Chapter Text
One week later and the cold still burned.
It burned.
It burned.
Somewhere deep where no warmth could touch, the ache that sat in Nexus’ circuits was spiteful. His whole body (obsolete fragile placeholder still running on borrowed time until he calibrated the new one) felt like it was on fire and it was on purpose. On purpose.
They wanted this.
His fingers shook, clacking and scraping idly against the keyboard in the cold white cage he’d called a “lab” back when his mood had given him the short-lived courtesy of still being pleasant, and his mouth twitched.
What the hell was he going to do with all this free time?
Molten, ever the directionless enigma, almost seemed to have sensed his plans brewing from across dimensions - not a single sighting of him on the cameras since Nexus had left, leaving his threats to give him a new purpose frustratingly empty. And where was Ruin when he needed bait (or even a chew toy)? Pathetic.
In a blink, like his prey drive had been activated, he shifted a monitor to the feed that was pointing to Sun’s house.
Their house.
He scoffed at the thought, half-wondering why he’d even set up those cameras. To watch his brother do …what, exactly? What was today’s mundane domestic tragedy? Oh, yes. Spilling an entire bag of groceries on the kitchen floor. Screaming at runaway apples like they were wayward children in the daycare misbehaving, expecting them to roll back any second and apologise. Good going, Sun.
Oh, and it looked like he’d come home with a new brand of apple today - different from the old honeycrisp kind they’d always got. Nexus almost applauded the vain attempt at being adventurous. A little late for that, wasn’t it? What, was it some kind of weird self-inflicted punishment in the wake of what Sun had lost, or was he just “trying something new”? The way he’d insisted that they give wheat bread a chance that one time the normal kind had been out of stock before hastily, guiltily giving up and stuffing it back on the same aisle within seconds.
Or maybe he just wanted to see Sun’s face light up when they told him he could finally see Monty’s new and improved Moon, so he could forget about the old one.
A huff escaped him. This again?
This was the price he paid for carving his own fate, he guessed - for taking his life into his own hands. For being free.
Or hell, maybe it was just the lingering buzz of almost blowing his sister to atoms coming back to bite him in the ass. Because nothing screamed empowering independence quite like a nice bit of attempted murder, right?
Nexus bristled.
One week into his new life and his “zippy” mood was well and truly fucked.
Well, that was family for you.
“Ex-family.” He corrected himself aloud, and immediately felt like an idiot.
Muttering words he soon lost track of under his breath, he let them echo softly in the pristine white chamber and get lost like static from a broken transmitter, swallowed up by the quiet.
Well. There was no need to look back when the future was looking bright.
This was home now.
Home.
The word felt like acid in his mouth. He almost laughed. The sound caught in his throat and twisted as his sickly burned fingers turned furious and he set robot after robot loose on the mining quarters - not too far from the goddamn egg but not a trek he wanted to make personally while his body was still freezing from space (or maybe the aftershock of being dumped out there like a broken toy no one knew how to fix).
Getting non-sentient robots to do the dirty work for him was nice - the wall it built between him and the outside world where the pathetic things were was pleasant, he found, as he monitored their progress on one screen and quietly deleted a stream of expletives he’d vomited onto a word document from another. It was also insanely boring.
He couldn’t help wondering for a fleeting moment if Dark Sun ever got this bored. Two thoughts hit him at once as he contemplated the possibility:
1) Omnipotent lunatics who plan everything down to the last detail and eat Moons for breakfast have better things to do than have feelings, and
2) People like Dark Sun had to be some of the most lamentable creatures in the entire universe actually, with nothing but tired cynicism and chess boards full of idiot pawns they picked up and puppeteered until they were done with them for company.
Still won every time, though, so there was that.
Nexus plunked his chin in his hands, barely noticing it. Maybe boredom was something he could come to terms with another day.
His cursor hovered over the Steam icon, flickering as his hand shook. Tearing his eyes away from it almost pointedly, he let his fingers sit tensely against the keyboard.
Stupid.
The breath that escaped him then quickly turned into a hollow chuckle.
Was he trying to give away his position?
No, no, no.
Not without cause.
Of course he wouldn’t give himself up so easily. They’d find him. They’d find him one of these days, on his terms, when he wanted them to. And when they did? Oh, then he’d really have his fun.
Nexus rubbed his eyes, digging into them with a groan like he could somehow push the flashes of irritating old faces out of his head, but his gaze still drifted back to that stupid little icon.
The familiar sound of Sun’s laughter made him gasp.
No.
He clenched his jaw as the cursor drifted, shaking his head.
No, no.
Screw these games. Games were for idiots. The kind who spent their lives chasing false victories while all the real opportunities escaped them. He was on the brink of accomplishing something much more tangible. Something much more worthwhile.
Forcing himself to relax his grip, he hissed through his teeth.
