Chapter Text
He’s been rushing around the Gardenview Center all day, being asked favors and checking in on other Toons, mentally repeating numbers and phrases and tasks to remember them until later—Brusha would like more paints, Finn needs someone to listen to a new joke, Tisha could use some help cleaning the kitchen, which is where he’s going anyway, to bake that new recipe with Sprout.
There’s a folder for Rodger tucked under his arm, along with some glue for Goob and Scraps, and one of Razzle and Dazzle’s scripts that they forgot to bring to their hangout with Glisten, and all of it nearly slips out of Cosmo’s hands when he skids to a halt. There’s some odd, barely intelligible noise.
After making sure he has a tight grip on everything, Cosmo pauses to listen more intently.
A tentative melody plays from a staff-only hallway up ahead. Nothing that Cosmo has ever heard, not here. Something draws him in. He heads closer.
The door is ajar, and Cosmo pulls it open, just a bit, just enough to see inside. And in front of a standing piano—dark, gorgeous, almost blueish wood with a subtle sheen—sits Astro, eyes shut in focus, or maybe peace. Twilight flits across the ivory keys. It applies just enough pressure to get the softest notes, and then it moves on to the next.
It’s nothing particularly impressive on a skill level, as far as Cosmo knows, but listening to it, his tightly wound thoughts start to untangle. It’s like undoing a knot. It sends a pleasant shiver through his body.
He hardly notices his eyes are closing as well, until the music stops, and Cosmo hears a gasp.
“I’m sorry, I just— I didn’t—” Cosmo scrambles to explain himself. He stares at Astro wordlessly, before blurting, “I didn’t know there was a piano here.”
Astro regards him with some skepticism. “...I don’t appreciate being spied on,” he says slowly.
They stew in uncomfortable silence.
Not being able to handle it any more, Cosmo mumbles, “I didn’t know you played it, either.”
Those odd stars appear on the keys again. No sound comes of it, but Astro observes them in contemplation.
“I think it’s relaxing,” Astro says.
“It is.” Cosmo nods. “You should, um... You should play more.”
“That’s what I’m—” Astro cuts himself off. He looks up at Cosmo again, and his expression softens somewhat. “You seem... tense.”
Before Cosmo can say anything, that same bittersweet melody creeps through the hall towards him, and Cosmo realizes that he hasn’t taken a break today. His feet ache from walking, but manage a few steps inside, to lean against the wall.
Minutes seem to pass in the blink of an eye. Strangely, Cosmo doesn’t mind at all. All those previous obligations simply slip from his mind.
When the song is finished, Astro turns to him again. He eyes the collection in Cosmo’s arms, and asks, “What’s got you so busy today?”
Right as he opens his mouth to speak, the reason catches up with him again. It hits him like one of those trains right outside the lobby, crashes into that cautiously nice moment and shatters it like glass. Cosmo grimaces, which Astro does as well.
“Just... helping out.” He shrugs weakly.
Astro watches him for a long moment. “...Is that all?”
Strangely, Cosmo realizes that seeing Astro unhappy like this is almost enough to make him regret slowing down. Cosmo feeling shitty for not fully immediately fulfilling someone’s wishes isn’t the strange part; it’s this weird new pause before the returning jump into the self-hating spiral. And it’s that Astro, of all people, is able to distract him for longer than Sprout.
Because, yes, it’s like just being in Astro’s presence is calming him down. But with his mind no longer racing, and quiet in the space, Cosmo is vulnerable to all those icky feelings of uselessness.
It’s crushing. The feeling that laying in bed, watching television, baking for himself and not the other Toons, that all of it is time that could be spent helping someone. That he could always be more productive, nicer, better. More like Sprout.
Cosmo slouches a bit. Astro draws a breath, then starts to play again.
The song somehow seems to last for both an eternity and no time at all. Both would be too short, Cosmo thinks, some new want slithering into his heart. When it ends, he mumbles a compliment and slips back out of the hallway without another word.
Continuing his trek, there’s something new stirring inside of Cosmo. Some longing that makes his chest hurt. Some glimmering, romantic fog swallowing up any chance at sense-making or coherence. All throughout his body, though he struggles to fully register it, Cosmo feels a fresh, deeply forbidden feeling. A feeling he’s really only supposed to be feeling for Sprout. He takes a few deep breaths and attempts to direct it that way, then to forget it all when it doesn’t work.
“Cosmo! Hey!” Sprout exclaims when his love enters the kitchen. He sprints over and pulls Cosmo into a hug, beaming down at him. “How are you doing? What took you so long?”
“I ran into..."
It’s silent when Cosmo watches Rodger’s folder slide out from under his arm and fall to the floor. Watches Tisha glare at them while throwing eggshell into the trash. Hears footsteps a bit away, and tenses his shoulders, feeling himself be scrutinized.
But there’s a light in the darkness. A shimmering solace, somewhere far off. Disjointed bits of piano repeat in his head. It makes his heart flutter, to get to have something so sweet, and easy, and soothing. Something just for him.
“I ran into someone.”