Solarballs Oneshots || 🚀‼️

26| Mercury + Venus - "Kindness for the Past is Easy to Spare"

A/N: Hiya! I just thought we needed more Venus and Mercury content. Apologies to any shippers, this isn't a ship thingy! Their canon relationship in the show is very rocky (haha) and it'd take a LOT of improvement for a relationship to be built.

Venus does start to realize his wrongdoings and what to do with it at the end, I'll give you that. Changing is difficult, changing is hard. I'm PRAYING they're not out of character, I tried my BEST to make this readable for you guys.

This is written in first person— Mercury's perspective! No specific timeline.
—

Wandering the solar system, it's easy to get lost in your thoughts... and my thoughts haven't been a comforting place as of late. I don't mean to be so somber- there's enough dreadful things to take up plenty of space in my head- but little things just get to me more on some days. And today was just one of those days. Earth and Mars were doing the usual, playing cards, whatnot... so I was firmly sequestered in my orbit, barely missing the little glances they'd give me. Even The Sun didn't seem to be  talking to me, he seemed to be more focused on making sure everyone was okay. He'd gotten a little less strict with orbits and Saturn had managed to somehow convince him to let me be a little more free.

It set me in a better mood, which was a blessing in itself since it's not easy to have Venus as a neighbor. Now it was my job to give the inner solar system a good look-over. You know, make sure that there's no sneaky asteroids peaking around our orbits, find anything interesting or worth telling Earth or The Sun about. That sort of stuff.

Jupiter and Saturn usually did that job, but I bet they're probably stressed out or something. It's just Saturn this time, and Jupiter's dealing with other things. So I'm lending out a hand. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Venus watching me, his eyes unreadable. As he passed me, he paused for a second and turned his gaze on me. Oh, here we go again...

"Mm- stuck doing work for the others again? It must be really getting under your surface to never be useful..." But no typical smug smile was plastered on his face, and his words lacked their usual bite.

I tilted my head and let a moment of silence pass, before rolling my eyes and turning away. "Sure, Venus. Good luck with whatever you're doing, I guess," I replied, and I heard Venus give a little huff. I didn't hear him walk away, maybe we were heading to the same place. What was the point of his entire insult if we were doing the same thing?

I met Saturn behind the Asteroid Belt, the faint sunlight dappling off his rings. "Well hello, young man!" he greeted cheerfully, slightly kneeling to see me. I slightly scowled, but couldn't help smiling. It was hard to stay moody around Saturn. He motioned towards a clearing, where Venus was walking while scouting the belt, and we began padding over to join him.  "It's so good of you to help me. Why, it's rather like you carrying an old tradition!"

"Hi, Saturn!" I greeted happily. My gaze flitted towards the red-orange planet not so far away. "Er, hey Venus." Venus nodded curtly, as if that was his way of acknowledging me. I suddenly registered the last part of Saturn's words, and I looked up. "Wait, tradition?"

Saturn nodded, eyes twinkling as usual. "In the early days of the Solar System, Jupiter and I always did most of this work. We still do, but we don't have to focus as much on it because there's less dangers. Jupiter would usually enlist Venus' help- well, at the time he was a lot different- to do so." I saw Venus freeze at the mention of the past, but he didn't say anything.

Saturn seemed to notice it too, gently touching Venus' shoulder as he nudged a tiny asteroid out the way.  "Sorry dear, you don't mind if I talk about the past, do you?"

"Talk about whatever you want," Venus replied flatly. "I don't care. I already got all the asteroids tucked away already, I'm going to check the perimeters. You and Mercury can handle the rest of this from here." With that he turned on his heel and loped away.

My heart squeezed a little more, and I had to bite my lip to keep my eyes from prickling. Why the hell did I still care what he said? What hope was I barely even holding onto that we'd make things up? I'm.. I'm used to this happening. It's fine.

Quickly I bent down and picked up an asteroid that Venus had left in his trail. It looked purposely cracked open. Wow, talk about anger issues. I didn't want Saturn to catch onto my waterworks. He's as sharp as a sword sometimes and I didn't feel like having an emotional intervention right now. "Anyways, I don't mind if you talk about the past. I think it's interesting. Were you and Venus close?"

The gas giant let out a wistful sigh. "Oh, I'd like to say we were. We spent a lot of time together while on belt-duty. Always so stubborn and opinionated, full of vim and vigor." He chuckled a little.  "It's no surprise he and Earth got along so well. They could spend hours out here, arguing about something or the other. Jupiter used to swear he could hear their voices all the way from here."

Saturn's eyes briefly dimmed with sadness as he walked along with me. "Things change... some people aren't around anymore. Or at least what you remember them as. It's a shame, but it's just what getting older is like. You lose things... you have to give up things." He shook his head, and he brightened up a little. "He was always a bright planet... both in personality and in the sky."

I hardly held back a snort. If I didn't have Saturn say that to me, I would've never thought that for a moment. No one ever really talked about the past. Certainly not Venus, as a matter of fact. I covered my mouth when Saturn glanced back at me, but he just tipped his head.

"Yes, I know. He was quite the different story for a long time. And when..." He spared me a kind and worried glance, like he didn't want to upset me, so I nodded him on. "Well, Venus has always wanted to be like Earth. He hates how similar they once were. He hates... a lot of things. Things happened that were long and difficult, and I guess he held onto that resentment somewhat. Never once did I ever see Venus seem as happy as he was while he had water on his surface."

I bit my tongue. "I always thought Venus didn't love anything. He hates me, he hates everyone and everything. I just thought he wouldn't have shed a tear if something happened to me. Venus just let it kill him, kill his past self and anything to do with it. It just ate him up inside, and he just turned it all..."

"...Turned it all outwards." Saturn and I jumped, and I looked over to see Venus standing right there with a dispassionate look on his face. If Venus was upset, I wouldn't have been able to tell.

I waited for him to do something, say anything, but uncomfortable silence had settled over all of us. Sensing this, Saturn gently switched the conversation to another topic as we headed back to our orbits, and I tried to follow along with him. Venus just trailed along, lost in his own thoughts.

Eventually I fell quiet too, and that left us with nothing but the sound of distant chattering from other planets or moons. Saturn chirped goodbye and retreated back to his own orbit, saying hello to all his moons.

I led Venus back to our own orbits, noticing that he was barely paying attention. I stopped at his orbit, and I stood there with Venus back in the inner solar system, my skin pricking uncomfortably. I was about to make a hasty excuse and quickly escape right then and there when he abruptly spoke.

"Thank you for your help, Mercury," he murmured.

Before I could even say anything, he turned and walked away.

—

OKAY. I might've made a bunch of mistakes, and I promise I'll look through this and fix it tomorrow or later. In case I get the question on "why doesn't Venus apologize to Mercury?" because I feel it's a little out of character. He's done nothing but bully Mercury for the longest time, I don't think he'd quickly apologize. He's just more of the type to think about everything and slowly improve. Again, change takes time.

Hope you enjoyed this, and have a great time of day!