Chapter Text
Everything was too bright.
Blinding in his eyes, he couldn’t see a single thing. Everything was a blur, just like when he’d first woke up, and he didn’t know how to make it stop. All he’d wanted to do was get out of there. That was all! Yet here he was, zooming through the air unable to stop.
Everything was on fire. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t see. He wanted everything to stop, stop, STOP–
And suddenly he was faceplanting again, rough gravel and grass scraping across his face. Throwing his hands in front of him in an attempt to stop faster and protect his face, he felt fire light beneath him with every foot he was skidding. However, this only succeeded in flipping him over, leaving every part of his body to get interaction with the ground. Flipping and tumbling similar to the way someone would fall down a hill, he must’ve been going fast.
When Solar finally did come to a halt, he just laid face down in the grass, every part of his casing burning from the scrapes. After not being able to breathe for what had to be at least twenty minutes at that point, he was gasping like a man who was near to drowning. Yet not in all that time did he shed a single drop of oil, nor did he scrape off enough of himself to be concerned about it.
Every part of his body was shaking. He didn’t even know what happened. The astral body had said something, and he freaked out, suddenly unable to choose a form? What the hell was wrong with him? In that moment everything had felt wrong, burning and swirling to match whatever he was turning into. He couldn’t take it. So, just like he always did, he fled. He ran away from the only person who knew what the hell was happening to him.
Slowly, tentatively, he lifted his head, looking back on the ground he’d gotten to know so well. Multicolored fire burned through the grass, leaving nothing but rock and gravel. He was sure he’d lit at least a few football fields worth of grass on fire.
Solar let his head fall back down, claws digging into the dirt in upset. Every part of his body ached, not just in pain, but in exhaustion. After being dead for god knows how long he wasn’t ready to be thrown back into the land of the living, especially not in a form that he had zero experience with. He couldn’t even stay himself if he got too upset. What kind of sick joke was this?
Arms trembling, he forced himself back up, this time pulling himself into a sitting position. A car flew by behind him, alerting him to the fact that not only had he started a fire, he’d started a fire next to a road. Not like whoever was driving that car seemed to care, he thought to himself. Yet even so, he managed to stand, ignoring the fresh hot lava pouring down his cheeks. He wondered if it would burn to anyone else, or if he was just overheating. Who knew. Certainly not him.
He stumbled down the small hill the road was poured upon and towards the sparse amount of trees off to the side. He couldn’t be out in the open like this. Not that he knew what he looked like anyway. He didn’t really care to know.
Once he reached a tree he could lean on, he let himself fall back onto it, letting the bark scrape his robe and surely tear it up as he fell to the ground. He could really care less about the stupid thing. Especially when everything that had happened was finally catching up to him.
Death. One so unlike 'going out with a bang'. It was more like getting dropped into cold water, really. Amazing how he died cold and woke up on fire. He really missed being cool. Everything burned and not in a good way. If he had organs he was sure he’d feel each one individually turning to flames and swirling around the same point in his stomach. Something constantly needing to be fed, a black hole. It hurt. Everything hurt.
He never thought he’d feel so upset about a feeling. After all, as robots, they couldn’t feel pain. Not like humans could, anyway. So he didn’t know this visceral burning, the gulping flames eating him up from the inside out. Was this what heartburn was? Nausea? He needed to compare it to something. Something had to be able to compare to this. He needed to cool off yet it hurt so terribly to be in the shadows and he didn’t know what to do.
Before he knew it, he was flicking through his internal phone’s call list, thank god he still had it somehow. He needed to talk to someone. He needed to know someone was there, that someone would come and help him. Genuinely, he didn’t remember the last time he’d been mentally this low, or if he even had been before. Something this physical shouldn’t hurt this bad. He was normally really good at blocking things out. But this time, it seemed he would have to admit defeat.
He stopped at Lunar’s number, staring at the text that had been put before his eyes. Surely Lunar knew what was happening to him. Was this what Lunar had been through, too? No… Lunar had a body he could attach to. If he’d gone through this he would’ve been talking about it, wouldn’t he? Right?
Before he could second guess himself he hit the call button, hoping to whatever would listen to him that his brother cousin wouldn’t just think it was spam and would pick up. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know what he would do if nobody could help him. His GPS especially had been screwed up ever since he’d gone to this dimension but he didn’t ever think of fixing it because it didn’t seem important. But now, it might be the death of him.
“This is the Depresso Expresso, where you can Expresso your Depresso through creamer and cups. How might I therapy you with coffee today?”
