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Uranus died the day X had offered him what he’d wanted for millennia. Caelus had been born from the ashes.
At least that’s how he wanted to view it.
But the truth was…
Caelus had no idea how to feel about himself. Had no idea how to feel about the Solar System he was determined to leave behind. Had no idea how to feel about the one he was chasing after. Had no idea how to feel, period.
He couldn’t separate how torn apart he felt from how he wanted to feel.
“You only care about yourself and your fragile little ego.”
Ha! What did Titania know about him? His moons had never cared (—should they?— His mind whispered, a poisonous thought he ignored with all of the strength left in his core) and they never would. He’d—he’d messed up enough already. Leaving was for the best. For everyone else, for him, and probably for X, too. Wouldn’t it be better to have someone to… travel the cosmos with? Versus doing it alone?
See. He wasn’t just thinking of himself. He could care about other people.
If they cared about him first.
Which people didn’t seem to want to do.
…Which hurt.
Caelus wrapped his arms around himself and scowled, continuing forward through the total blackness—he just had to hope he was going the same direction as X, hope that he would eventually find him, hope that X would want him there…
(Nobody’s wanted you before, what makes you think that’d change?)
His core constricted.
(Nobody stopped you from leaving. Nobody’s running after you. Nobody cares.)
He ground his teeth together, working his jaw until his head rang.
(And you know it.)
He ducked his cheek against his shoulder and told himself to shut up.
—And then he registered someone else’s gravitational pull and froze, recognizing who it was a mere half second later.
Bloody hell. What was Jupiter doing, following him?
“Uranus?”
He whipped around, teeth bared. “It’s Caelus!”
Jupiter stared at him with raised eyebrows, surprise evident in his eyes. He was still far enough away that his features were indistinct, and the closer he got the more Caelus wanted to back away—but he held his ground, teeth gritted together. “…Caelus?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, scowling hard at him. “What are you doing here?”
Jupiter sighed. “I know you’re angry at me, Caelus.”
Well. At least he was calling him Caelus. Nobody else had seen fit to do that.
“Angry?” He gave a strained laugh. “Why would I be angry at you? Bloody hell, you only lied to everyone for billions of years. Ejected a planet. A planet who could have been my friend from the start!” Who could have been there for me when I—
When everyone else seemed content to leave me alone.
To forget me.
To turn me into a bloody joke.
Could it have just as easily gone the same way? If Planet X had stayed in the solar system, who was he to say that things would have really changed? Maybe he would have been friends with Neptune instead, and he’d have been left with nobody.
Caelus didn’t like that line of thought.
It was easier to consider that his life would have been better than for it to have the same—or worse.
“And I apologized to him for that,” Jupiter said, eyes piercing in their intensity. “I apologized to X for what I did to him. But you can’t hold onto his anger for him, Caelus. He—” He sighed. “He told me that he won’t let his anger and loneliness define him anymore. He’s…” He rubbed a hand over his mouth with a second sigh before dipping his head. “He’s made his choice with far more maturity than I ever held.”
“And this is my choice,” Caelus said, narrowing his eyes. “I’m not holding onto his anger. This is mine.”
Jupiter looked at him, expression impassive and unreadable.
“Is it?”
The question hit him like a physical blow, the worst part of it that it actually made him consider for a moment—and then Caelus stiffened, shoulders hiking up. “Don’t try to psychoanalyze me out of this, Jupiter. This is my choice,” he snapped. “My choice. I’m finally making a choice to benefit myself.” He’d suffered in silence for far too long. Now he was finally taking steps to leave, and blazes, everyone seemed determined to pull him right back.
He almost wished Jupiter would give him some sort of reaction. Snap at him, or—or get angry at him, or something. Give him a reason to leave again. Tell him that he only cared about his own ego. That he was disappointed in him. That his plan was stupid, that he needed to care about everyone else who had never cared about him.
But he didn’t.
Just continued staring, eyes contemplative in a way that left Caelus feeling like he was seeing under his skin. It was bloody infuriating. “Okay,” he finally said, slowly, patiently. “Tell me your reasoning. I’ll listen.”
Caelus blinked.
He hadn’t expected that. “You’ll listen to me?”
Jupiter nodded. “I won’t say anything. You explain, and I’ll listen.”
Nobody had listened to him in so long. Not—not his moons. Not Neptune. Not Saturn. Not Jupiter (Well. Before now, apparently.) Even…Even X hadn’t really listened to him. Caelus couldn’t help but acknowledge that—that being brushed off when he’d reminded X about changing his name if he won (the name he’d provided!) had hurt. At least a little bit. But it hurt a metric ton less than the hurt that’d piled on from billions of years of dealing with what he’d already dealt with.
He shifted in place, locking eyes on a distant patch of glowing stars.
It felt like everything he’d ever thought had decided to desert him—his reasoning, his piled-on annoyances, his troubles—and suddenly he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“I—” He worried at his bottom lip. “I feel like a joke, mate,” he finally snapped. “I feel like everyone else sees me as one. I either don’t exist, or I’m the butt of the joke—” He winced, half-expecting some reaction from Jupiter despite knowing he wouldn’t. “—or that what I want doesn’t matter.” When Jupiter didn’t speak, just nodded once, he continued, his confidence returning. “Or I’m just a lesser version of bloody Saturn. Just because he has those bloody rings!” He flicked at the transparent ring around his head and watched the rocks settle back into place, scowling. “And every chance I get to change things, it always has to go back to normal! Back to everyone else being happy while I just sit and—and—and suffer.”
Was it actually suffering?
…Caelus couldn’t lie and say that it was. At least he still had his memory. His sanity. He could’ve gone the way of Neptune.
Maybe he wasn’t suffering, but he was hurting. And why did he have to push that aside for everyone else?
