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Uranus had no idea what he was doing.
Okay, that was a lie. He had an idea of what he was doing, and literally nothing else.
He was going after X. But the question of everything after that still hung out in the open, and Uranus was doing his absolute best to ignore that… mostly because he had no answer for it. X could call him a lunatic and leave him behind, or he could say he could come with him. Or Uranus could… convince him to come back?
He could stay in the Solar System if he knew he had someone on his side.
Was X on his side?
Bloody hell, Uranus didn’t know.
He just wanted to find X, and he’d see where everything went from there. Hopefully in a good direction, but…
Uranus’s eye twitched, feathers ruffling along his wings as he snapped them closer, folding his arms over his chest—and he kept his focus entirely away from the Solar System behind as he pushed forward. He’d purposefully gone in the same direction Jupiter had come from in the hopes that also meant the same direction X had gone, but he had… no idea about that. He was essentially at a complete lack of information. Flying blind.
He really, really didn’t like that.
“X!” he called out, funneling all of his frustration into the volume of his voice. His throat ached from the force of it, but… well, he didn’t really care. “X! Mate? I need to talk to you!” The void around him remained silent, nothing but the twinkling of the far, far stars greeting him. “I want to go with you,” he forced out much quieter, voice breaking in the middle.
Which was bloody embarrassing.
He sort of hoped X hadn’t heard that part.
“X? Please?”
He was not going to beg.
…Okay, maybe he would beg, but not yet. He wasn’t at that point.
He was seconds from begging, for the sake of every bloody star in the galaxy. How far away could X have gotten? The Solar System wasn’t even that far away from his perspective, which meant either he was moving as slow as molasses or he’d really misjudged the distance.
…It was probably a mixture of both.
“Bloody hell, mate, where are you?!” He folded his arms over his chest with a frustrated groan. “Come on,” he complained. “Are you hiding from me?”
“Why would I do that?”
He startled, shoulders hiking up, wings flaring out in instinctive panic as he shrieked embarrassingly—and then he registered that he recognized the voice, and he whipped around with a disbelieving kind of joy curling tight around his core, smothering even his embarrassment of his startled shriek.
“X! You’re here,” he said, giving a relieved sigh, one hand splayed against his chest. His wings fluttered behind him, curving towards X before he tucked them in tighter. “I’ve been looking for you.”
X grinned, lips tugging up in one corner more than the other.
“I didn’t notice,” he said, tipping his head to the side. Uranus watched one errant lock of hair tumble over his features before he brushed it behind his ear, arching an eyebrow. His scar pulled with the motion, but Uranus didn’t let himself stare at it for more than a second before he lurched forward, hands fastened desperately on his shoulders.
He couldn’t let him disappear again, after all.
“I need to talk to you,” he rushed out. “It’s important.”
X’s grin widened, sending his pulse kicking a notch higher in the back of his mind. “Oh, I know what you came here for,” he said, eyes boring into his own, practically pinning him in place. Uranus could barely think straight from the force of it. “I know what you need.”
That was… a little weird. But Uranus chose to ignore it.
“You do?” He let out another relieved sigh. “Thank the stars, mate. Now I don’t have to e—”
Whatever else he’d been about to say fled from his mind the moment X leaned forward and closed the gap between them, lips fitting clumsily against his.
Huh.
Huh!?
Uranus nearly felt like he’d somehow gone supernova, heat surging into every inch of his skin with every second that passed, his eyes still wide open and peering straight into X’s closed ones, the imperfect scar catching his gaze as his scattered thoughts scraped together—
—and then he realized just how much he did desperately want this, and he sagged into X and let his eyes slide shut. The clumsiness of it melted away quickly as he adjusted, his hands fisting in X’s jacket to anchor himself, and he was rewarded with one of X’s hands drawing up to his face, thumb digging into his cheek, swiping underneath his eye. The other grasped at his waist as he dragged him even closer, nearly flush against him.
Uranus forgot his original intentions completely, chasing after X when he broke the kiss.