Solar sat in silence at the absolute deadpan of Lunar’s voice. That alongside whatever the 'spam call troll phrase' was made a few giggles crawl their way out of his throat. Giggling turned to laughter and then to full on cackling, the back of his head hitting the tree he leaned on as the hot tears finally stopped. Lunar said something but he couldn’t hear it, too caught up in his laughter to even attempt to listen.
After what felt like an eternity he was able to calm down, laughter dying down as he shivered underneath the shade of the tree. “Hey, hi, Lunar,” he finally said, struggling to keep his warmth. Somehow he went from 'center of the sun' hot to 'sick human with a fever getting thrown in the snow' cold. God, he didn’t understand anything anymore.
“You– Solar–” the small bot stuttered through the line, seeming to struggle finding his words. Ah, so the news of his death did reach him. He wasn’t sure if Moon would have kept it a secret under the vain belief he could fix it. He wouldn’t put it past the big idiot.
(He really hoped there was no repeat of what happened in his dimension. He would seriously scream.)
“Yeah. It’s me.” Solar wiped his eyes, hoping his voice didn’t sound too choked up. After everything that had happened he didn’t have the energy to try and hide everything. He was pretty sure he’d implode on himself if he tried. Maybe bottling everything up for over a year wasn’t the greatest idea. He never claimed to be the healthiest.
Lunar sputtered for a moment, before finally recovering his ability to speak English. “You’re– you’re okay!” he laughed, his voice sounding much, much brighter. “You’re okay! You’re really okay! Earth!!”
Solar chuckled at his friend’s joy, waiting for him to retrieve his sister. HIs chest was lighter already at just hearing the other’s voice. He really loved these guys.
Earth’s voice could be distantly heard through Lunar’s scrambling, but eventually he could hear her voice clearly. It sounded like Lunar had yanked her down unceremoniously instead of explaining so she could come down herself. Typical.
“Hello?” came Earth’s voice, sounding distant in a way that made Solar want to go and give her a tight hug. What exactly had he missed?
“Hey,” he greeted, expecting to be able to say more but being cut off by Earth’s loud gasp. He could practically hear Lunar’s smile as Earth shouted his name in shock. He couldn’t help how the giggling returned, the whole situation filling him with the cool wind of relief. More than anything, he missed these guys. His sense of time had been warped so bad that it felt like it had been longer than it actually was since he’d seen them, but that just made the relief all the more powerful.
“Solar! How, where, what! Where are you?! How are you?? Alive, I mean! I mean, I’m really happy to know you’re okay!”
Solar couldn’t help but giggle again, hearing Earth’s struggle to form a sentence. “I know. I know what you’re trying to say. I’m happy to be here too. You don’t even know.”
Lunar and Earth laughed in unison with him. Everything had been so much that he forgot how nice it was to talk to them. He often spent so much time with Moon that he forgot how much he appreciated the rest of his family. He was sure he could survive the heat death of the universe with them. More than anything, he wanted to be with them.
Speaking of, he was still in the middle of butt fuck nowhere. And in all honesty, he was sick of being alone. He’d spent so many months in his universe alone and he wasn’t keen to return to anything remotely like that. He’d rather be back in the daycare with his friends, please and thanks.
“Discussions to be had later,” Lunar said to both Solar and Earth, probably bouncing where he was. Solar could imagine it. “Where are you? We’re gonna, come get you! Right now!”
His smile fell. Well, wasn’t that the question to be asked. “Uhhh…” Solar looked around, trying to find something that could even give him a hint as to where he was. Unfortunately, true to it being the middle of nowhere, there was nothing but trees and road. “I got nothin. I’m near a road but that’s all I can tell you. Probably… uh…”
That was when Solar realized he had zero ideas on how to get home. Normally he’d just call Moon and have him use his computer to access his systems, but he wasn’t entirely sure he had systems anymore. Sure, he had his internal phone, but how real was that? He wasn’t an animatronic anymore, even if that was the facade physical form he put on. Could he even be found?
“How about I call Moon,” Solar suggested slowly, inspecting his robe closer. He wondered if he could change it, since he could change his appearance. “And… Lunar?” Lunar hummed in response, the ringing of the bell on his hat managing to get through the call. “Uh. If you can, you… might want to get Castor & Pollux.”
“Huh? Why?”
