Chapter Text
It wasn’t unusual for Sun to be acting strange, especially with all that had been going on. But Moon had started to notice something…wrong. More wrong than usual.
Sun had become quiet, even when people talked to him. He’d always give the shortest answer possible. You were lucky if you got a “yeah” or an “uh-huh”, nowadays.
Moon had talked to Solar and Monty about it, and they had both confirmed his worries.
"Yeah, he has been more…well, less like himself,”
Solar said, a tinge of concern in his voice. Monty nodded their head.
"He hardly talks, even to Dazzle. I think it’s stressing the kid out a little. She’s gotten a lot more self-conscious lately. Sometimes she’ll be talking with Earth and I, and randomly just, like,”
They paused, thinking.
"I guess the words would be cut herself off?”
That piqued Moon’s curiosity.
“What do you mean?”
“She’d be talking about somethin’, last I remember it was playin’ with Jack, and she just kinda stopped herself.”
Hmm. That wasn’t a good sign.
Dazzle was the kind of kid who always thought that it was her fault. Anytime Moon was stressed, she seemed to tiptoe around him, and if she didn’t, she was asking what was wrong, frantically trying to get him out of whatever bad mood he was in. So something had to be wrong around her, and Sun, unfortunately, seemed to be the common thread with how he was acting.
Solar was the one to break the contemplative silence.
“So, we all agree that it’s Sun, right?”
Monty and Moon nodded their heads solemnly.
“Okay, then. So now the question is who’s gonna talk to him about it?”
Moon let out a sigh.
“I’ll do it.”
“You sure man?”
Monty asked.
"You two don’t exactly have…wonderful pasts with conversations like this.”
Many memories came to mind for Moon. The bunker where he had threatened and beaten his brother, and then, not long after, had to trap him in an invisible box for his own good.
Yeah, not wonderful indeed.
"I’m well aware of that fact, Monty. But I know him better than anyone. I lived in his head for five years, for the love of God, I ought to know him well at this point.”
Solar gave Moon a quick look. Moon hadn’t had emotions for so long, it was a little hard to discern exactly what it was supposed to be.
Monty sighed.
"That…I don’t know, man. I just got a bad feeling about this.”
Moon rolled his eyes.
"Monty, you really need to stop being so superstitious. It’s not like Sun’s gonna go crazy and try to kill me.”
Solar gave a small chuckle at that.
“He’s probably right there, Monty. But I also do agree with you. Moon, just be careful. It might be something to do with the whole Nexus thing, and…”
There was no need for words with that.
Moon had helped Sun suppress his…everything…concerning Nexus, trying to make sure his brother wasn’t plagued by hallucinations again. Last time that happened, Moon had died.
…
Okay, nope.
Nonononononono.
We are not getting into that today, Moon thought.
He shoved those thoughts into the back of his mind for another time. Right now, he needed to focus on his brother, who he had…delayed helping unlock his emotions.
For a good while now.
That…could be causing Sun’s weird behavior, now that he thought about it.
Huh.
“I’ll go talk to him.”
Moon got off of the couch next to the pool, walking towards the front door of Monty and Earth’s house.
Monty, still tense from the conversation, left for Earth, who was in her room playing with Daisy.
Solar went to find Jack, who had been sleeping on the couch upstairs, to make sure that he hadn’t woken up and decided to take a jog to Tucson again.
So all that was left was Moon, setting the portal down outside their house to go to his own.
Surely nothing bad would happen, right? Monty’s just too used to bad things happening. It’s fine, Moon thought.
And yet…he couldn’t shake that pit in his stomach. The one you get when everything is about to come crumbling down.
**************************************************
Sun came home from the plex a few hours after Moon’s conversation with Monty and Solar.
Moon had been prepping supplies to unsuppress (was that the word for it? Moon didn’t know.) Nexus, if Sun asked. (Or if he managed to sneak into the conversation that it was probably long overdue. Sun could be having some…less than phenomenal side effects from it, after all, and better safe than sorry.)
He heard the front door open and shut.
It sounded a bit forceful. Maybe Sun had had to clean up something particularly gross in the daycare that day? Moon thought. Anything could stress him out at this point, to be frank.
Moon was in the kitchen, eating cereal straight out of the box.
Again.
He’d decided quickly after hearing the door that if Sun was stressed, it was best to talk to him once he was comfortable and settled into his room.
He waited about fifteen minutes (all spent eating cereal), and then went up the shortcut stairs that led to his twin’s room.
He knocked on the wall before fully allowing himself in the room.
Sun was standing with his back towards Moon, holding something.
Moon wondered what it was, but quickly shook that thought off. They needed to focus on Sun right now. They walked towards him, speaking softly.
"Hey, Sun! How was your day?”
No response. Moon approached him a little slower, ignoring the part of his brain that was screaming at him to bolt down the stairs and run to Monty’s house.
Superstition. Paranoia. Nothing bad will happen. It’s all gonna be fine.
“Okay…well, I wanted to ask, how’s the whole, you know…Nexus thing going? It’s all been suppressed for so long at this point, it might be doing something to you.
We should prooooobably try and undo it…
I have everything set up in the living room if you want to-”
With no warning of any sort, Moon saw Sun turn, faster than they’d thought possible for him, and stabbed them in the eye, turning the sword inside of the socket for good measure.
Magic coursed through the weapon and straight into Moon’s circuits. He let out an agonized scream as the pain racked his body.
His optics in his right eye had gone out, and the pain was searing, white hot, even.
Burning.
He fell to the ground, reeling, lifting his hand to his eye, feeling but not registering the cool blood-like oil dripping out of the exposed socket. He was shaking from the amount of pain he was in.
“AUGH! SUN- WHAT THE HELL?”
Sun’s voice came out cold and emotionless, not an ounce of remorse to be found.
“I’m taking Dazzle and leaving. Don’t follow us or next time, it’s more than the eye I’m taking.”
Moon could hardly believe what was coming out of his brother’s mouth. He managed to barely mutter through the pain once more, though it was accompanied by a few grunts.
“Wha-I-Sun, what are you talking about…?”
He opened his functioning eye and saw a sight he knew would forever live in his nightmares: Sunrise Celestial, his twin brother, standing with an emotionless expression, holding a sword with Moon’s eye on the point.
It was dripping with oil.
His oil.
And for the first time he noticed the oil pouring from his exposed eye socket, drenching his face.
He was getting woozy. Damn the Creator and his simulated blood loss symptoms, Moon thought. Or…he thought he thought. Everything was getting a bit fuzzy. Even through his body screaming in agony, he felt himself slowly losing his consciousness…
“...Sun?”
He managed to half mumble, half choke out, his voice box not wanting to cooperate.
Or maybe that was the shock running through his mind, trying to process all that was happening.
Their voicebox was definitely shorting out, though. Sun’s magic was slowly overloading Moon’s systems, coupling with the damage the attack had initially dealt and the magic now flowing through their body at a vicious rate.
With a voice colder than ice and dripping with venom, Sun said two words. Just two. And Moon finally registered what Sun had been saying since the attack.
“We’re leaving.”
With that joyous note to end on, Sun teleported away, probably to Dazzle’s room, as Moon could faintly make out some sobs from Dazzle. Something about her not wanting to leave, and two portal-like noises that occurred before and after Moon had heard her voice.
And, just like that, Moon was short of an eye and had gained one more Sun to be an adversary of.
But this Sun was his brother.
Those were his last thoughts before he passed out, the artificial adrenaline failing his body and the oil loss and magic winning out.