“W-what?” he stammered, dazed and confused.
“That’s what you wanted, right?” X said, still grinning wildly at him, his lips shiny and reddened in a way that made his thoughts shut down for several more seconds.
Apparently… it was.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a while now,” he said, off-handed and quick, nevertheless making Uranus nearly short-circuit. “So I thought why not? Anyway—”
And then he yanked him right back into another kiss, and Uranus melted right back into him with a helpless sort of sound, far too aware that he was never going to protest another.
He wasn’t used to anyone being colder than him, but X was.
Every touch was freezing cold where his fingers grazed unendingly—against his cheeks, his neck, underneath the collar of his sweater—and Uranus was left to shudder, the feeling horribly pleasant enough to distract him even from the overwhelming eagerness of X’s mouth against his.
He let out a bitten-off sound between them, nose brushing against X’s as he shuffled in impossibly closer, tilting his head to perfect the angle.
And then X’s mouth opened against his, and he nipped first gently and then much harder at his bottom lip, tugging it once before his tongue swept along the seam of his lips slow as molasses. Uranus let them part without contest, adjusting faster than he thought he would to the feeling of X’s tongue slick against his, an intoxicating sensation that had his hands shaking, his wings quivering behind him. He forgot how to think as they separated and then melted right back into another kiss several times in a row, barely remembering enough to gasp for breath when X let him go for those precious few seconds.
Time melted into itself, and frankly even if he’d had the ability to track it Uranus wouldn’t have.
X’s hand slowly trailed from the nape of his neck along his shoulder, and before Uranus realized what he was doing he’d planted it against one wing, fingers burying between the feathers and brushing through them.
He gave a full-body shiver, mouth falling open against his as he gasped involuntarily.
“M-mate,” he managed to breathe out, rolling his shoulders.
His wing arched forward into X’s hand like it had a mind of its bloody own.
X broke away from him only to press a kiss to his jawline, lips skating along his skin; then his hand dropped, trailing down where his wings met his back, fingers brushing roughly against a long-sore spot that tore an actual sound of pain from him, his fingers twitching and knotting tighter in X’s jacket.
His hand fell away from his feathers instantly, and Uranus immediately missed the chill of it, unhooking his fingers only to grab for his wrist. “No,” he said, tilting his head back to catch X’s eyes. His were narrowed slightly, half-lidded in a way that sent sparks through him. “It’s fine, X, keep—” Instead of saying it, Uranus just awkwardly pushed X’s hand back to his wing, curling towards it in the same moment. “Please?”
X cocked his head to the side, obvious surprise flickering in his eyes.
But relief burned through him when he finally huffed, fingers burying back into his feathers.
“Feels nice,” he mumbled, returning to mouth against his throat, nipping hard at his pulse point as Uranus gave another involuntarily gasp at the feeling and shuddered, his wings quivering behind him. “They’re soft.” His fingers flexed and dug deeper within the feathers, planted in one spot rather than skipping around as he had before.
Not that Uranus minded all that much. He just liked feeling his hands… there.
He wound his arms around X’s neck and tilted his head back to bare his throat, staring dizzily at the stars painting the vista above—at least, above from his perspective—as he trailed kisses down the line of his throat, hair brushing ticklish against him. He wasn’t even sure what they were doing anymore. He just knew he didn’t want it to end.
This was the last thing he’d expected to happen.
Which was why—
“U-Uranus? X?”
The sound of Jupiter’s voice caught him by such surprise he nearly slammed his head straight into X’s—and their eyes met for half a second before he jerked around so quickly he almost toppled over, flushing blood-warm. His wings shot out behind him, knocking X’s hand away as he instinctively shielded him behind one.
“J-Jupiter?! Mate? What are you doing here?”
Jupiter seemed just as embarrassed as he felt, one fist against his mouth, his gaze turned into the distance rather than directly at them. “Pluto told Saturn and I that you were trying to leave.”
Pluto had what?! Now Uranus regretted stopping to talk to him at all. Bloody hell.
