Work Text:
Earth pursed his lips as he looked around, narrowing his eyes. Something felt off…
“Earth, can you please play your cards already? You keep making us wait forever when it comes to your turns,” Mars complained, rolling his eyes at Earth.
“Something’s off!” Earth declared, putting one finger in the air. He poked his tongue through his teeth and then smiled. “I’m telling you, Mars, something’s going to happen today.”
“Can that somethin’ be you playing your cards?” Earth huffed, but looked at his cards and chose one, tossing it onto the stack without even caring if it worked.
“Earth, that card doesn’t— You know what, I think we’re done playing cards.” Mars threw his hand onto the stack, crossing his arms over his chest with annoyance clear in his eyes.
“Just let Luna play for Earth! It’s obvious he’s not in it today,” Mercury added, still looking down at his hand, shuffling the cards. “I don’t really want to stop playing.”
“I’ll play!” Luna cried, scrambling from beside Earth to pick up his forgotten hand of cards. “I’m ready, I promise. I’ll play.” Mercury sent Luna a short smile, his head tipping to the side just a bit before he refocused on his cards; Earth let his eyes narrow a little bit at the interaction, but his attention was drawn to Venus after another second.
Venus rolled his eyes when he realized that Earth was looking at him. “Play the game or not, I don’t care. Just stop staring off into space making those weird faces. It’s unsettling.”
“What weird faces?” Earth asked, raising one eyebrow.
“You make weird faces when you’re thinking sometimes,” Mars said, leaning back down and picking up his cards before nodding at Luna.
“No I don’t!”
“You kinda do, Earth…” Luna said, staring down at his cards.
“You never noticed?” Mercury blinked at him, his wings shuffling in the air behind him. One of them accidentally tapped against Venus’s shoulder, and he shot an angry look at Mercury as he made a sheepish face and pulled his wings in tight against his back.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit, what faces?” Earth threw his hands in the air, his brow knitting. “I don’t make weird faces. I think you’re all trying to gaslight me.”
“That’s not what gaslighting means, idiot!” Venus mirrored Earth’s actions and threw his hands in the air, letting his cards float freely in his gravity. “Don’t say words if you don’t know what they mean! And yes, you do!”
Earth narrowed his eyes. “…No, I don’t.”
“You do!”
“No, I don’t!”
“Yes, Earth, you do.”
“Ughh, you’re all teaming up against me! This is outrageous!” Earth made a mock angry face before letting himself fall back down, lying on his back next to the others. The sentiment that something was going to happen still lingered in the back of his mind, but he ignored it for now. Earth closed his eyes and relaxed as he listened to the others speak, the ambient sounds of their card game lulling him to sleep.
He was almost fully asleep when he heard the Sun’s voice boom out, jolting him awake with a yelp. “PLANETS! GATHER ROUND! AND BRING YOUR MOONS!”
Hand over his core, Earth exchanged a glance with the others. He wondered exactly what this could be before he suddenly realized something and grinned. “Told you,” he said smugly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Something is going to happen today.”
“Oh, shut up, Earth,” Venus replied, throwing his cards onto the stack in the middle. “Don’t be so smug.”
“I need to get Phobos and Deimos - see you over there, I guess,” Mars added, ignoring Earth, before he glided away towards his orbit. Earth huffed, annoyed at being ignored, but he finally just followed Venus, Mercury, and Luna towards the Sun. He stopped a good distance away, far enough that he was still in the Goldilocks Zone, but it was still close enough that he fanned himself a little at the heat.
“Can this be quick?” He asked the Sun, continuing to fan himself. “It’s too hot here.”
“Don’t rush me!” The Sun narrowed his eyes at Earth, a slight red haze over his eyes. Earth looked away from him, awkwardly looking at Luna instead as he grimaced; after a moment, he looked to make sure the Sun was looking away from him again before he turned back to Luna and swirled his finger next to his face, mouthing, “He’s crazy!”
Luna gave him an unimpressed look, rolling his eyes as he turned away.
