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Shiny locks of dirt blond sifted in the forceless void of space, as Jupiter sunk his larger hand through his hair, the sensation offering very little comfort to his troubled mind.
Headaches, nonstop, had been occurring ever since Earth’s rediscovery of Theia and Proto. He figured it was just stress. “It will pass with time,” Saturn told him. But for once in his life, Jupiter did not think that living with his guilt was a solution. Because how do you live with something that keeps you restless for billions of years? How does someone go about raising an entire solar system with that on their conscience? How does–
Oh that’s right. He shouldn’t be asking. Because he did all that. Jupiter Sol. Not Saturn. Not a neighboring star. Not even the Sun. He did.
He raised the Ancient Rockies, watching them with love and adoration from afar, across the safety net that was the asteroid belt. He prayed at night to the cosmos around him that with their stellar grace, he could keep them safe. HE kept the asteroid belt in check for the sake of protecting them all. HE taught Theia astrobiology. HE offered to be the peacemaker when Planet X returned, swapping places with him for the sake of everyone else.
Now doesn’t that all sound like traits of such a proud, loving, noble father? It does, doesn’t it? But no. Jupiter’s no father. He wasn’t always a father. There was a time when his moons still hadn’t come into fruition yet. His firstborns, Ganymede and Europa, only intensified feelings that were already there.
Already there? But Jupiter’s not a father– wrong!
He was their father!
You don’t understand how difficult it was! Watching Theia and Proto collide and dissipate into nothingness right before our eyes! he screamed.
Do you think I liked watching the kids cry and wail in confusion, in grief, in horror at what they’d just witnessed? Do you think it was a cakewalk explaining to them what death was as they cried on my shoulder one by one and feared for their lives they would be next?
The Sun trembled at Jupiter’s outburst. His cosmic beams of warmth and light faltered, for the first time in years. “Jupiter…” he began in what was a poor attempt at a growl. “How… how dare you talk to me like that..”
“No,” Jupiter retorted, shaking his head as dirty blond strands of once slicked back hair fell over his forehead, his eyes, his glasses being the only thing keeping those pools of gold and billions of years of memories visible.
“You don’t get to do that. ‘How dare you’ this, ‘how dare you’ that– when will you stop hiding behind your power, AND START HIDING US FROM THE PRESSURES OF BEING ALIVE?!” he screamed, balling his fist in a torrent of emotion.
Saturn witnessed the verbal onslaught close behind. “Jupiter, dearest–” he tried, extending out a graceful hand to his fellow Jovian. “Please, stop this! You’re stressed, you’re feeling guilty, I understand! But lashing out at Sun will only-”
“No, Saturn! You don’t understand! You never understood! Stop acting like you know what this feels like!” Jupiter roared back, not even bothering to shift his body back all the way to face his ringed companion.
A small, disbelieving breath escaped the ringed planet. His arm faltered midair, and trembled slightly as he pulled it back towards him. Upon resting his first upon his chest, a tiny, almost unhearable whimper escaped the planet’s voice.
Sun’s eyes widened in shock at the sight. “Jupiter..! What’s the matter with you?” he asked. But there was less authority in his voice, and more curiosity and genuine shock than anything. Jupiter hardly ever lashed out at Saturn. Hardly. He’d sooner battle a hundred Planet Xes than hurt the ones he cares for.
Jupiter breathed in through his nose, the sound akin to a sharp, pained sniffle that could’ve been mistaken for a quick breath through the nose.
“...Tell me. Who had to carry the burden of knowing you so easily believed the planet you had within your gravity would just up and leave unexpectedly? Do you think it was any comfort to me, knowing that you thought we would abandon you so easily? And after you told me I was to be the role model to the incoming Rocky planets!?”
Sun’s light dimmed, as his shoulders slowly began crouching down, the largest planet’s words weighing heavily on him. “Jupiter, you cannot seriously accuse me of that-”
“Sun, from the very beginning you were just a ball of flame, a burning reminder of the disheartening expectation you unknowingly set for me. You think that’s something a little boy could understand?!”
Behind the ringed gas giant’s form, he felt the soft shudder of planet Earth behind him. He was tempted to look behind him and offer consolidation to the crying planet, but he sensed the faint
gravitational movement of the other Rockies: Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Luna, already doing what they could to comfort him. That would simply have to do for now.
But the mother-hen instinct in Saturn was screaming to drop everything and wipe his baby’s tears, even though he was damn close to crying too. Just–anything to stop his little boy from crying.
Beside him, Uranus shifted uncomfortably, and Neptune ducked behind him for comfort.
Yet that was never Jupiter’s style. Loving he was, yes, but more on the practical side of love. Learn from your mistakes, and learn the first time. It’s why he was so wise, why he always gave the Rockies little science tidbits, to spare them from those mistakes.