“I couldn’t stay in Saturn’s orbit during the orbit change because the Solar System was going to destroy itself, and the one time someone else agreed with me, the bloody moons guilt-tripped him into leaving just so you would come back!” He reached forward and jabbed a finger into Jupiter’s chest, scowling even harder. “And now you’re back, and everything’s returned to normal, and I’m still the butt of the bloody joke. I was still Ur-anus,” he said, voice rising in the wake of the anger that curled tight around his core, that made his face feel warm, his eyes stinging. “No matter how many times I told everyone else that I wanted to be called Caelus!”
His voice broke on the name.
“Not Saturn. Not Neptune. Not my bloody moons. Nobody! No-body!”
Nobody but you.
He bit down hard onto his bottom lip and stared at Jupiter’s face, the sorrow in his expression only making him feel worse, his chest tight with misery. “So I have to leave. I don’t need—I don’t need this Solar System. It’s made me feel bad enough, mate.”
He couldn’t let it get any worse. Not while he had an out. Not while he had a friend he could go to.
What did he have in the Solar System?
Caelus couldn’t name a single thing.
(Ne— He cut the thought off before it fully formed, swallowing hard.)
“That’s my reasoning,” he said roughly, tipping his head backwards, staring at Jupiter as he crossed his arms over his chest, suddenly defensive. “What do you say to that, mate?”
Jupiter studied him for a moment, sorrow still outlined in his expression, built into the lines of his face—and then his shoulders dropped just slightly as he sighed. “I’m sorry.”
His mouth fell open. What?
“I failed you,” Jupiter said, expression grave. “I should have noticed this before. I’m sorry.”
He felt like all the anger had been squeezed out of him with his rant, and now he’d been left with the poisonous dregs.
Jupiter pressed his lips together and gave a single exhale, the sound heavy enough that Caelus couldn’t help a frown, his arms tightening over his chest. “You know, I didn’t-” He paused. “I didn’t think I deserved to return to the Solar System.”
Caelus blinked.
And blinked again.
Jupiter didn’t move at all, nor did he speak; just stared at him patiently.
Blazes, this would be much easier to handle if he wasn’t so bloody understanding.
“What?” Caelus finally managed to say. “You— what are you talking about, mate? Of course you wanted to return to the Solar System.” He worked his jaw. “At least you belong there,” he muttered. “You have people who care about you. Everyone loves you. They all wanted you back, mate.” They love you just as much as they don’t care about me.
His eyes stung more, the tears that’d been building threatening to fall.
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” Jupiter said, still staring at him. “I was only thinking of how I failed. What I did wrong. But X told me something that I needed to hear. Something I needed him to tell me,” he said, leaning just slightly forward, eyes locking onto his. “So let me be the one to tell you this, Caelus. You deserve to be in the Solar System. You deserve more than you’ve been given. You deserve the right to be called what you want. And you—” His lips pressed together. “You aren’t a joke. Far from it.” He tilted his head to the side. “And I would you like to stay.”
Caelus’s breath was stuttered when he forced it out, his core a mess of misery and distress.
“Because the Solar System’s stability needs me,” he muttered, staring not at Jupiter’s face but at the collar of his shirt. “Yeah?” What other reasons could there be?
“Because you are my friend, Caelus.”
He tried to breathe and utterly failed, lips trembling before he pressed them together.
“And if you’d like to be called Caelus, well, that’s something we can work out,” Jupiter said, his smile lifting slightly before it dissolved. “Without putting anyone else at risk. Including yourself.”
Caelus scoffed, reaching for any opportunity to resist crying. “When did I put myself at risk?”
Jupiter his lifted his eyebrows, tipping his head down slightly. “You’ve ventured past the Kuiper Belt into an area of space you’ve never explored before in search of a planet who has likely already gained a significant head start. Planet X is likely already as near to the Oort Cloud as you and I are to the Solar System.” He sighed, a brief flicker of something unreadable flashing over his eyes before it wiped away. “X spent billions of years out here. He’s already acclimatized to the conditions out here. The silence. The darkness. How isolated it is. You don’t have that advantage. Your orbit, as distant as it is, is nothing like this. Not even Neptune’s.” His eyes went distant. “Trust me. I know that from experience.”
He scowled, but Caelus knew Jupiter was right. He probably would have fallen to pieces before he’d ever found X.
The thought still stung.
“You are putting yourself at risk by doing this,” Jupiter continued after another second, reaching forward to lay a hand on his shoulder. Caelus stared at his hand out of corner of his eye, barely registering the minute squeeze before Jupiter dropped it back to his side. “And I’d rather you not.” A second of silence passed as Caelus stared at him, eyes still stinging, tears threatening to drop even more. “Just know that I do consider you a friend, Caelus. Even if you don’t consider me as one of yours.”
His core twisted.
Jupiter lifted his hand once more, but instead of reaching for him he just… held it out.
Caelus recognized it for the offer it was. “And we may have plenty to deal with back in the Solar System—” A brief frown flashed over his face, “—but I care about you, and I’d like to help you, Caelus. You don’t have to leave the Solar System to get what you’ve deserved all this time.”
He took a step closer. “Can I help you?”
Caelus hesitated.
He threw a glance into the darkness and registered nothing but the distant stars—and then back at Jupiter’s earnest face, his offered hand.
His core twisted again, a lump in his throat growing.
But I care about you.
Not even X had said that.
Jupiter had listened to him. The entire rant. Even when he’d jabbed at him.
He hesitated a second time, fingers twitching at his sides; and then he launched himself forward, throwing himself into Jupiter rather than taking the given hand.
“Please,” he said, voice cracking. “I—please.”
And as Jupiter’s arms closed tighter around him in a hug he’d sorely needed for bloody years, Caelus buried his face in his shoulder and let the tears fall.