The moons all looked varying degrees of confused or annoyed, which made sense to Earth. As far as he knew, they’d never actually been invited to the meetings the Sun organized; Luna was the only moon who tagged along due to his role in stabilizing Earth’s axis. So they’d never been involved in something like this - which begged the question as to why the Sun had made them bring their moons to this meeting. Earth shifted in place before his eyes jolted towards the Sun.
The Sun smiled one of his usual manic smiles before he transformed into his humanoid form with a flash of light that made Earth blink away the afterimage, shaking his head briefly.
“Is this about our orbits again?” Jupiter shook his head. “We really don’t need to learn again after last time, Sun.” He shuddered, a brief look of unease passing over his eyes; Earth arched one eyebrow as he wondered what that was about.
“Don't lie to me, Jupiter. You are still leaving your orbits.” The Sun offered Jupiter a deadpan look, his hands closing together in front of him. “But… no. This time it’s about your moons. I’ve recently noticed a bit of unrest with your moons, and that’s just not right! My solar system needs to work together, live in harmony.”
Earth thinned his mouth and looked to the side awkwardly, not meeting anyone’s eyes, sure that at least a couple others would be looking at him. The Sun clapped his hands, smiling even wider. “So, today you’re all going to switch moons! And until I feel you’re ready, you’re not going to get your moons back.”
Earth’s jaw dropped, and he saw his surprise echoed in everyone else’s faces.
After a second, Jupiter blinked harshly, his head jutting forward. “Sun, what?” Internally, Earth agreed. What?
The Sun seemingly completely ignored Jupiter, looking at the rocky planets instead. “Mercury and Venus, you don’t have moons to switch, but that’s okay! Mercury, Luna’s your moon now. And Venus, Phobos and Deimos are your moons now.” Both Earth and Mars protested at the same time, their complaints falling on deaf ears.
The Sun just stared at them with wide eyes, blinking every so often until Luna finally grimaced at Earth and moved to Mercury’s side. Mercury met him with a smile, and Earth narrowed his eyes at the sight before he was distracted by Phobos and Deimos zipping to Venus’s side. Venus looked annoyed, his under-eye already twitching as both moons immediately started chattering about the switch.
Internally, Earth laughed for a moment, amused by Venus’s annoyance - but then he also realized he was about to be left with a moon and jolted to look at the Sun with a disgruntled face.
Heedless of his gaze, the Sun moved on, looking closely at the giants. Jupiter and Saturn looked at each other with uncertain expressions, while Uranus gave the Sun a displeased face and Neptune just smiled with a blank look in his eyes, moons settled in his hands.
“Jupiter, you get Neptune’s moons! Neptune, you get Jupiter’s moons!” The Sun tilted his head, waiting for the two sets of moons to move as protests rang out on both sides. Jupiter looked exasperated, but he just nodded his head at his moons with a sigh. Neptune patted each of his moons on the head and then sent them off towards Jupiter with a smile; Earth studied them all closely, not entirely sure why he was.
The four Galilean moons each showed varying reactions; Ganymede looked annoyed while Europa just looked disgusted, like she didn’t want to move at all. Callisto shared a glance with Triton as he passed, and Io was jumping in place and clapping his hands. Io said something to Callisto as they glided over to Neptune, but Earth couldn’t hear from so far away. He looked back at the Sun as he started speaking again.
“That leaves… Saturn and Uranus. You guys switch moons now!”
“But… my moons?!” Saturn objected, an affronted look on his face. “I like my moons! They’re fine! Why are we switching?”
“Because I said so!” The Sun blinked down at Saturn. “Now switch!”
Earth found himself exchanging glances with Titan as the moon glided over to Uranus’s side, shrugging his shoulders at the confusion in his eyes. Briefly, Earth wondered how the Sun had figured out the Moon Revolution, but after a second he gave up, instead crossing his arms over his chest.
“O-kay! Now don’t leave your orbits!”
“What?” Earth cried out a second later, drawing everyone’s attention. “Sun, I can’t be left without a moon at all, my Earthlings need the moon to survive!”
The Sun looked at him with a tilted head before his mouth curled into a manic grin again, his eyes wide. “Ohh, Earth, you’re right!”