X made a noise at his side, but Uranus was too focused on Jupiter to really register what.
“I wanted—I needed to bring you back.”
…What?
Frankly too embarrassed to bother considering the slight warmth that wrapped around his core, Uranus folded his arms over his chest. “Yeah? And what took you so long? I told Pluto I was leaving—uh. Forever ago.” He actually had no idea how long had passed. He just knew it was a while.
He’d had enough time to find X, after all. To find X and—
His face burned even hotter, and he rubbed one hand at his throat, ignoring the quiet snicker X gave beside him.
“There was a situation with Earth,” Jupiter said, frowning, eyes finally locking onto them. “I had to deal with it. I didn’t—I didn’t expect you’d have already found X.” He cleared his throat. “Or—”
“Excuse you,” X said, pushing his wing aside. Uranus let it drop, closing both tight against his back. “I let him find me.”
Uranus knitted his brow, blinking at him in confusion. “You did?”
Well… that did make more sense. He had found X awfully fast. Faster than he probably should have, even as annoyed as he’d gotten. But did that mean…?
He shrugged. “I heard you.”
And then he turned his focus back to Jupiter, ignoring him as Uranus stared, mouth half-open; not that Jupiter seemed anymore put-together than he was. “I—apologies,” he said, eyes drifting between them, his brow furrowing. “I didn’t expect to find you two…” He trailed off, but the implication was obvious.
Uranus flushed furiously, folding his arms over his chest as he glared at him. “You make out with Saturn in your respective orbits all the bloody time,” he said, voice cracking. “You can’t say anything!” He was met with another embarrassed cough from Jupiter as he shifted his weight from side to side. If he could see his face properly, Uranus imagined he’d be blushing just as much as he was.
“No, no,” he said quickly, clearing his throat again. “You’re— I just wasn’t aware that you two were—when did—?”
Honestly, Uranus wanted an answer to that question too.
“Stars above, Jupiter, what are you here for?!”
Both he and Jupiter jolted at the sudden exasperated exclamation from X, and he gave a violent shake of his head and then refocused on them, his voice much firmer when he spoke again. “I’m here to bring you back to the Solar System, Uranus.”
Uranus squinted at him. “What do you care?”
“What do I—what do you mean, Uranus?”
“What do you care?” he repeated, mouth drawing into a scowl. “It’s not like the Solar System needs me. The first one to treat me like an actual friend was X. He’s all I need.” He knew he wasn’t… telling the truth, exactly. Neptune had been his first friend, and despite how much distance—literal and metaphorical—had grown between them Uranus knew that would never change. But it was the truth as he saw it, and that was all that mattered to him. Besides… how was Neptune his friend when he had never understood what he hated so much about their lives? Why he wanted it to change so much? “I-I said I was going to leave and nobody cared, so why should I return?”
Jupiter opened and closed his mouth several times.
He just huffed and dug his nails into his jacket, wings quivering no matter how much he tried to stop it. “So—so go back, Jupiter,” he said, unable to help the slight shake in his voice. “The others care about you. They wanted you back. So go. And leave me alone.” He paused. “With X.”
Despite how off-kilter he looked, Jupiter didn’t listen to him. “Not without you, Uranus,” he said, mouth thinning. “You’re an important part of the system, no matter what you may think. Or what anyone else might say.”
He scoffed. “That would have been great to hear bloody eons ago.”
Now it was just hard to believe it.
And despite how much his core ached at the thought, Uranus didn’t want to return to a home that offered him nothing but—nothing but misery in return. He was done being made a joke of. Or ignored. Or being treated like he was the worst bloody planet in existence when all he’d done was try to make things better!
…Okay. Maybe that was at the expense of a few others, and maybe he still felt the sharp sting of regret whenever he remembered how it’d felt in the first few moments after X had sent all of those asteroids, when he was worried he’d lost one of his moons, and maybe he didn’t actually want anyone else to get hurt, even bloody Saturn—and maybe X’s plan wasn’t the best way to go about things, but it was a plan. It was a plan!
