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Earth was bored. He could admit it - there was nothing going on at the moment to alleviate his boredom; Mars and Venus were orbiting completely opposite from him, and so were all of the giants; Luna was there, but Earth had also just finished sharing a bunch of Earthling stories with him and playing cards with just one other person just wasn’t fun. At the moment, he was just floating along in his orbit, enjoying the rare moment of complete peace (despite the boredom).
His desire to find something to do was alleviated when Earth’s gaze found Mercury, the only other planet on this side of the Solar System. Thanks to the Sun being turned around, focusing on the other planets, Mercury looked just as bored as Earth, with his arms crossed loosely over his body, casually floating without an expression on his face (which was weird, considering Earth was used to his almost constant smile), his fingers tapping on his arms in what Earth could tell was probably a pattern, and the small wings on the sides of his head flapping every once in a while, in a manner that was honestly pretty cute.
Earth probably watched Mercury a little too long, because he startled when Luna tapped him on the head and gave him a brief look with an arched brow, one hand squished against his cheek as he used gravity to prop himself up. His other hand was toying with the flag he’d plucked from his hair, a nervous habit he’d performed a lot more recently after everything that had happened lately. Smiling up at Luna, Earth waited for him to speak.
“Earth, you good?” Luna finally said, blinking at him. His moon was a lot more tuned in to him these days, something Earth definitely knew was because of his flying-into-the-sun suicide attempt and the almost-death of his life due to the Moon Revolution, which had its good and bad sides, including - “You’ve been watching Mercury for a while now, and you’ve got that giddy look on your face.” - the fact that he definitely paid far closer attention to everything Earth did these days.
“Ah-ah-ah - no I wasn’t! And no I don’t!” Earth stuttered, practically giving himself whiplash trying to turn around and face the complete opposite direction of Mercury. Luna followed his turn, giving him a disbelieving look with both eyebrows raised this time.
“I have eyes, you know, Earth.” Luna proved that fact almost immediately by choosing to roll his eyes at Earth. Earth chose to ignore both that and the flush spreading across his face, instead crossing his arms and pouting at Luna. He took a second to peek behind himself again, spotting Mercury still in his bored state.
“Why don’t you just ask him to come over here?” Luna said, sounding exasperated at Earth’s antics. “You’re friends with him, it’s literally just that simple!”
For a second Earth thought about making an excuse, but then he realized he really couldn’t think of any. After all, the Sun was taking one of those rare moments where he wasn’t focused on Mercury and was instead turned around to look at the rest of the Solar System. They were all in the point of their orbits where Earth and Mercury were the only two on this side of the sun, so Earth assumed that the Sun’s paranoia about the others leaving their orbits had led to him just ignoring Earth and Mercury for now - and trust him, Earth was totally fine with that! But that also meant that Luna’s suggestion about inviting Mercury to hang out wasn’t something he could wiggle out of.
He took a second to think (which he’d been trying to do more of, rather than just acting immediately), staring at some asteroids passing by, silent while Luna just stared at him and fidgeted with the flag in his hand. Finally, his shoulders dropped and he pouted up at Luna again. “Fiiiine, but if something goes wrong, I’m blaming you!”
“Mercury!” Earth whisper-yelled, trying to get Mercury’s attention without alerting the Sun. “Mercury!!” He accompanied his whisper-yell with a huge wave, and this time saw Mercury’s head pop up, the little wings briefly spreading out like they did when he was surprised. Their eyes met, and Earth made a brief ‘come-here’ motion with his head. Mercury looked confused, and he motioned towards the Sun with his hands.
Earth shrugged his shoulders, pointing at the distant planets on the other side of the Solar System, trying to convey that he thought the Sun would be focused on them. He wasn’t sure if Mercury got the message since he just blinked at Earth for a little bit, but then he realized Mercury had left his orbit and was actually floating towards him.
“I-Is something wrong, Earth?” Mercury asked, a concerned expression on his face.
“Oh, uh, no! I just figured we could just, uh, hang out, while the Sun is preoccupied with the other side of the Solar System.” Earth said, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. Mercury in front of him actually tilted his head a little at that, blinking, his smile growing. Earth felt the flush on his face grow slightly warmer and hoped against all hopes that it wasn’t showing. Instead of acknowledging that at all, Earth pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket and showed them to Mercury. “Wanna play cards? You too, Luna.”
Luna swung back around from where he was still floating behind Earth, looking excited. Mercury nodded at him, wearing the expression he usually wore most of the time - wide, happy eyes and a cute smile. Earth paused for a moment as he realized what he just thought, and then immediately decided to move on and just deal the cards. The time actually passed pretty quickly from there - it was practically a full Earthling day of just playing cards and chatting inanely, long enough that Luna started yawning and stretching, taking a little longer to pick his card each time. When he saw Luna’s eyes practically closing entirely as he stared at the hand of cards in front of him, Earth went ahead and just grabbed the cards from him before patting Luna’s hair.
“I think your body is trying to tell you it wants to sleep -” Earth pointed out, Luna interrupting him, almost saying something before it got carried away by another yawn. Earth gave him a look, trying to say ‘I told you so’ without actually saying it, and Luna responded with an unimpressed look but moved back into his lunar orbit and closed his eyes. Earth watched for a little bit as Luna’s breathing almost immediately settled into a stable, quiet pattern, a small smile on his face as he looked.
He turned to look back at Mercury, and the soft look in the other planet’s eyes almost made Earth stop breathing. He tried in vain to stop the flush from rising on his face again, but once again chose to ignore it as he felt his face grow warmer, putting a hand out for Mercury’s cards instead.
“Thanks for hanging out with me, Mercury,” Earth said, quietly so as not to disturb Luna. He took a second to glance back at his moon again, eyes closed, chest falling and rising in the way it did only when he was asleep, before stepping forward and pulling Mercury into a hug, squeezing the smaller planet tightly. He kept his own eyes closed tightly, but when Mercury squeezed back, he resigned himself to his fate and quit trying to stop the flush from growing, his face feeling like it was on fire (in fact, better make sure there are no wildfires once Mercury leaves, that would suck). “In fact,” he said, still hugging Mercury, “thanks for everything. I know I already said that, but I really do appreciate you helping out with all of… that, earlier.”
He finally pulled back, settling into the spot he was before, and looked at Mercury - the other planet looked sheepish now, slightly pink in the cheeks, his small wings flapping a little faster than normal.
“I - of course, Earth.” Mercury gave his usual small smile, “Anytime.”
The two just stared at each other for a couple of seconds before Mercury coughed, gaze turning away from Earth. “I better get back to my orbit, before the Sun finally decides to turn around, notices I’m not there, and throws a temper tantrum.”
Earth gave a small laugh, finally stuffing the cards back in his pocket. “Alright, I’ll see you later then!” He watched as Mercury finally turned around and floated slowly back over to his orbit before Earth moved himself to settle back into the central spot of his own orbit.
He heard a motion from behind him and turned over to look at Luna’s spot. “I told you,” Luna said in a musical tone, eyes still closed. The moon floated over to Earth and settled down next to him, laying his head on his shoulder and falling right back asleep.
“Yeah,” Earth said, staring again at Mercury, who had settled back into his spot and was casually playing around with some of the small asteroid fragments that had found themselves in the planet’s orbit. “You did.”