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His hands were shaking as he stared down at his moons, his mind warring between several thoughts.
Should he—should he go after X?
But that meant leaving his moons. His moons—who X had just sent a volley of asteroids towards.
But he just wanted to stay.
Uranus—or was he Caelus, now?—wanted him to stay.
He wanted—
Uranus bit down hard enough on his bottom lip that it sent pain soaring through him, the taste of iron spilling onto his tongue; but that finally roused him from his thoughts, and he dropped his shoulders, reaching out with one shaking hand towards Titania. “It’s alright, mate,” he forced himself to say. “Let me… I’ll…” He couldn’t think of the words, and so finally he just pressed one fingertip to her forehead and watched as her pained expression melted away.
Though he knew it didn’t work that way, Uranus almost felt like he was taking Titania’s pain for his own, his head aching as he tried to resist the urge to turn around and follow in X’s wake, to leave behind everything he’d ever known in exchange for a chance (but he’d already done that, hadn’t he?). His eyes jumped over his other moons as he drew his hands back to his chest, clasping them together to still the persistent tremble. None of them seemed hurt, a fact that made his shoulders slump more in relief; except Titania, they were more shocked than anything else.
Titania curled upon herself, and the rest of his moons gathered around her in little groups—and Uranus finally looked away from them after another moment, the lump in his throat making it hard to breath, the sensation only making the ache in his head worse, the feeling like someone had grabbed one of his own arrows and stabbed it into him.
Was… was X really leaving?
Surely he was just going to speak to Jupiter. He’d return. He had to.
They were—they were friends, weren’t they? X wouldn’t just leave him without saying goodbye. Wouldn’t abandon him.
Right?
Uranus pressed his lips together, the spot he’d bitten into earlier smarting, making him wince once.
“Uranus?” Titania’s voice was weak—and she mispronounced his name, making him clench his teeth together hard, a shard of pain twisting through him.
Still, he just tightened his hands around each other and sent her a weak smile. “Yes, mate?”
“Are you okay?”
He blinked down at her—at the red spots scattered across her skin that would surely darken into bruises, the tell-tale cracks at her cheeks, the bags under her eyes—and then huffed. “Mate, if anyone should be asked that, it’s you.” When—if (and the single word change made his head throb again) X came back, Uranus was going to ask him what in the blazes he was thinking. Challenging the moons was fine. But hurting them like that? On purpose?
The conflicting wants inside of him blazed through his thoughts, and even as he stared down at his moons, Uranus finally lifted one hand and pressed it to his forehead, willing the pain away. He really didn’t need to deal with it right now.
He only realized that Titania must have said something when he resurfaced and was met with her staring at him, brow knit. “Uh—yeah, mate,” he mumbled. Surely that answered whatever she’d said? “Just relax. The pain will come back eventually.” He couldn’t wipe away her pain entirely. He wasn’t Earth, or Saturn. All he could do was push it back—just like he pushed back his own writhing emotions, building up around his core like layers of ice. Titania nodded, hesitantly, and then turned back to all the rest of his moons, and Uranus pinned his arms against his chest, curled his fingers within the fabric of his jacket.
His moons had each other. They didn’t need him.
They never had.
Nobody did.
Saturn was fretting over his moons, one hand cradled around Titan, his eyes drifting over all of the others; Neptune was doing the same with his moons (but looking at Neptune for longer than a second sent another spear through his skull, making him grimace before he immediately looked away); the rocky planets were all crouched together, and Uranus could only catch snippets of their conversation, though Earth seemed less interested in the conversation than making sure his moon was alright.
“—Jupiter,”
And there was the crux of the situation.
With X gone, Jupiter was going to return.
Everything would go back to normal.
To normal.
To—
Uranus was suddenly aware he wasn’t breathing, that the lump in his throat had grown, his eyes burning.
His head ached.
Blazes, what was he even doing?
He turned around and faced the Sun, pinching himself hard enough that he finally brought in a sharp inhale, ignoring the tiny look of concern that Saturn sent him before he looked back at his moons. He just needed to keep it together until the Sun sent them back to their orbits. He always did it eventually.
If Uranus left early, the others would wonder, and someone would find him, and then he’d have to deal with them.
He didn’t want to deal with anyone.
So.
He stared, and stared, and stared, and ignored the ache writhing in his head. Ignored the sounds of his moons whispering behind him, ignored the sound of Neptune speaking to his own moons, ignored all of the voices but the one in the back of his mind.
Of course X left without saying goodbye.
You’ve never been enough to stay for.
His vision was blurry, unfocused—all he could see was the Sun in front of them, frowning hard. He uncurled one hand from his jacket and felt the ache in his fingers before pressing his palm to his forehead, dipping his head down as he tried to make sense of the pounding discomfort in his head. Maybe—he scrambled, one shaking hand ripping the tie off his braid, separating the strands until his hair draped around his face, a veritable curtain keeping him from looking outside.
But undoing his braid didn’t remove the ache, and he was still thinking.
How could you ever think you’d be enough?
You’ll never be who you want to be. You’ll never be Caelus.
And you know it.
The words stabbed through him, and Uranus squeezed his eyes shut, the memory of X fleeing burning itself into his thoughts—and suddenly Uranus just knew.
He wasn’t coming back. Everything he’d said—everything he’d been told.
X wasn’t coming back.
There was a louder sound around him now, but it couldn’t get through to him, everything suddenly wavering around him, his sense of balance abruptly fleeing (just like X, blazes could he stop thinking of him), making him stumble, his head aching even more as he dropped it, even his neck giving a twinge of pain now. His breath was caught in his chest, the ache spreading from his head through the rest of him, an unending deluge.
“Stop,” he muttered, pressing his nails into his face. “Stop.”
A warm sensation closed around his hands, trying to pull them away, but Uranus just pressed in deeper, urging his thoughts to stop. More pain followed in its wake, bursting through his veins like a supernova explosion inches from his face.
“Uranus!”
That was his name.
That wasn’t his name.
That was—
“Uranus!”
He tore his eyes open with all of the strength left within him and was met with Saturn, staring at him, eyes wide.
You’re not who I want you to be.
—And then suddenly he didn’t want to think at all and let himself fall back into the agony, his thoughts disappearing as stars rose within his vision, the black falling over him more welcome than anything else.