Jupiter’s voice tore him from his thoughts, stopping his spiral. “I’m sorry, Uranus,” he said, gently, his brow knitting. “Really. I wish I’d noticed how much you were hurting. It seems I’ve missed more than I can even imagine. I regret that.”
Uranus swallowed hard.
“But you don’t need to leave for things to change,” Jupiter continued. “And you don’t need to hurt anyone else in the process either.” He sighed. “I told X—” At his side, X shifted, giving a wordless mutter. “—and I’ll tell you. I can find a way to make it work. I want to help. You just have to—to give it a chance. Please? There’s no need to leave. I don’t want you to leave, and as much as you think so, I don’t think anyone does.”
Huh.
Okay. Now it was a bit harder to convince himself this was the right choice.
But an entire system of wrongs one apology didn’t fix, and so he frowned, worrying at his bottom lip. “I’m not coming back unless it’s with X,” he finally said, tipping his chin up. He forced himself to sound far surer than he actually felt. “I’m serious, mate.”
He jolted at a sudden pinch on his wing, and when he turned X was staring at him, eyes narrowed.
“What?” he hissed.
“What?” Uranus hissed back. “I’m going with you! Or you’re staying, too.”
X’s eye twitched. “No, you’re not. I’m going off on my own. To find a new system.”
“We can do that together,” Uranus said quickly, stepping closer and reaching for X’s arms. His brows knit, panic flickering in his chest. “Please. You can’t just leave me again. Not after you just—”
X interrupted him. “You’re acting like—”
Jupiter cleared his throat, interrupting both of them. Uranus jerked his head to glance at him, fingers still knotted in X’s jacket, mirrored by X in front of him. “If X wants to return, he can,” he said, wearing an awkward smile. “I was serious when I offered to make it work. I will.”
…Forget everything, Uranus was actually completely fine with Jupiter. He could be his friend.
“Did I say I wanted to return?” X grumbled, batting his hands away. “Of course not.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” he said, voice strained. “Then why did you let me find you, mate?”
X opened and then closed his mouth, visibly clenching his jaw; and something flickered over his expression too fast to read before he frowned, mouth pressing in a thin line.
“Consider it a moment of weakness.”
“A moment of—” Uranus gave a frustrated sound and turned around, stalking away. “It didn’t bloody feel like one,” he muttered to himself, cheeks warming at the mere memory. He turned around only to find X staring at him, and again his expression flickered—but this time he was able to ascertain the emotion.
It was guilt.
Jupiter was still staring at them, a fact that Uranus registered when he turned away from X with a weight wrapped tight around his core. “Can we have a second, mate?” he asked, unable to help the grumpy tone of his voice.
Jupiter arched an eyebrow.
“Of course,” he said, dipping his head in a tiny nod. A sigh of relief crept out of him, interrupted a moment later as Jupiter continued with, “as long as you don’t start making out again. We really do have to return before the Sun decides he’s going to confine us to our orbits for the rest of our known lives.”
A furious flush returned to his cheeks despite the bitter cold around them, despite how annoyed he’d just felt.
“I—we w-won’t,” he spluttered, far too aware of the nervous flutter of his wings behind him. “Bloody hell.”
Who even said they were going to return?!
Even if… even if now he sort of did want to return.
Giving a barely-heard chuckle, Jupiter turned around without another word, gliding just far enough away that the nigh-overwhelming grip of his gravity finally faded to a barely-there tug. (Thankfully.)
When he refocused on X, Uranus was surprised to find he was already looking at him, his expression unreadable if not for the stiffness in his posture making it clear he was uncomfortable more than anything else. He’d furrowed his brows, the lingering tint to his cheeks only making Uranus’s own burn hotter.
He… had absolutely no bloody idea what to say.
Uranus opened his mouth and then thought better of it, worrying at his bottom lip; another flash-fire burned through him when he watched X’s eyes drop, his lips parting in clear interest. His wings fluttered a second time, but Uranus strangled back the urge, closing them tight against his back and hooking his fingers together.