“So, you’ll give me back Luna, right?” Earth said, grimacing just a bit as the Sun arched an eyebrow at him.
“Of course not! That would defeat the whole purpose of this. How about I give you another moon?”
Earth felt his jaw drop as he gave Sun a startled look. “Most of the moons in this solar system are way too small to act as my moon! And I also can’t have more than one moon - Luna’s perfect for me, please make an exception this once!?”
The Sun just tilted his head and smiled wider, his eyes closing at the force of the action. “Nope!” He reopened his eyes and Earth watched as his gaze tracked over the moons of the solar system, several of the smaller moons hiding behind their bigger counterparts; finally, his eyes trailed back to Earth, and he pulled his hand up to rest under his chin as he looked at him with a smile.
Earth bit the inside of his lip, wondering for a second just who the Sun was going to make become his moon - he wished more than anything that the Sun would realize the issues it would cause for his fragile Earthlings, but he also knew deep inside that what the Sun wanted, the Sun got.
“Earth! Your new moon is Titan!”
“What?” Earth breathed out, his jaw dropping further. That was the last thing he expected the Sun to say; he looked back towards Uranus and traded glances with Titan again; this time the moon looked even more confused, blinking fast.
“Yep! Titan’s your moon, now. Switch again! And then go back to your orbits!” The Sun switched back into his spherical form without a warning, and Earth looked at Luna as he followed Mercury back to his orbit, an unsure look in Luna’s eyes as he shrugged at Earth.
Earth sighed heavily before turning around and heading back to his orbit; Titan was heading his way from where Uranus had been as the rest of the giants also turned around and left, herding their new moons with them. Saturn had a pout on his face while Uranus’s moons just looked annoyed to be following him; Saturn’s moons, meanwhile, were all following Uranus with uninterested looks, like they didn’t care either way.
“Nice to… see you again, I guess?” He coughed awkwardly when Titan finally got close enough, an awkward set to his shoulders.
“Uhh - you too, Earth.” Titan looked away from him as he grimaced slightly, his shoulders dropping briefly. “Do you know why the Sun’s doing this?”
“No. I assume he figured something out about the Moon Revolution, but I have no idea how. Maybe… Mercury?” Earth turned around to stare into the distance, where Mercury and Luna were talking to each other as the Sun stared down at the pair. Earth did not envy Luna at the moment. “But oh well. We’re stuck like this until the Sun decides to let it go back to normal - when he gets something in his head, it happens.”
“You’d know the Sun better than I ever will,” Titan replied, shrugging. “Anyway, won’t me being your moon still affect your Earthlings? I’m a lot bigger than Luna.”
“Oh, yeah, but it’s better than having no moon at all,” Earth replied, pressing his hand down onto Titan’s shoulder. “At least you can stabilize my axis! And you’ll still have an effect on the tides, though it’ll be much, much stronger than Luna’s. In fact, I can already feel the effects! Eugh, that’s a weird feeling.”
Titan narrowed his eyes at Earth, a confused look on his face. “Isn’t that bad?”
“It’s just a little flooding, my Earthlings are smart. They can deal with it - oops, there goes Florida.” Earth sighed, pressing a hand to his forehead as he groaned. “They were already melting the polar ice caps anyway, so you just accelerated some flooding that was basically already going to happen… and Florida gets a lot of hurricanes, so I’m sure they’re fine. Agh, my poor Earthlings, though. Why is it always them suffering when Sun gets something in his head!?” Earth tossed an exasperated glance towards Titan, who was looking at him with raised eyebrows now.
“Shouldn’t you be a little more concerned about the fact that more Earthlings are dying?”
“What? I can love them and want to protect them and still feel a little vindictive when things they caused happened to them!” Earth paused, twisting his mouth to the side. “No, but seriously - there’s 8 billion intelligent Earthlings running across my surface, and countless more non-intelligent Earthlings and most of them have a timespan of less than a century! If I tried to love every single one, I’d only stretch myself thin. I love my Earthlings as a collective, not individually. Mostly. Astrodude’s elevated himself a bit more.”