“Oh, what?” He mused dryly to himself. “Did it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside back when you used to play the good guy? Did it feel like someone wanted you back then? Did it feel like you actually mattered?”
Lies, lies, lies.
The raging. The comedy skits they’d done to death given half the chance. The way Sun would get so frustratingly - hilariously - wound up when he’d put on a voice for just a little bit too long. The way Nexus Moon had done it all on purpose just to make him laugh.
He gripped the desk like it might crumble to dust in his hands. The way he’d held on too tight to everything.
All just symptoms of a deeper level of insanity. A chemical delusion he’d latched onto like a good little replacement. And he’d broken it. Crushed it. Scraped the addiction from his systems like the waste of space it was. He was doing himself a kindness.
Every pathetic borrowed moment. Everything that wasn’t his. He’d buried all of it. All of it. He’d let it freeze in space where he’d tossed the remnants of the soft, broken mind that used to whisper “I have people I need to protect.”
“What a joke.”
Caught between a laugh and a choked sound, he stuttered out a squeak. Who did this crappy program think it was dealing with?
And why was he talking back to it like it could listen?
Not that it mattered what void he screamed into out here, he supposed. Unless Dark Sun felt like asking him if they could go grab a bite to eat in some gourmet burger dimension this was about as good as the company was going to get for a while. At least until the hypothetical dust settled.
Wait.
Leaning in closer, Nexus narrowed his eyes, focus switching to the sight of the not-so-hypothetical dust flickering in and out of view on one of the external camera feeds.
What was that?
He squinted as the plume of it grew larger and closer, image stabilising just long enough for his brain to catch up with him.
Where the mine had once been was now an obvious crater. And the worker bots were only digging deeper into what seemed to be the dimension’s structural nervous system.
He stared into the feed for a few seconds, dumbfounded.
Then: “Shit.”
The robots had done their job, alright. And then some.
The lights in the lab gave a smug little flicker.
Flinching back in his seat with renewed urgency, Nexus sent a half-empty mug toppling across the desk, cringing as it splashed back all over his broken fingers, chair screeching to a halt against the floor as he fumbled for the controls with more desperation than precision.
“Fuck.”
What had they dug their way into? Those red roots that surrounded the castle …what were they? What was this mess?
If Dark Sun’s plan had been to leave him unattended in the pocket dimension just long enough to watch him blow himself up, it might have been about to work.
Was this payback for laughing at the goddamn apples Sun had chased from behind the cameras? Did these idiotic, mindless drones really crave his downfall that badly? Did they hate him even more than his own family had when they’d left him to the wolves? He hated it so goddamn much he wanted to crush his keyboard and fling it at the wall.
“This shouldn’t be happening.”
The spat with the Steam icon fell to the wayside. No, now it was the stupid automated workers who’d earned his ire for having the gall to do their stupid jobs while he’d been distracted. But a fat load of good that was about to be.
He stopped mid-type and hissed:
“Goddammit.”
The lights cut out.
For a long moment, the lab was silent save for the futile sounds of scratching at the keys.
Narrow red neon strips across the walls then slowly hummed to life, illuminating the space like it was drenched in hellfire.
A chuckle. Sheepish. Slightly enraged.
“And that’s the beauty of having emergency backup generators.” Nexus growled triumphantly to no one in particular, bathed in artificial crimson light, screens blinking back at him in a million different hues, errors strewn across each of them at the same time.
The last feed standing mocked him from one of the monitors, the sight of a worker bot diligently mining into one of the support structures like this was all some kind of cosmic joke threatening to snap the last fraying thread of his patience.
He turned his back on it, refusing to look.
He didn’t need to rage right now. He wanted to rage - obviously - but what he needed was to stay focused. What he needed was to think.
What was the quickest way to stop this shitshow? What did he need to tackle first?
The console spat out a half-powered warning, and an error tone died mid-beep.
Somewhere in the walls, as he typed, something shorted out with a crackle, like it was choking out a last laugh at his expense.
He’d never been so angry to be the only sentient being present in this part of the dimension.
“I will fucking kill something.”
He stared into the abyss in a deadpan stupor as the lights cut out again.
There was no dramatic surge. No catastrophic crash. Just a slow, pathetic stutter into darkness that made his eye twitch.
Cause and effect was a bitch he was going to strangle the moment he gained the means.
Turning back to the console, he tried not to growl at the nagging glow of the intermittent errors that started and stopped, alarms blaring, then shorting, then firing up again with renewed vigour.
The emergency power buzzed like it was trying not to laugh at him too.
“…If you cut out one more time,” He muttered to the ceiling, “I swear I will write you a consciousness protocol just to reprogram you with the ability to feel pain.”
And again - unheeding, spiteful - the lab sank into pitch blackness.
Nexus’ eyes bore a (thankfully metaphorical) hole into a wall he could no longer see.