“Oh but it gets worse! Did you know that?” Jupiter continued, pained sarcasm lacing his tone. “I bet you didn’t. You don’t know anything that goes on beyond Earth’s orbit.”
Sun clenched the sides of his jacket, finding himself incapable of speaking over Jupiter, his eldest.
Jupiter took in a sharp breath and went on. “Neptune’s biggest moon, Triton? Accidental sweep-up.” Jupiter revealed.
Neptune’s core froze. Again. “What–what?!” he exclaimed. He shook his head fervently, curls of deep blue swaying. “H-He’s lying!” he laughed. “Sun, he’s lying! He’s lying!! Liar, liar, LIAR, LIAR HE’S A LIARRR!!”
The ocean-blue ice giant pleaded, laughter quickly dissolving into hysterics, pushing Uranus aside, and beginning a violent beeline straight for Jupiter.
Saturn gasped, and immediately focused his gravity onto him, pulling him back with little effort. “Neptune, calm yourself!!” he pleaded in a higher pitch than normal.
Sun gaped at the windy gas giant, a darkness forming behind his eyes. “Triton was… not an original moon.. Of Neptune?”
“And you would have known that if you’d just tried to check up on them once in a while,” Jupiter growled.
Uranus looked up at Jupiter with pained shock. “Jupiter, mate, this is–”
“Saturn’s gorgeous rings? You’ve already proven you forgot where they came from. But, like a chrysalis to a butterfly, the most mundane things can become extraordinary.”
A high-pitched, pained gasp escaped the ringed giant’s throat. “C-Chrysalis..?!” he squeaked, his golden eyes glistening with tears already prepared to fall. He shakily raised his hands up to his own rings, to observe them closer.
“No… no no no no, Jupiter, you lie! You’re lying, my dearest, PLEASE!!” he pleaded, as he began to hug himself and hyperventilate. “NOO! C-Chrysalis left of her own accord!! I didn’t– I wouldn’t!!”
Luna poked out from behind the gas giant’s hysterical fit, and gaped at the revelation. Shooting a slow side glance at his still-crying planet, a sick sensation pitted in the moon’s stomach. Would Earth also…?
The shimmering gold star of their solar system’s light continued to gradually dim. “What… when was-?!” he began.
“Oh but this one I’m certain you know of… Proto and Theia.”
Saturn cupped his mouth with his hands, falling to his knees in a crying heap. First Chrysalis, and now his two fallen babies? Just, no.
From behind his larger frame, the Rocky planets jerked their heads at the mention of their old friends’ names. All but one.
“No.. Jupiter please–” Mercury begged, the emotional hysterics already getting to him. “Enough of this, dude,” Mars continued. “Is it really worth bringing up everyone’s trauma just to prove a point!?”
“This point,” Jupiter began, his voice breaking. “Is a point I shouldn’t even be having to make, if our Sun was half the man I was.”
Sun refused to cry. He wouldn’t. But it was getting increasingly difficult to, with billions of years of events struggling to re-piece themselves in his frazzled mind, recall half of what Jupiter was talking about, and make sense of it all.
“Yeah, they collided. And yes, you were there for it. We all were!” he said, with grandiose. “But you know what you, and nobody else was there for?”
“I–” Sun began.
“MY GRIEF!!” the king of the planets screamed.
“Theia and Proto DIED!! They DIED! They weren’t unborn Rocky planets, they were sentient, and they had ambitions, spirits, like us!”
Earth instinctively reached out for the closest friend to him, which happened to be Venus. His hand gripped the leather collar of Venus’s neck, forcing him closer to the ground in an awkward, teary hug.
Venus saw both of them in Earth. Why did it have to be him Earth chose? Why didn’t Theia choose him? Why why why why why why-
“I was the shoulder, THE shoulder, EVERYONE came to cry on!! The Rockies cried to me and Saturn, and at times, Saturn would come and cry to me!”
Sun slowly pulled his gaze towards his ringed planet, who was still a crying mess on the ground, his slender fingers threading the roots of his hair and pulling at them in distress.
“But who could I go to for a shoulder to cry on? I dare you to give me a name, Sun. Name ONE person I could rely on in the millions of years we were grieving them!”
“Me…” the Sun answered, teary eyed, praying to the stars around them that hope was not lost, that he could still disprove Jupiter’s claims. “You had me… why didn’t you come to me, Jupiter? You always had me..!”
Jupiter’s head shook, the sun’s fading light barely reflecting off the tears in his own eyes. “Wrong, Sun. I didn’t have you. Nobody had you. All I had… was myself.”
Uranus leaned down to help Neptune collect himself, quietly uttering to him, explaining what the small crystallized water droplets were that were falling from his eyes, and why he felt better upon letting them fall.