“Oh, yeah, I’ve met Astrodude.”
Earth frowned and looked at Titan. “When did you meet Astrodude?”
Titan suddenly froze and looked down, his mouth thinning. “I- uhm. That’s not important?”
“Hmmm,” Earth said in response, narrowing his eyes at Titan. “I’ll let that go for now, but I can tell there’s a story behind that you’re not sharing.” Earth settled into a seated position, awkwardly looking around. He honestly wasn’t sure what to do now - he didn’t know Titan that well. Tapping his fingers on his legs, Earth sighed and looked at Titan, who was still looking at him with an unreadable look in his eyes.
“Listen, Titan, I know I already technically apologized but… I’m sorry for what I said back then. I was- It was a mistake. Can we like, start over? I don’t want us to just awkwardly sit here until the Sun decides to end this.” he said, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “Let’s just redo the introduction thing and start over.” He held his hand out towards Titan, watching as he tilted his head and blinked before nodding, reaching out to grab Earth’s hand.
“I’m Earth. I’m the third planet from the Sun, and the only one with intelligent life. It’s nice to meet you.” Earth grinned, shaking Titan’s hand and pulling him slightly closer with the grip.
“I’m Titan. I’m Saturn’s moon, and the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere and standing bodies of liquid on my surface. It’s nice to meet you too… Earth.” Pushing aside the spark of bitterness that wanted to ignite again, Earth just continued grinning at Titan, his smile dropping a second later as he realized he had no idea what to do now.
“What’s it like having life?” Titan suddenly asked, his grip on Earth’s hand tightening. Huffing out a little laugh when he realized they were still holding hands, Earth let go and sat back down.
“I mean, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but it’s not like it’s all bad either,” Earth replied, squishing his chin against his hand. “The Earthlings are great and all, but they can be bad too - to me and to each other. I mentioned the polar ice caps melting earlier - that’s because of the Earthlings and their contributions to climate change - but that’s a bit too complicated to get into right now. Besides, you don’t want to hear me talk incessantly about the Earthlings.”
Titan smiled at him, his eyes bright. “I do!”
Earth looked away from Titan as he felt his face warm a little. “Really?”
“You’re int-Your Earthlings are interesting, of course!” Titan replied, stumbling over his words for a second. He opened his mouth as if to say something else before paused and closed it, instead giving Earth another awkward smile.
“Thanks!” Earth said, giving Titan a mock salute with a beaming smile. “My Earthlings are interesting - did you know they’re planning a mission to explore your surface?”
“What?” Titan answered, the ends of his mouth curling up into a genuine smile now. “Really?”
“Yeah, they’re trying to send this drone of sorts so they can explore a bunch of places on your surface. It’s actually super complicated. I’m always amazed at the missions they come up with,” Earth sighed as he thought of all of his Earthlings’ accomplishments, another smile curling onto his face. “They really do love space.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Earth could see Titan’s face - and warmth rushed through his veins when he recognized the obvious emotion shining through his eyes. Titan looked affectionate; his eyes crinkled in the corners as he tilted his head slightly to the side. Earth looked away and pressed his hand to his mouth, internally screaming - when he looked back at Titan he was back to normal, the old genuine smile back on his face.
“Wha-What are you looking at?” Earth asked, still trying to ignore the residual warmth in his face.
“Oh - just gazing at the stars,” Titan replied, looking away from Earth again.
“Not much else to do, I guess.” Silence settled over the two of them again; this time, it was a far more comfortable silence. Earth took the chance to change position, pulling his knees up to his chest, tucking his chin against them as he looked out over everyone else again. Mercury and Luna were both still talking to each other, though now the Sun had apparently joined in their conversation (Earth was always a little amazed he could make his voice so quiet); Venus was looking annoyed further off into the distance, apparently also talking with Phobos and Deimos (though Earth could almost see his eye twitching and huffed a laugh at that); Mars was even further off in the distance, looking equally as bored as Earth felt.
