dandy used both of his hands to cup Astro’s two-toned face, regaining his focus to give him a kind, genuine smile. “I never stopped loving you, moonbug, I just didn’t want Delilah to use how much I loved you to her advantage… After seeing what she was willing to do to me, I didn’t want to come even close to finding out what she’d do to you just to get me to obey her. Even after she and all of the other humans left, I didn’t want to throw all of my issues onto you or make you feel like you had to forgive me…” The flower tugged Astro down to pull him into a hug. “Also, none of it was your fault, love. We were just kids, Astro, we had no way of knowing what Delilah was planning with the Ichor Operation or how she would test on me. Don’t make yourself feel guilty over it… I’m just glad that it’s all over.”
Astro let out a breath and nodded in agreement, pushing his face into the other man’s petals. “I love you, Dandy… You have no idea how glad I am I didn’t lose you,” he said under his breath, but Dandy heard it. The flower smiled broadly and turned his head to kiss the moon’s temple.
“You could never lose me, Moony,” Dandy assured him, “And I love you, too.”
Dandy was the one to initiate the kiss this time, flipping them carefully so that the moon was on his back and the flower was on top of him, pushing and putting his weight into the kiss which Astro gratefully accepted. The unsureness and desperation from their first kiss was now replaced with tenderness and affection, something neither of them had noticed they’d been missing all their lives until then. The flower was just about ready to lay himself down on Astro’s chest to drift into the best sleep he’d had in years when their lips parted but was surprised when his love immediately began to laugh.
“Your petals seem to be enjoying this,” Astro explained simply when he caught his breath.
Dandy didn’t have a clue what his moon was talking about until he moved and tilted his petals towards himself to find that he was right. The flower toon’s previously dying petals were now full and perfectly healthy, with each a beautiful, bright color even more vibrant than its original hue. Dandy stared at them, mouth hanging open, before beginning to laugh, too, feeling just as light and bubbly as his character was intended to be for the first time in his life.
The two spent the remainder of the evening contentedly held in one another’s arms, and, despite having removed the blankets and sheets around him hours before, Dandy finally didn’t feel cold at all.