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“NO!!!!”
Newly enlightened of the existence of the best thing to ever exist and also aware that it was in danger, Earth jolted out of a dead sleep and darted straight for his startled moon, who’d unluckily just woken up to the sound of his dismayed shout.
“We need to kill the dinosaurs, Moon!”
His moon squinted at him. “…What? Earth, what happened?”
“We need to cause a mass extinction event to wipe them out,” he demanded, grabbing his moon’s shoulders and shaking him violently, “or the next top species will never develop and I’ll never get amazing fanfiction written about me!” He shook him a second time. “You’ll never get that amazing fanfiction written about you and Saturn’s Moon whose name I can't remember! Who will write you falling in love with stars knows how many of Saturn’s Moons if fanfiction is never created?!”
“Saturn’s what—?!”
He violently whipped around a second time, ignoring Luna’s confused squawk behind him. “I’ll just run straight into the Sun! That’ll kill them,” he said, confidently. Luna made another dying squawk behind him, and Earth paused, eyes narrowing as he stared off in the direction of the bright ball of light that occasionally terrified them all but also had… well, he’d probably done other stuff too. Like provide light and heat for his Earthlings. His Earthlings who kept dying. His Earthlings who he had to kill again by— Oh. “Oh, right, that’d kill me too. Hmm… okay, Plan A is off the table! We’ll come back to that one later.”
“LATER?!”
Earth turned around only to find his moon staring at him with a sickly pallor to his skin, and he huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I need to keep some things in the bucket for future angst purposes, Moon. How else will I be the main character of the Solar System?” Ignoring the sheer confusion on his moon’s face, he turned and stalked a short distance back and forth, practically wearing a divot in the gravitational field that they all somehow stood on—
Oh, right, the Sun did that!
Okay, so that was one thing he did. Earth could put that on the list too. So two things he did.
Anyway.
“Ah-ha!” Triumphant, Earth turned right back around only to find his moon hadn’t moved a single inch, still staring at him in confusion. “Luna, you’re supposing to be thinking of ideas, too,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Come on. How do we kill the dinosaurs?”
“L-Luna—you know my—I thought you—!”
“Moon! Chop chop! Ideas,” he said, pointing one finger. “Give me one!”
Moon blinked. “…Leave your orbit?”
He dismissively waved one hand. “Dumb! I do that all the time. We all know the laws of science only occasionally apply when it’s needed for the lore.” Earth squinted at the stars below himself, one finger tapping at his chin. “So no going towards the Sun… no leaving the Solar System because then I might run into the planet that definitely doesn’t exist and hasn't been creepily watching over the Solar System for billions of years… aka stalking us...” He squinted even more before muttering, “And also freeze my planetary ass off… and I need my planetary ass for fanfiction purposes…”
Turning around, Earth abruptly noticed that Luna had gotten much farther away from him than before, his hands up as he backed away, staring at him like he’d been replaced by a stupid orange-eyed version of himself. “Where are you going?”
“I think… I think I heard Mars calling for me,” Moon said, pointing backwards with a thumb. “Or… uh, Jupiter, maybe.”
“Why would Jupiter want to talk to you?” Earth yanked him right back in with his gravity, ignoring the desperate look he sent over his shoulder.
He’d probably lost an asteroid or something.
“It’s not like you have anything to do with him. Everyone ignores your role in this all, because obviously I’m the more important one as the planet.” He gave a self-satisfied grin as his moon only looked more desperate by the second. “Or is it his moons?”
“Why would—why would I need to talk to Jupiter’s moons?”
“You’re not popularly shipped with any of his moons,” he said, giving him an obvious stare. “But I think you do have a rarepair with each of those four moons of his. Galileo moons or whatever? I don’t know.”
Moon stared at him. “What… what’s a rarepair? Earth, are you okay?”
“Pain,” Earth said, briefly glancing off towards the distant stars and clutching a hand against his core. “Pain, Moon. That’s what it is.”
“…Maybe you should talk to Jupiter.”
“What I need is to kill these dinosaurs!” He threw his arms in the air and groaned. “They’re not inventing yuri and yaoi and fanfiction fast enough for me! How am I supposed to be shipped with every single other planet if those aren’t invented?!” When he turned around, again Earth was met with the sight of his moon trying to sneak away, and so he heaved a sigh and yanked him right back.
But watching his moon sail back towards him abruptly gave him an idea.
“Moon! You’re a genius!” he declared, grabbing him by the shoulders and violently shaking him a second time. “Just orbit in super close to me and cause cataclysmic tides! You need to kill the dinosaurs for me!” He widened his eyes and stared right down into his moon’s even as he tried to look away. “Kill the dinosaurs, Luna. You know it needs to happen.”
His moon’s eyes snapped back towards him, another look of outright confusion falling into place. “You did it again! You called me—?”
“Bah! You’re right,” he said, shoving his moon back away and whirling around with an annoyed huff. “That’s more likely to cause a collision. And we can’t collide, because somehow we’re siblings, and collision is somehow both romantic and NOT. But… like Ganymede and Europa aren’t siblings. Even though they would have been made of the same debris of stuff like we were because they’re both Jupiter’s moons. Funny, isn’t it?” He spun around and yanked back his moon, who was once AGAIN trying to sneak away from him. “Science only occasionally applies here. We run by vibes, and vibes only. No logic allowed!”