Then he stifled a howl of rage, voice cracking momentarily into maniacal laughter.
“I’m not explaining this to Sun!” He snapped into the dark between broken breaths, seething.
But he would. Even in his fury, he knew he would and he hated it, and he hated the man’s smug stupid face in his mind’s eye asking impassively how he’d managed to pull this one off. So neutrally, casually, dismissively pondering how exactly Nexus had mined halfway through the centre of the earth or whatever equivalent this dimension had to it within hours of being left to his own devices.
And he hated the way he had no good answer. He hated the way the Steam icon of all things had bested him.
He bit back the urge to throw something as he tripped on his chair.
Sighing through gritted teeth, he stalked - no, stumbled - out of the lab like a bitter cat that had fallen into a bathtub.
“Fix the blackout first.” He whispered in the dark. “Spiral later. Pretend it was on purpose.”
The kitchen was clean. Some might’ve argued it was too clean.
Sun was pretty proud of it, all things considered. Breadsticks by the shelf, jazz apples in the corner - honeycrisp had really taken a hit from all the recent price hikes - he could forget about the fact that the grocery bag had gone whoopsy daisies about thirty dozen times over the course of this one chore just as soon as he got a moment to think, which …he would, just as soon as he was done.
He did a double take as he glanced at one of the only clocks they seemed to have on display in the house.
“Wow, time flies when you’re - …well, we’re not having fun, really, we’re not having fun but …but …it’s …progress!”
Had he really spent the last two hours polishing the counters?
Staring down at the gleaming surfaces, it felt …unnecessary. The whole thing, honestly. Really unnecessary.
And yet.
Sure, he might’ve scrubbed at the stovetop with a little bit more intensity than what strictly was needed. And maybe the way the sponge had squeaked against the already clean surface was still rattling around in his auditory receptors the teeny tiniest little bit, but that was only because the house was so …quiet.
Sun rubbed at his face with the side of his elbow.
He hadn’t looked up in a while, he guessed. Hadn’t seen the time. He hadn’t needed to.
Exhaling sharply, he went to work on another fleck of invisible grime near the oven.
Never mind the time. Screw the passage of time! He wanted to see his reflection in that surface. No, scratch that - a different reflection! A happy home full of happy people coming home to a sparkling kitchen and looking so pleased.
Literally any other kitchen belonging to literally any other people.
Just not this one.
Not theirs.
Scrubbing harder at the countertop, he noticed something shift in the reflection of the oven door from the corner of his eye.
A flicker.
Barely a movement.
His hand froze mid-swipe.
A shape began to emerge at first, warped in the curve of the glass, blurred by smudges he seemingly hadn’t wiped yet. (Hadn’t he wiped those yet?)
A shadow, stretched and uncertain.
Then a figure.
Expression unreadable. Deathly still. Face all too familiar.
Burning red eyes locked on to the back of his head from just over his shoulder.
Sun’s breath caught in his throat.
Moon?
He jolted back with a sharp, startled breath, nearly slipping on the damp tiles.
Elbow smacking against the counter, he span back as the sponge fell from his hand and slapped against the wet floor.
But there was nothing to see.
No one else. Just him and the empty kitchen.
He stood in silence for a few moments, breath steadying as he gripped at his elbow.
“… Oww …”
His own reflection stared back at him from the oven door, expression full of panic, the red LED from the microwave blinking silently in the background.
His chest heaved once, then again.
The sponge sat where it had landed, half-soaked and useless now. He stooped to pick it up, fingers trembling harder than he wanted to admit. He pressed it against the countertop again but couldn’t bring himself to use it.
The reflection still sat in the corner of his mind. Red eyes. A warped grin. An expression like he’d never seen before.
He didn’t look up again.
“It’s nothing.” He whispered, almost inaudibly. “It’s nothing. It’s nothing.”
He shook his head, trying to gather his emotions again. Trying to slow his thoughts.
He really didn’t need this right now.
Turning his gaze back to brighter things, he decided to consider his wins for a change.
Well, at least the spice rack was organised for once. Alphabetical ordering was a sham - just how many times were they gonna use aniseed on the day to day, anyway?
Sun blinked as he considered this.
On second thought, he could have sorted them by cuisine type. That way they’d never mix the baking spices with the ...
Well, he’d never mix them, anyway, he guessed.
He knew the trash had already gone out twice this evening, but his hands were twitching and his eyes wanted anything but countertops and spooky doors to stare at at this point.
Would it hurt to take it out one more time?
The stairs squeaked as he pitter pattered up and down, not quite able to decide where he wanted to go next, just looking for yet more items to throw into bags. The same posters (would’ve made excellent candidates for throwing out, but alas) still stuck to every wall (glued - he was sure they were glued on). The same floorboards still making the same sounds, every time. They’d never really gotten round to making the place their own.