Past the asteroid belt, Jupiter looked absolutely exhausted (and Earth could just barely see Neptune’s biggest moon; it looked like he was taking a nap?); Saturn had his arms crossed over his chest and looked somehow… chastised; Uranus was apparently having a rousing conversation with several of the moons, gesturing widely as he looked excited; Earth couldn’t see Neptune but he imagined that all of Jupiter’s moons were having quite the time with the ice giant.
“Looks like Saturn’s other moons are having a good time with Uranus,” Earth offered, wanting to say something.
“Oh… it does. I wonder what they’re talking about? Oh - wait, I know. They’re probably talking about how Uranus’s name is always mispronounced and how Saturn always forgets their names.” Titan put his hand on his face, rubbing with an exasperated expression. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to get Saturn to learn all their names but it’s… uh, hard.”
“I can’t imagine learning the names of - what, 146 moons?” Earth grimaced. “I’m completely fine with having just one.”
“Sometimes it feels like Saturn forgets he has more than 1 moon,” Titan jerked his head to the side slightly, a mirrored grimace on his face. “The other moons really don’t like that.”
“Yeah, I…I can imagine that.” Earth huffed a nervous laugh. “But… uh, do you want to see if we can leave our orbits and go play cards with Mars? The Sun seems focused on Mercury and Luna, and I really need something to do other than just talk.”
“Oh,” Titan said, blinking. “Sure, Earth.”
Earth stood up and stretched; Titan mirrored him, and Earth felt his mouth quirk to the side in a smile; Titan looked up and then immediately looked away, and Earth pressed his lips together when he realized Titan’s face had gone slightly red, his own face feeling just slightly warmer than before.
Shaking his head to get past the awkwardness, Earth took another look at the Sun, who was still talking to Luna and Mercury - at some point, he’d switched into his humanoid form and was sitting in front of them, gesturing wildly as he talked. Earth hoped he’d stay distracted, at least long enough so they could play a couple card games with Mars; he didn’t let his hope get too high, though, knowing that it was a wild card whether the Sun would notice or not - it was never something any of the planets had been able to predict.
Looking back to make sure Titan was still caught in his gravity, Earth floated forward, glancing at the Sun every hundred miles or so to make sure he was still focused on Luna and Mercury. After a couple thousand miles, he let his hope go up a couple notches, actually catching Mars’s eye and waving at him. Abruptly, Earth felt his neck tingle as he realized someone was staring at him, and he froze, Mars’s face morphing into a pained expression as well. Closing his eyes briefly and clenching his fist, Earth turned and looked directly into the Sun’s furious eyes.
“EARTH! Why are you leaving your orbit?”
“It’s boring!” Earth called out, crossing his arms over his chest. Titan floated over to stand next to him, but Earth noticed he very obviously didn’t look at the Sun, instead looking down at himself as he fidgeted with his hands. “C’mon, we’ve all learned our lessons! I’m not even going very far, I’m literally just going to play games with Mars!”
“STAY IN YOUR ORBIT!” Earth widened his eyes when he realized what the Sun was about to do, whirling so that he was standing in front of Titan, completely shielding him with his own body. It was a distant thought in the back of his mind that while Earth had a magnetic field, Titan definitely didn’t. Earth squeezed his eyes shut as a blast of heat hit his back, and he pulled his shoulders in tighter. The solar flares never actually hurt him, but it was an unpleasant blast of heat and definitely not fun to experience - Earth wasn’t sure whether that was because of his magnetic field or just the way the solar flares worked, and he definitely wasn’t about to test it out with Titan.
When the overwhelming heat against his back finally disappeared, Earth opened his eyes again, biting back a gasp as he realized just how close he was to Titan now. Titan was looking up at him with a slack expression, his lips parted just slightly – his entire face was shadowed, eyes dark and deep, but something about them captivated Earth as he found himself staring, forgetting to breathe.
Abruptly, Earth stumbled back a couple steps and heaved in a deep breath, fanning his face as he tried to get the warm feeling to go away. For a moment, he hoped that he was somehow undergoing nuclear fusion and was about to become a star versus the truth – that he was blushing at Titan. Putting a hand over his mouth as he internally screamed, Earth looked down at the stars beneath him and then huffed out a nervous laugh; he didn’t even want to look back at Titan.