“X, I—please, mate. You can’t leave. You—you heard Jupiter. You can stay!”
Please, please, please, he pleaded, please stay.
Stars, he didn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t. He—he would have to go with him. And he would.
X’s hand fisted, clenching at his side so hard Uranus knew it had to hurt at least a little. The muscles in his jaw twitched… and then he pasted on a crooked smirk that seemed less genuine than any Uranus had seen on him before, as fake as the confidence he tried to muster every time he thought about leaving. “Should I?” he drawled. “The last time I was there, I messed things up pretty well. If I say so.”
Quicker than he realized he could move, Uranus grabbed his hand, prying his fingers apart to lace theirs together.
X’s eyes widened, jumping between their hands and his face, his pasted-on smirk faltering.
But he didn’t say anything, or pull away, so… Uranus counted that as a victory. “Please,” he finally said aloud, breathless and yet again half-a-second from outright begging. “Just come back with me. Or—or let me go with you!”
He didn’t even want to think about the fact that he’d already decided for himself that if X returned, he would.
Was he ever as confident in his choice to leave as he wished he was?
That time X scoffed, pulling his hand away despite Uranus’s attempt to keep them locked together.
“And what if it’s better for me to leave? Better for y—”
“If it’s better for you to leave,” Uranus said, his core cracking in two with the words, “then you can leave.” He jabbed a finger in his chest, backing X up. “But you haven’t even tried to stay!”
And I’d go with you, anyway.
X’s eye twitched. “Would people stop telling me I haven’t tried?”
“You haven’t!” His voice cracked that time, embarrassing in all measures, but Uranus forged on. “You failed in your revenge because Proteus guilted you—” The revenge he’d been all too happy to go along with… “—and you immediately gave up, mate! I tried—I tried to tell you to wait, but you didn’t. You just left!”
“Woe is me,” he shot back, rolling his eyes. “I gave up because I realized how stupid I was being, and that it’d keep being stupid if I tried to stay! I talked to Jupiter, and I—I realized this Solar System has nothing to offer me.”
Uranus folded his arms over his chest and tried to ignore how much that hurt. He hadn’t even realized how strongly he’d felt about X—even if he really should have—and now that statement just felt like one of his own arrows to the core. “Oh, really, mate?”
X opened and then closed his mouth, muttering a wordless grumble. Uranus just narrowed his eyes more, purposefully catching one canine against his bottom lip. His eyes widened. “Okay,” he said, eyes locked onto him, “fine. That might be a lie. But this—I already messed this up once, who’s to say I won’t do it again?”
“I messed up too,” Uranus said, tilting his chin up. He rolled his shoulders and forced his wings to stay closed despite the bleeding urge to reach out towards X, the feathers shivering in the corner of his vision. “My mistake was siding with you. There. We both messed up, we both made a mistake, and we can both start again.”
Bloody hell. That sounded stupid. And mental.
Uranus wasn’t used to doing things like this. Why couldn’t Jupiter be the one convincing him to stay?
X snickered, his shoulders quivering. “So persuasive.”
He resisted the urge to bury his face his hands and groan, searching for anything else to say. “I mean—mate, don’t you want an apology from Saturn? You told me he helped Jupiter eject you, didn’t he?” And he knew Saturn regretted it. He’d said as much after telling him he was disappointed in him, the words still dinging at his core even long after he’d physically heard them. “You left without talking to him.”
X narrowed his eyes.
“Saturn was just his accomplice,” he said, scowling. “Jupiter is the one who actually did it, who started holding me back with his gravity to keep me from telling the Sun what he did. I hated him the most. I didn’t really care for using Saturn’s guilt other than… well, using it for leverage against him.”
The past tense took him for a pause.
But Uranus had a feeling X would get defensive bloody fast if he mentioned it, so he just bit the inside of his cheek and frowned at him, keeping that close to his chest.
“That’s what you think?”
