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From the first day of his mortal life, Jordan knew exactly what his purpose was. He was to brighten people's lives, help people find their purpose, and do his best to be the world's sun as they so needed him. It wasn’t some metaphor, either- He really was that giant ball of gas in space, just… The human incarnation of it. He'd been here hundreds of thousands of times, ever since intelligent life had formed on the planet he orbited, evolving with the human race, and there were always exactly three things that stayed consistent in every life:
- He had to do his best to keep everyone as joyful as he could.
- He had to help anyone he saw in need.
And the third, final one that wasn’t a rule, but it was something that would always be true;
- He loved his moon.
He and the moon, his moon, Maxwell, would always find each other in every life. Even if he and his moon couldn't be together for very long every year, there was that thirty minutes, twice a day, that they could. Sunset and sunrise, when they got to see each other, even if they couldn't embrace. However, twice a year,-Sometimes more, if they were lucky- when the moon stood between him and the Mother, they could. They were allowed to do as they pleased, together, for a few hours until they were separated once more, but Jordan still had yet to hear Maxwell speak his love for him.
They would hold each other in their arms, press their lips together until they couldn't breathe, and talk for as long as they could. Sometimes, they didn't talk at all, they only cupped each other's faces in their palms and memorized each detail. Once the moon passed the sun, however, they were to be ripped from each other's comforting grasp, left to endure months alone, doing all they could to fulfill their purposes in the meantime. These rules set in place had always been intended to keep them apart, but Maxwell’s entire purpose was to break those rules, and Jordan loved breaking them with him.
Whenever they did get to be together, when they talked and his moon told him about everything he missed about him in their time apart, he remembered every single word. Maxwell cherished the warmth of his sun on his pale skin, loved how easily he could make anyone smile, and he always mourned how perfectly they fit together when he couldn’t hold his beloved. Jordan, on the other hand, longed for the relieving cold the moon brought his constantly overheating body, idolized how simple it was for him to get someone out there doing something, and yearned for his hands tangling in his hair. He'd always found it convenient that, no matter how many lives had passed, his curls were always just the right size to fit perfectly around Maxwell's fingers.
Maxwell’s purpose as the moon, however, was much different from his own. He was there to start riots, fuel the flames of revolution, help people break bullshit rules, and get people out there fighting for their rights as human beings- Whether it be someone escaping a toxic relationship or an entire nation rising up against a corrupt government, that’s what he was made for. It had been that same fire to go against the grain in the moon that had first put them together- Maxwell knew that he should never meet his sun, that it was one of the three rules of his existence, and that’s exactly what drove him to seek Jordan out.
It had taken them one-hundred and forty-two cycles before they found each other, while Jordan had been at the top of a hill with the world all around him, gazing at the first total solar eclipse he’d seen in decades. The moment he’d laid his gaze on the man with the gorgeous dark brown eyes that shimmered in their blinding light, he’d known exactly who he was. He’d felt as if something inside his mortal body that had always felt empty had finally found its perfect fit, like the circle of pure darkness that covered the center of him in the sky. He’d seen it in Maxwell, too, seen that awestruck look on his pale face and knew.
Every eclipse they met once more, in that exact same place, regardless of where they had been born in that life. After each death, it always took them a decade or two before finding each other again, as it was difficult to get to that hill before they could legally leave whoever happened to parent them that time. Jordan was always exactly two years older than his moon, and Maxwell always died two years later than his sun, regardless of how either of them happened to die. There were a few lives where they never got to see each other, but they were rare and usually ended before they were twenty.
Now, here they were, nearly a million years after their first life, in the end of humanity itself. This would almost certainly be their last eclipse together, before they had to return to their celestial bodies for what was most likely going to be eternity. So, they were going to join one last time, moon within sun, just as the eclipse had them. They had an hour yet, still, which would allow them plenty of time to savour their last moments together.
That hill they loved so much was no longer there, replaced with an ugly office building that, now, was only an irradiated crater in Mother’s body. Now, there was only one place they were safe to be without dying right then and there, at the top of a mountain in the northernmost area of a land that, once, was Canada. A long time ago, they would have frozen to death here, but the planet was fucked enough that, even if it was one of the coldest places on Earth, it still would have boiled any true human alive. They, the last two, only remained because Jordan could withstand any heat and Maxwell was constantly freezing, regardless of the temperature.
In their final hours, they made slow, careful love to each other, holding their bodies close together and keeping a gentle, steady rhythm. Vocal desires from Jordan were swallowed by the moon’s lips, his hands playing with the curls of his other half as he did his best to make this memorable for his sun. Maxwell dragged out his deep thrusts, forcing himself to have this moment last, though the clutch of Jordan’s overheated body made it harder and harder to do so. He had to pull away from the kiss, rest his face in his sun’s neck to focus on them. When it ended, neither of them felt satisfaction as they normally would- No, it was only a deep, crushing regret that this was it for them, and everyone else to ever live.
Finally, as they awaited their inevitable deaths, there wasn’t that annoyance that this was happening again or that peace of the womb once more, it was only fear for if they would ever meet again.
Just before their hearts stopped beating forever, five simple words fell from Maxwell’s lips, ones that he maybe wasn’t supposed to hear.
“I love you, my sun.”
And so, for aeons after, the only contact they had was the warmth and light reflecting off of the moon during the eclipses, even if only partial.
Truthfully, the intense solar flares that would be observed from the sun of this dead planet were Jordan trying to reach out for his moon, trying to touch him, warm his chilled surface.
Still, Jordan sent his solar wind to the Earth, hoping that the ice would someday form once more so he could give the moon a piece of him, in the form of the aurora borealis that they had once enjoyed watching so much.
Scientists of the now extinct human race had once discovered how to turn his wind into sound, and millions of years after their demise, another species would find his messages to Maxwell left in the gusts, though they would never figure out how to translate the English words to their own language. Hopefully, his moon would hear them.
“I love you too, my moon.”