Solarballs Oneshots || 🚀‼️

50 | Astrodude - "Feel Better"

A/N: So... I just felt like making single father AU Astrodude because he's shockingly underrated in this fandom. I guess... this is an interesting way to celebrate my 50th chapter..?

In this AU, Astroson isn't born yet during the canon timeline, but he's recently born in this chapter. Just adding this note because it's important! Astrodude comes home from space... only for the worst to happen.

SHIPS: Astrodude x Astrowife

THIS CHAPTER IS ROUGH. Seriously, be careful and READ THE CONTENT WARNINGS CAREFULLY.

CONTENT WARNING:
- MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH
- DEPRESSION
- DEATH DURING CHILDBIRTH
- DISORDERED EATING(?)

"No one's ever gonna love me like that again, I don't wanna get over it. I wanna rip the stars to shreds. I don't wanna feel better." - Feel Better, Penelope Scott

(MAYBE not the best fitting song, but it was the first one I listened to whilst writing this.)
—

Astrodude could not bear to step into that cursed room. He could barely stand to be in the house at all. It was only filled with reminders of her. It was inescapable despite his yearning for forgetfulness. He felt as if he were betraying her a bit by running from the ghosts of her presence, but he couldn't help it. He had turned into a coward without her. He knew what people were saying about him, how they pitied him, but he didn't know how else they expected him to react. He didn't even know how he was supposed to react. No one really tells how one is meant to go on when the love of their life is stolen away from them without much of a warning.

He was lying in the same spot he sat in as it happened on the sofa, numbly staring at the wall while Computer bustled around him. Houston had made that robot stay with him- uninvited: he might add- and keep the house running. Astrodude didn't care what she chose to do. She could burn the entire building down with him in it if that's what she wished. He really couldn't be bothered.

"You have a bedroom for a reason, Astrodude," Computer chastised as she crossed the room, grabbing a book from the shelf. Astrodude knew she wouldn't read it. Astrodude never fancied acting like everything was fine when the worst possible thing happened, though. He elected to ignore her, only staring forwards at the wall, arms hugging tightly around himself. Computer huffed as she sat in the chair closest to him, opening the book and staring down at it with a tight expression. She never even turned the first page as they sat in their silence, unspeakable grief suffocating and filling the room.

(A/N: Computer's humanoid here :) you might've seen my design of her in one of my earlier art dumps. She's not actually human, of course, but she's not just a straight up computer..)

The baby began to cry. Computer didn't even give him a chance to go and get him before she was leaping up to tend to him. Astrodude couldn't blame her. If he could barely take care of himself, there was no way he could see to a child. Astrodude felt as if he couldn't move. The things he was feeling were unprecedented for him. He had never felt an emptiness in him such as this one despite everything he had been through. His wife was the brightest ray of sunshine he had ever met. Without her, it only made sense for his life to completely turn into a gray, miserable existence. To say his heart was utterly destroyed was an understatement. There was a tight feeling in his throat that hadn't gone away since it first happened. Her cries of distress still echoed piercingly in his ears, but so did the silence of death that followed closely. The latter was the loudest out of the two, after all.

Computer returned, Astrowife's baby held close to her. She was holding him, and Astrodude had to physically look away. Astrowife hadn't even gotten a chance to hold him before she passed. She never got the chance to meet their baby. It should be her standing there and holding him. It felt like a beast was clawing at his chest, his stomach, his entire being. It made him want to be sick. It made him not want to feel anything ever again.