“Of course it is.” X’s eye twitched, his arms folding over his chest. “I swear I don’t—don’t need an apology from Saturn. I don’t need to see him again at all.” He wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I still hated Saturn. I wanted him to have Neptune’s stupid orbit for a reason,” he grumbled. “But Jupiter was the reason it all happened.”
“Well,” he said—his desperation to close the distance finally winning over his own restraint as his wings unfolded, curving towards X despite his continued attempt to keep them reined in, feathers dipping into the edges of his vision—“didn’t Jupiter say that he can find a way to make it work?”
X’s lips twitched up into a half-smirk, one that Uranus could tell was real on some sort of pure instinct.
He reached up and poked at the tip of his wing, tweaking a single feather. Uranus jolted but didn’t move away from the touch, flushing when his wings just curved in tighter, almost curling around them both.
X just stared at them and then cocked an eyebrow, gaze returning to him. “And you think he can.”
“He kept the Asteroid Belt in check for billions of years, didn’t he?” Uranus frowned, tipping his head to the head. “Somehow without any of us realizing it. He can…” He gave a full-body sigh, folding his arms over his chest. “He followed me out of the bloody Solar System!”
X tipped his head to the side, lifting his eyebrows.
“He did do that, I guess,” he muttered. His eyes drifted past him, off in the same direction Uranus knew Jupiter was still hovering—and he had to wonder what he was thinking, considering they were definitely taking longer than a bloody second—before he worked his jaw.
And then he turned his head, staring off into the darkness behind them with an unreadable look.
Uranus had to tamp down his own urge to lunge forward and ensure he couldn’t make an escape.
He was giving X a choice, and he’d have to respect that.
…Even if he was going to go with him whatever he decided.
“Fine,” he said, the word so unexpected it took Uranus a second to register it. “I’ll go back with you and Jupiter. I’ll try. But I reserve the right to leave again whenever.”
His feathers rippled, and he gave a full-body shiver alongside them.
“You will?”
“Make me repeat it and I won’t—”
He lunged forward, wrapping his arms tight around X’s middle, his words caught up in a lump in his throat, spilling out of him in a garbled stammer. “—ank you, thank y—”
“Stars above, calm down,” X muttered. “Why are you so happy?”
“I’m happy because I want you to stay,” he said, breathlessly, burying his face into the crook of his throat with the memory of X doing the same to him blaring on repeat in the back of his mind. “Is that so bloody surprising?”
He felt more relieved to know he didn’t have to leave than he thought he would.
“Very,” X said, voice pitched low and vibrating in his throat. “You’ve known me for how long?”
Uranus leaned back and shot him a narrow-eyed look. “You literally just kissed me within an inch of my life, mate,” he said, instinctively wetting his lips. X’s eyes fell to them. “You can’t say anything.”
“I did do that,” he said, grinning nearly ear to ear. “And I guess I would like to do that again.”
Uranus flushed with a heat he thought could rival the surface of the Sun… but he’d be lying out of his arse if he didn’t say he wanted that just as much. And then X leaned in just slightly, eyes still locked on his mouth, and he fought back a shiver, wetting his lips. “You know, you told Jupiter we wouldn’t start making out,” he said, voice seeping with glee, “but you said nothing about one kiss.”
A high-pitched sound crept out of him just as X closed the gap between them, slanting his mouth over his much more gently than any of the kisses they’d shared prior, slow and languid and better than he could have ever imagined. His wings shivered, curling in around them, and Uranus could physically feel it as X grinned into the kiss.
He deepened it for a single second before pulling back even as he chased after, stumbling into him.
“Now come on,” he said, shooting him a crooked smirk. “We should probably go to Jupiter before he wonders if we did start making out again.” The wink that followed sent another flash-fire burning through him.
X started forward and then paused, turning back towards him.
“Not that I’m opposed to that,” he said innocently, putting his hands up. “Trust me.”
Uranus dropped his face in his hands with a strangled sound, wings curling tight around him.
X just burst into a mirthful sort of laughter, wrapping a cold hand around one of his wrists and dragging him along towards the familiar tug of Jupiter’s gravity.