Oh boy. Where was he even to start…
————————————————————
Moon sighed as he sat at the security desk of the daycare, leaning back in his seat and putting an arm over his face. God, he was so tired of shit going wrong. It seemed that every step he took, something new popped up. He was really tired.
Really, he was tired in general. But everything would’ve been better if it weren’t for Ruin.
He still wasn’t succeeding in his mission to bring back Solar. Even now, a week and a half afterwards, after he’d gotten Ruin’s code, he still couldn’t find anything. The freak hadn’t been lying; he didn’t have any sort of knowledge on how to bring Solar back, or any sort of knowledge in the first place on how he could’ve stopped it from happening. Moon scoured his code. He was sure he didn’t miss anything. He’d gone through it four times over now.
Moon could only laugh bitterly. After everything Solar had done for them, he couldn’t even pay him back. He couldn’t even save him. What a cruel joke. It seemed like the universe just couldn’t let him be happy.
Suddenly, his internal phone blared in his audio receptors, causing him to let out a loud ‘FUCK’ in surprise. He was so caught up in his self loathing that he kind of forgot about the outside world. So, without looking at the contact name, he answered, assuming it was one of his siblings.
“Hey? Hi,” he greeted, scrambling to pull himself back together. When he didn’t get a reply, he finally looked at the contact name, finding that there was none at all yet he still had it saved. Moon squinted. “Who is this?”
“Hey, Moon.”
Every thought that had been running through his head suddenly came to a screeching halt upon hearing that voice. That familiarly tired and kind voice, one that Eclipse himself couldn’t imitate even if he tried despite having the same voice box. One that he’d been fighting for since the day he’d lost it.
At first he couldn’t respond. He tried to find his words and speak yet nothing came out, a lump in his nonexistent throat. He could finally say everything he wanted to say to him yet he couldn’t speak. Every time he tried it seemed that his vents wouldn’t open to let his words out, like there was an error in his voice box that wasn’t being detected.
And it was that that made tears come to his eyes. The fact that he couldn’t say anything to the guy he’d worked so hard to save and yet he couldn’t even do it. He wasn’t the one to do it. He failed.
“Hey– hey, it’s okay,” Solar’s voice came, bringing yet another twist to Moon’s gut. His brother’s universe had collapsed and here Moon was, crying his eyes out over his best friend. He didn’t know when his head fell forward onto the desk, but before he knew it his tears were falling between the keys of the keyboard. He couldn’t– the image of Solar just fading away was brought to the forefront of his mind again, and he couldn’t think of anything else. He felt like he could vomit and he couldn’t even do so.
“Moon. Remember what we tell Sun. You’ve gotta breathe. You’re gonna overheat.”
Claws gripped his hat tightly, nearly ripping through the fabric as he tried to listen. “I, it’s my fault, I should’ve– I didn’t– if I had just–”
Moon could sense rather than hear Solar’s sigh, almost feel the tentative hand he’d probably place on his back. God, he wished Solar were here right now. He’d wished that since the moment he’d been left alone. And now that he was back he was still wishing for more.
“It’s not your fault. You know it’s not. And I’m not gonna let you continue to believe that it is,” he scolded. “And it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. Not anymore.”
Moon let out a wheeze he would never own up to making. He needed to find him. Needed to get him home, needed to really see that he was real. That was what made him stand on shaky legs despite the tears with resolve to do something right for once.
“Computer,” he called weakly, typing away at the tear-stained keyboard. “Sending you the call signal. Find where it's coming from.”
“Understood. Searching…”
“Moon you better take a second to take a breather before you go searching or I will personally scorch you.”
Moon could only grumble, rubbing desperately at his eyes in an attempt to wipe them away. “The Old Moon wouldn’t have cried. The Old Moon would’ve actually been able to bring you back. The Old Moon could’ve done everything right. But I can’t. I’m not like him, I’m not smart and I’m not resilient and I can’t–”
“You’re right,” Solar interrupted, “but before you spiral on me I want you to listen. The Old Moon wouldn’t have even taken me in. He wouldn’t have gone to me for help. He would’ve tried to deal with things himself and he would’ve destroyed himself and Sun in the process. I would’ve already been dead if you had kept your memories, because I wouldn’t have had anywhere to go the first time I needed help. I wouldn’t have a family I could rely on.”
His words hit harder than Moon wanted to admit. It was almost instinct at this point to let the sorrow consume him and block everyone out, but he forced himself to take a mental step back. Not the Old Moon.