Taking in another deep breath, Earth whipped around and shook his fist at the Sun. “Seriously?!” he called, ignoring the fact that both Luna and Mercury were looking at him with amusement in their eyes; “You didn’t have to shoot a solar flare!” The Sun just stared at him with an unimpressed look, and when he made a motion like he was preparing another solar flare, Earth rolled his eyes before turning back to Titan, grabbing his wrist and pulling him as he glided back to his orbit. “Sorry, but if we don’t get back to my orbit soon, he’s definitely going to shoot another solar flare,” Earth shot back to Titan, ignoring how warm his wrist felt under Earth’s hand.
When they finally got back to the familiar border of his orbit, Earth sighed, running a hand through his hair. “So that’s a no to playing cards with Mars. Are you okay?” He looked down at Titan, realizing after a second that he still had a grip on his wrist, letting go with another nervous sound as Titan just blinked at him, red dusting across his face.
"Oh,” Titan suddenly said, his eyes wide and roving as Earth awkwardly smiled at him. “That’s - what are those lights?” He reached out a hand, and Earth felt warm all over again as Titan’s hand pressed lightly against his hair, resisting the urge to lean into it.
“Those are the—” Earth coughed and let out a nervous sound. “Those are the Northern Lights. It’s because of the interaction between the Sun’s solar flares and my magnetic field.” Titan’s eyes were bright, his expression one of obvious amazement as he looked at Earth. “It’s not that… okay, it is cool. My Earthlings love watching them.”
“I can see why,” Titan replied, finally pulling his hand back with a nervous laugh of his own. His eyes were still fascinated, and for a moment Earth swore he felt his core skip a beat when the sunlight caught his eyes perfectly, green shining through brown.
He tore his gaze away from Titan, instead looking off into the distance for something to distract him – a second later, he found it - Venus was standing with his hands over his eyes as Phobos and Deimos zipped around him. Earth couldn’t tell from this far away what they were doing, but he could see the exhaustion in Venus’s stance, and felt his mouth twitch a little. Venus couldn’t even leave his orbit to make Mars help him, since the Sun would definitely solar flare him like he’d just done to Earth.
Heaving out another heavy sigh, Earth let himself fall back, gravity cushioning him as he settled into a lying position. “Guess there really is nothing to do,” he said, looking at Titan, who offered him an unsure smile.
“Don’t your Earthlings have any two-person games?” Earth shot back up, wondering how that possibility hadn’t occurred to him yet.
“Of course they do! My Earthlings have everything.” He clapped his hands together, considering for a moment, hand moving up to rub at his chin. Titan just watched him, another genuine smile on his face; Earth found his thoughts drifting back to earlier, and he pinched himself slightly, urging himself back to thinking about games. “Ooh- we could play Scrabble!”
“Scrabble?” Titan sounded out, arching an eyebrow.
“Scrabble! It’s a word game - I promise it’s fun! Nobody ever plays it with me but Jupiter and Mercury, and Jupiter’s not fun to play with at all because he plays these super long, weird words that make it so easy for him to win—” Earth cut himself off when he noticed he was rambling. “It’s fun, I promise,” he repeated again, letting the game materialize in his hands. Titan shrugged his shoulders at him, nodding, and Earth felt his smile widen, spilling all of the tiles in between them and then laying the game board out, a curl of excitement building in his core.
It was about an hour into the game when Earth first played an unusual word, Titan narrowing his eyes and pressing a finger to his lips as he looked up at Earth. “…Does that really work?”
“I know all of my Earthling languages, of course it works!”
“It looks like a pretty unusual word, Earth—”
“It works!” Earth said, playfully pushing Titan with his arm, watching with a slight sense of satisfaction as his face slightly dusted with red again. “I know this game.”
“O-kay, I guess…” Titan seemingly let it go, instead moving onto his turn. Earth felt his lips twitch up into another smile, one that he wrestled down into a normal expression when Titan looked back up at him. Finally, they completed a couple rounds - Earth was winning, of course, and he inwardly shook his hand victoriously as he thought back to the countless times he’d lost in cards. He could win something! See!