One hand clutched tight in the hood of his moon’s jacket, Earth turned and started pacing again, snatching him right back again with his gravity when he wiggled out of the jacket and tried to sneak away. “You’re not supposed to run away yet, moon. That’s not for another bunch of million years.”
“I really think I should go get Jupiter,” he insisted, still ineffectually trying to break free from his gravity. “Something’s wrong, Earth.”
“Something IS wrong,” he declared, patting him on the top of the head. “My fanfiction is in danger! How are Mars and I supposed to fall in love in like every other universe without it? And sometimes Venus is included. And sometimes Venus and Mercury.” He grinned, looking dreamily off into the distance. “Because I’m awesome. And that’s what I deserve.”
His moon held his wrist out in front of him and pinched himself.
Earth squinted at him, frowning vaguely. “Hey, I’m the depressed one in this sibling duo. It’s not your turn for the angst storyline yet.”
“This isn’t a dream?”
He ignored the complete confusion on his moon’s face.
“So no going to the Sun, no leaving the Solar System, no letting my moon cause disasters on my surface…” He frowned. “What else is there?”
“Going to Jupiter?” His moon offered hopefully.
“Asteroids! That’s perfect, Moon! I knew you’d be a great help.” He roughly rubbed at the top of his head and ignored the dismayed, That’s not what I said? that echoed behind him. “I need to get an asteroid of just the right size to be thrown at me at just the right velocity to cause an extinction event without destroying me completely!”
His moon choked, coughing several times.
Earth squinted at him yet again. “What are you coughing on? We don’t breathe. We’re planets.” Ignoring that weirdness, he turned around and stared at the asteroid belt. “How am I supposed to know the perfect asteroid for that? I don’t do math yet.” He threw a finger in the air. “But I know who does!” And so he set off out of his orbit, dragging his moon along behind him easily as he protested, saying something about where were they going? and that they should really go see Jupiter and that something was wrong with him.
Bah! Nothing was wrong with him. Yet.
There was actually plenty wrong with him, but nothing bad could happen until the period of time in which everything happened at once.
Literally everything.
Once he'd dragged his struggling moon through the entirety of the Asteroid Belt and remembered how stupidly cold it was there, Earth paused at the edge, squinting into the distance until he spotted someone. “Australian dude who isn’t Australian because Australians don’t exist yet!” he shouted, standing at the edge of the belt and ignoring his moon’s muttering behind him. “Dude who orbits on his side but also sometimes looks like he isn’t!” Far in the distance, Uranus turned to look at him, and so he frantically waved one arm widely, gesturing for him to come over. “Dude whose name shouldn’t even really be a problem because planets don’t have anuses!”
Please be a dream, his moon muttered repeatedly behind him, please be a dream.
Earth ignored him.
“Come here!”
“Bloody hell, mate, whaddaya want?” Uranus demanded, staring at him. “Do you even know my name?”
Earth scoffed. “George? Duh?” he said, giving him an obvious look.
Uranus blinked, mouth half-open. “G… George?”
“Oh, wait. No, it’s Ur-anus. I forgot the universe hates you,” he said, watching as Uranus’s confusion fixed into a scowl and he rolled his eyes. “Can I talk to your cousin?”
Uranus’s eye twitched. “Why did you call me over if you wanted to talk to Neptune?”
“Because I have no idea where he is,” Earth said, throwing his hands out. “Anyway, I need to ask him if he knows the perfect size asteroid to cause an extinction event but not kill me.”
Please be a dream, his moon continued muttering, Please be a dream.
Uranus stared at him for a moment. “Oh, I can tell you that, mate,” he finally said, shrugging. “Ten kilometers in diameter.”
Earth made a low hum. “Don’t you get a new moon right about that size in the future?”
“…What?”
“Oh, I forgot those moons just don’t exist until they’re discovered. Isn’t that weird, man?”
“I have no idea what the bloody hell you’re talking about.”
“What happens to those tiny moons when you’re not in your orbit? Do they keep existing? Are there just a bunch of unattended children in this Solar System at any point? Are they stuck as children forever?” Earth rubbed at his chin. “Also, if they’re your moons does that mean you giants are all deadbeat parents? Is there a Moon CPS I can call?”
Uranus took a step back. “I’m… gonna go back to my orbit, mate.”
“Wait, wait, before you do,” Earth said, pointing right at him. “Why do you just know I need a ten kilometer asteroid? That’s kinda weird to just know.”
He shrugged. “Neptune.”
“What… what does that mean?”
“Neptune told me.”
“Why does Neptune know?”
“He’s bloody weird about collisions,” Uranus said, shrugging a second time. “He knows plenty about the kinds of collisions everyone in the Solar System has dealt with.” He looked to the side, grimacing. “Probably because of mine. You know, the one nobody ever acknowledges?”
Please, please, please be a dream, his moon was still muttering. Please just wake up already.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, nodding before he paused. “What even happened?”
Uranus shrugged. “Who knows, mate? It’s obviously not that important.”
And then he turned around, and Earth abruptly lost all interest in him at all, whirling around to stalk past his muttering moon and grabbing him with his gravity as he did.
“Let’s go find ourselves a ten kilometer asteroid, Moon! It’s time to commit self-extinction!”
His moon just closed his eyes and dropped his head into his hands, still muttering but this time quiet enough to be incomprehensible. Not that Earth really cared.
He needed to find that asteroid, because he needed his fanfiction to exist. What sort of world would it be without it?
(Also… what was fanfiction?)