The sigh that escaped him was embarrassing but at this point he didn’t care, letting himself sink back into his seat. This time when he leaned his head forward on the table alongside his crossed arms it was a lot more calm, a lot more like how he should have felt. Relief that the person who could always help him handle his emotions was okay.
Wait– was he okay? How did he even come back without Moon? Everything had been wiped.
“You okay?” Solar asked him, and he went to nod before remembering he was on a call. At this point, Moon had sat back up, confusion rather than panic going through his mind.
“I’m okay now,” he hastily replied, looking at the coordinates the computer had sent him. He sputtered. Solar was in the center of fuck knows where! How the hell did he get so far from the island, let alone the Pizzaplex? “How the hell did you get all the way out there?”
Solar sighed, seeming to contemplate his answer before he finally replied, “long story. I’ll explain it to you when you get here.”
Of course he was. That just spurred Moon to hop out faster, wanting to get out and know the story as soon as he could. Whatever had happened, Moon was going to take thorough note of. He wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to his brother ever again.
————————————————————
“Are you SERIOUS, Leo?!”
Leo flinched at their siblings’ angry voices, keeping their smile plastered on their face. "What? You know I don’t mess around with Earthlings gaining star power." Gemini only rolled their eyes, knowing Leo’s distaste for how adamantly they defended Lunar. It wasn’t something they’d wanted to get between them, but it was something they knew might happen.
Leo jammed his finger into the twins’ joined chest, squinting at them. “You might be stupid enough to go and play along with that little conductor, but I really don’t care for it.”
Gemini could only glare at their sibling in return, searching through his thoughts to find the information they knew Leo would beat around the bush giving them. However, when they found something they were not looking for, their grin turned a little bit gloating. Mostly the male twin’s doing. “You seemed to quite enjoy being nice to him,” Castor jabbed, staring up at the other with what was just a little bit of a teasing smile.
Leo only sputtered, finally getting out of Gemini’s personal space with a huff. “God forbid I help someone I believe to be a normal protostar,” they argued, their tail flipping in agitation and hitting their leg and back with a soft thump each time. Yes, they did help at first. But the moment he realized that not only were they an Earthling, but also someone from an alternate universe who happened to be another version of the guy who’d stolen and abused the Newton Star? He wasn’t exactly going to stop him from running.
“If you really cared about what happened to Noctua,” Castor hissed, splitting back into two. Pollux backed up a bit while Castor stayed levitated in front of Leo’s face, his much shorter form making it harder to get the point across without floating. “Then you wouldn’t have let. Him. Flee.”
“You act like you couldn’t find him in an instant, you big baby, appearance included,” putting his hand on Castor’s head and pushing him down and to the side. “Besides, we still need to discuss with the others. What was I supposed to do? Bring him with? What a great idea.”
“From your description,” Pollux finally spoke, holding Castor’s hand from where he still floated above her, like a balloon string, “he seemed to already have pretty good access to his powers. Lunar didn’t have that and you know it! I KNOW this is a jab at him and I’m not gonna let it happen!”
Leo rolled his eyes. “Well, maybe if Lunar actually had it together up here,” he accentuated his statement with a ‘coo-coo’ motion towards his head, “then I might trust you more on this. You’re lucky you got Libra on your side, but with another member of that family gaining a natural affinity to star power? I think you’re gonna have a hard time convincing them again. Especially with Nebula. She’s been watching.”
“Libra is not an executioner!”
“No, but Taurus is,” Leo hissed, looking back at the two. “And you know what his opinion on the matter is."
That sure shot the twins down, causing them both to fall into silence as Leo ran his hand through his mane. It seemed that every conversation he had with them now ended like this, all because of the struggle that one family had brought to every one of the astral bodies. At this point they just needed to be exterminated, but because Gemini just had to form attachments (probably Pollux’s fault), they were now stuck in this constant battle.
“We will find him. Together,” Leo eventually hissed through gritted teeth, causing Pollux to perk up. “BUT. Big but. If this ends up the way you don’t want it to go, then I’m not fighting for you.”
Castor sighed, deflating. “Yeah. We figured.”
"Good. Glad we’re on the same page." Leo flipped up his detached hood, looking off into the distance. “Meet you there.”
And with that Leo was flashing into fire, flying across the terrain like a cheetah let loose. Merging, the twins could only sigh, sitting in the grass with their head in their knees.
“There’s nothing more we can do for him, now,” Castor admitted, gripping the dirt. He could feel Pollux’s sadness. She really cared about them, but there was nothing else they could do.
“I know.”
“Ready?”
"I guess.”