It was actually fun, and Earth found himself bantering with Titan throughout the course of the game, trading the occasional playful annoyance at the words played; he was already becoming more comfortable with the moon, and it actually felt like the moon switch wouldn’t be too bad! Of course, it was right at that moment when the Sun’s voice boomed out again, a scrabble tile flying out of Earth’s hand and toward Titan as he was startled. Titan caught the tile and blinked, his eyes wide as he looked towards the Sun. Earth sighed and let out an annoyed whine, shaking his hand in the air.
“Of course it’s the moment we’re actually having fun,” he said, rolling his eyes before turning to look at the Sun. He had a huge smile on his face, hands clasped in front of his chest. Mercury and Luna were floating next to him - Luna had a giant smile on his face, and Earth reflexively mirrored that smile, glad that Luna had been able to enjoy the moon switch as well. It had been pretty awkward in the beginning, but now… Earth was actually kind of glad he’d been able to get the chance to hang out with Titan. He’d never say that to anyone, though. That was an inside thought.
“Well, my planets, I hope you all enjoyed the moon switch! I noticed you’ve all already become a lot more comfortable with your new moons, so it’s time to switch back. Go find your planets again!” The Sun clapped his hands, nodding at all of them with his usual manic look in his eyes.
“Thanks, Earth,” Titan said from beside him; Earth smiled at him for a moment, bouncing his leg as he considered before leaning in and pulling the moon into a tight hug, ignoring the way his core fluttered for just the briefest moment.
“Eh, it was fun for me too… Titan.” Earth shrugged as he pulled back - but he did give Titan a genuine smile before he floated off towards Saturn, his hands fidgeting. Luna suddenly appeared in the corner of his eye, and Earth jumped slightly, his eye twitching.
“Seriously? Couldn’t warn me, first?” He muttered, still a little miffed at the amused way Luna had looked at him after the Sun had shot the solar flare.
“Titan, huh?” Luna gave him a small smile, raising one eyebrow.
“…What do you mean?” Earth narrowed his eyes.
“Oh, nothing, Earth. Nothing.” He scratched at the back of his neck, turning back to the Sun. “Let’s just see what the Sun says after this.”
Once all of the planets and moons were gathered and had finally switched back to their requisite planets, the Sun clapped his hands again to get their attention. “After watching you for a while, I've noticed that you all got at least a little comfortable with the moons in your orbits, so it's time to return to normal. I hope you all learned something from that! Now get back to your orbits, and don’t let me catch you leaving them!”
Earth let out another sigh as he turned around to head back to his orbit – his tides were finally going back to normal since Luna had started orbiting him again, and the Earthlings were already starting to rebuild in some areas. They were so resilient; it was almost inspiring.
Luna hovered next to him, an unreadable expression on his face, and Earth finally gave him a questioning look as he settled into his orbital position and let gravity take hold. “Why are you looking at me so weird?” he finally asked, pressing his hand underneath his chin.
“You know, the Sun’s actually pretty cool,” Luna said instead of answering his question, and Earth’s face dropped into a disbelieving look.
“He shot a solar flare at me!”
“You did kind of… leave your orbit after he told everyone not to.”
“I do that all the time!” Luna just arched an eyebrow at him, and Earth huffed and rolled his eyes. “Was it at least fun having Titan as your moon?”
“Oh—” Earth said, blinking after a moment, warmth flooding back into his face. “It was… fine.”
“Earth, you literally can’t lie to me—”
“It was FINE!” Earth said, a little louder, clasping his hands over his ears. “Nothing else to note!”
Luna sighed, rolling his eyes before giving Earth an unimpressed look. “You so have a crush.”
“Nooooooooooo—” Earth started repeating, pressing his hands tighter against his head as Luna finally just turned around, completely ignoring him now. Throwing his head back slightly, Earth felt himself start smiling again, wrestling it down as he kept trying to ignore the warmth in his face. “I don’t! Nope! Nope!”