“..And I was fine with that. For so long.” Jupiter continued. “You said it yourself. Dishearteningly, but you said it. I was the role model. I was the first to be formed, of course it was all on me. So I held my tongue. I let everyone cry to me. I scrapped together what little, broken wisdom I had back when I was still a growing teenager. And I grinned and bore it for them.”
Jupiter took a shaking breath, wiping under his eyes even though no tears had fallen. “But you know what was honestly the worst part of it all?... The fact that because Earth and Luna came into existence, I could no longer just be a role model, I could no longer just be a brother.”
Earth’s grip on Venus tightened significantly. The Rockies huddled up to him as close as they could, as if their presence would shield him from the revelations. All except Luna, still watching in shock.
“...None of the Rockies had any clue what to do. And I don’t blame them, how could they? Their friends just died, and now in their wake, are two new planets, literal babies. Nobody knew how to handle them, nobody knew what to think of it. And neither did I. ‘Are they Proto and Theia?’, ‘Uncle Jupiter, I don’t understand! Who are they?’, ‘Are Proto and Theia still in there?’. And I tried my absolute hardest to figure it out, to give them the answers both they and I so desperately wanted.
“As a result, I had to get close to Earth and Luna. And when I tell you it was-” he paused, feeling his voice weaken under the weight of the memories, of the emotions of all those years ago. His lip trembled for a moment, before he took in a chest-deep breath. “It was the most difficult thing ever… Luna, just a fiery bundle of innocence within the arms of a crying, wailing Earth, calling out for his mommy and daddy even though he’d never ever get the chance to meet them…”
And it was there that the first of Jupiter’s tears fell. He lowered his head immediately, letting out a quiet sob into his hand. It was ruthless, what the universe does to this family.
“So I had to step up… I had to do what you couldn’t, Sun… I couldn’t just be their brother, that wouldn’t be enough. No, I had to be their mom, their dad, their mentor, their friend, their everything.” Jupiter cried, his tears not evaporating under the now dimly-lit light of the Sun, who watched his eldest lament as plasma tears streamed down his face silently.
“And for that I hate you…” he sobbed. “I hate you beyond comprehension… because I needed you, Sun.. I needed you most of all, and in all my darkest moments, there was no sun to guide me out.”
A ragged gasp escaped his throat, as he struggled to pull it together. “Everyone here may call me a liar for remembering the things they don’t, but that’s because I cared… more than you ever did, more than you ever could.
“You promised, you comforted me in the darkness, back when it was just me. And it made me feel… like I’d never be truly alone. Like I’d always have you to rely on. But I didn’t, Sun, you were never there. You saved me, and it felt like a promise that you’d keep me safe from harm, that you’d keep all of us safe from harm… and look,” he said brokenly, extending his arms out to the scene behind him.
Saturn, wailing hysterically on the ground as he fought to remove his ringed headpiece from around his head like a rabid animal.
Neptune, the always joyful, optimistic planet, crying and trembling in the arms of Uranus, questioning why big brother Jupiter would backstab him like this.
Earth trembling in the hollow comfort of the human barrier his friends had built for him, wishing for the comfort of his mom and dad, even just the distant, hazy, dreamlike version of them.
“I hate you…” Jupiter finally said. He took in a deep, shallowing breath, his once majestic, fatherly stance reduced to that of a weighed down, helpless teen boy, helping others while trying to help himself in an ever changing, ever dying universe. “...And I love you.”
Sun turned his head the other way. He couldn’t–he didn’t feel worthy of staring down Jupiter. Not while he was this vulnerable. No..
“I love you because… even though you left everything on my shoulders… you did the bare minimum that I couldn’t do… you brought everyone together.”
Jupiter shook his head as he spoke, strands of dirty blonde swaying softly in weightlessness, giving Jupiter an ethereal essence to his already divine manner. “I love you because… at least, at the start, there was something inside you that cared. Something inside you that felt it was worth it enough to devote your time, energy, and even your sanity into…”
The king of the planets wiped underneath his eyes in an exhausted manner, as if he were fixing eyebags rather than wiping tears. Perhaps he was so accustomed to doing one that he nearly forgot how to do the other.
“You lost more in your endeavor to keep this house afloat, Sun… and for that, I can’t thank you enough…” he sniffled.
“Jupiter…” Sun breathed out. Glowing tears of fiery orange plasma fell from the Sun’s face, and floated about in larger clumps than the tears of Neptune, Earth, and Saturn did. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry..”
“Sorries… aren’t going to mend anything, Sun. At least, not for me. Not right now..” he explained, the gas giant’s arms slowly hugging himself as he tilted his head down in sorrow, his emotional torrent raging within, like thunder rattling the fragile beams of a weathered house.
“All I can really say to you… that will hold both truth and a semblance of positivity, amidst all these billions of years of grueling effort of doing your job is…
…happy father’s day..”