Never really gotten around to doing much of anything in this house that didn’t spell trauma with a capital T, he supposed.
The rain began to lash against the windows in sideways gusts as the wind outside swept across the island, and he muffled the urge to tell it to shut up and stop trying to provide unneeded atmosphere. He knew Moon would’ve had some dumb comment for it - something smug, like “oh look, even the sky’s sad to see us again.”
Sun nearly smiled at the thought, but it dropped before it reached his eyes.
Instead, he found himself hurrying past his brother’s door.
Two times now he’d checked to see if the little monstera by the top of the stairs had been watered. It had. Still needed some straightening up every time he walked past it though, thanks in absolutely no part to Muffin and Cleo.
Scooping up little piles of loose soil off the ground in his hands, he dropped them back into the pot with a sigh. He didn’t remember why they actually even had plants - seemed to just be rampant cat fodder for the most part.
“New soil is coming straight outta your treat allowance, so choose your next actions wisely!” He called into his room, knowing full well he’d never commit to his threat and the little four-legged menaces would most certainly get away with their misdeeds for the bajillionth time.
So that left …not a whole lot else to do, actually. The place was pretty perfect.
Pretty …perfect.
Back down the stairs it was, then.
The couch creaked under Sun’s weight as he retreated onto on it with his elbows pressed up against his knees, eyeing the one last thing that sat untouched on the table by the corner cabinet behind him.
A single wine bottle that must have been sitting there for about a month.
He sighed as he turned his eyes away from it.
“You should’ve said something.” He muttered under his breath, not exactly sure who he was addressing it to.
His eyes were fixed on the near-muted app on his phone, where a familiar episode of their show was playing.
Was it a little self-obsessed of him to watch the show they’d recorded together? Maybe a bit. But he couldn’t help it right now.
It was the only place he could see the versions of them both that he thought he still liked.
Dumb pranks played out on the screen - those stupid tricks Moon and Solar had always played. Boy, had he hated it when he’d been on the receiving end of those. Really, really hated it. Well, probably not as much as Moon had when it’d been his turn to pay, but that would’ve taken some doing.
“You should’ve said something,” He said again, voice dry and quiet as he stared at his brother’s snickering face on the screen.
When was the last time he’d seen him happy?
Sun’s mouth twitched.
You should’ve told me it was getting that bad.
You should’ve let me help.
You should’ve stayed.
His voice was quiet, barely a whisper in the rain. “You promised you’d be better.”
There was no anger in it. He was just …so tired.
He tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling for a moment.
“…Maybe I should’ve believed you.”
Eyes dropping back to the floor, he sunk down further in his seat, turning the phone face down. “Maybe I never should’ve believed you. …I don’t know.”
He hadn’t been there. Not when it counted.
He hadn’t even known Moon had been left out there in space until it was already too late and he was out of reach.
He’d taken too long again, hadn’t he? Everyone had hounded him relentlessly, telling him to choose, urging him to pick a side, but how could he? How could he make that call when he couldn’t stand the thought of it?
How could he let his brother go again?
No, instead he’d frozen up, making sandwiches in the kitchen and letting time pass him by. And Earth had paid the price because of his indecision.
Because he just refused to believe it.
It still felt impossible to understand. Moon was a completely different person now - unrecognisable. A person who thought his whole family were nothing. Just collateral damage.
Sun’s breath caught as he shuddered.
The Moon he knew would’ve burned down the world to keep his family safe. He would’ve done anything to protect them.
What happened to that Moon?
Sun sighed.
What happened?
None of it felt real.
Almost instinctively, he fluffed the couch cushions a little more, burying himself deeper in them as he picked up a little EVE figure someone had left on the table.
Turning it over in his hands like it might magically give him some sort of clue, he set it down again with a sigh.
His brother’s voice rang in his head, full of mischief.
“I call EVA.”
His throat tightened.
“Remember when we used to match?” He said to the figure like it could answer back.
He set it down again next to the WALL-E figure, exactly where it had been.
Another voice crept in then, low and venomous.
“Yeah, only I wasn’t ever really Moon to you, was I? I was just some new blank copy.”
“That’s not true.” He tried to fight it back, but his own voice was all but muted in the downpour.
It wasn’t true.
It wasn’t true.
Was it?
Sun buried his face in his hands. The sound of his own artificial breathing rang out, shallow and a little too fast.
He wasn’t crying. He didn’t think he could. He just needed to stop thinking about it for a bit. He just needed to think about anything else.
He didn’t know what he would do if Moon ever came back.
He didn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t.
Shoulders shaking a little, Sun closed the video player.
“We would’ve done anything for you, you know that?”
Anything but let him go down that path.
Anything but let him lose himself.
Looking down as the windows rattled from the onslaught, rain tracing little paths down the glass like tears from the sea, he let out a little sigh as his turned his eyes to the storm.
“I miss you.”