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The first thing he noticed was immediately ignored in favor of not looking in Mercury’s direction. The second thing he noticed was that Mercury hadn’t moved an inch the next time he looked despite his own conviction not to. The third thing was that his wings were… they sat wrong. One was partially extended, the other limp against his back, and it was an odd enough sight that Venus paused, glaring in his direction.
What, was Mercury trying to get his attention by acting weird?
Ha, like that’d work!
Venus forced his eyes away with a huff and instead stared at the distant Asteroid Belt, distantly aware that he was scowling and equally so aware that his eyes kept wanting to look right back at Mercury. Stupid, stupid—stupid pipsqueak, he finally internally snapped, eyes darting back only for his brow to pinch in when he realized Mercury still hadn’t moved an inch, frozen on the spot like he’d decided to become an ice giant.
(Like he could ever be considered a giant.)
“Hey, pipsqueak!” he called out, waiting for Mercury to turn around—or for his wings to stiffen up, for him to make any sort of sign that he’d been heard—and scowled when he just stood. “Pipsqueak!” That time the repeated ignorance was enough to make irritation and heat flare in his core, and before he knew it Venus was on his feet and headed straight for the other’s orbit. “Hey, pipsqueak! You forget how to listen?”
Maybe he’d just gotten tired of enough of him and learned to ignore him.
…Huh.
(Venus hoped not. Not that he’d ever say that out loud.)
“Mercury!”
There. That had to get his attention, right? Venus using his name instead of calling him pipsqueak?
But even as he approached and felt the brush of Mercury’s gravity on the edge of his own, Venus equally felt a sudden blast of overwhelming fear and realized he still hadn’t moved an inch, and that time… that time, something like actual concern might have filtered into his core. He tried not to pay any attention to it.
“Hey, pipsqueak, what do you think you’re doing, ignoring—!?”
His voice cut off when he rounded Mercury’s front and met his eyes only to see the same terror that clung onto the gravity brushing against his. “…Pipsqueak?” Venus narrowed his eyes and straightened up a little, refusing to let his growing concern show through on his face. Mercury's wings were still wrong—one half-spread, the other limp just as he’d seen from his own orbit—and his face had gone pale and sweaty, his silver eyes glassy. Venus narrowed his eyes and straightened up a little, refusing to let his growing concern show through on his face. "Hey!" He finally reached out and snapped his fingers in front of Mercury's face, a sharp crack that should have made him flinch.
It didn't.
Mercury just stood there until he finally spoke, but the words were clumsy and spoken through a clearly uncooperative mouth. He started swaying slightly, little jolts back and forth that he eyed uncertainly.
“D-Do you s-see that, Venus?”
He turned just enough to look out the corner of his vision.
"See what? The Sun?" He snorted. "Yes? That big lump of plasma is there all the time, if you hadn't noticed." Crossing his arms, he huffed. "What's wrong with you, pipsqueak? Take one too many solar flares to the shrinking crust?" He expected any sort of response—an annoyed expression, a groan, Mercury shrinking away from him or maybe not with his newfound confidence—and only managed to see a minute twitch in his cheek.
As Venus glared at him, Mercury opened his mouth like he meant to say something else.
And then his pupils blew out wide enough to nearly swallow the silver of his irises, and before he could even be confused as hell about that, several things happened at once: his eyes rolled straight up into the back of his head and revealed the whites, his entire body went somehow even stiffer than before, rigid as an asteroid, and he dropped like all the gravity’d left him at once.
“Hey—!”
Venus lunged straight for him—aware that he’d just hit the natural ‘floor’ the Sun created in the system but equally so not wanting him to—and nearly got brained by one of his wings as they snapped out to full length, feathers ruffled and puffy, the ends of the feathers brushing against his cheeks. He cursed in a rough growl and tried again to reach for him, but his wings continued to be an annoying obstacle, beating a clearly-involuntary and chaotically-hard-to-guess rhythm. Despite that, the rest of his body was so stiff he was almost like a straight line, at least until his arms and legs decided to join the stupid party and he was thrashing around in front of him while Venus stood there like an absolute idiot with no idea what to do.
"Mercury!"
His voice cracked on the name, and he hated that too.
Rather than make himself think about it, Venus finally just acted. He threw himself forward and straight onto Mercury, trying to pin his flailing limbs under his own body-weight and ignoring the wings beating against his back. “Cut it out! If you’re doing this on purpose, pipsqueak,” he hissed, “you’re so dead.” But he had a feeling just from the… everything of the situation that he definitely wasn’t. Not to mention his eyes were a little impossible to fake with how rolled back they looked, and his thrashing was violent and clearly uncontrolled, a series of sharp jolts that had him nearly bucked off despite himself. Mercury's mouth had fallen open, a thin line of spit beginning to trail from the corner of his lips, and his chest was heaving in shallow, uneven gasps that didn't seem to be doing anything. Venus pressed his weight down harder, his own core burning with the effort, and waited for it to stop.
“Mercury!” he tried again, “Cut it out. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Ironic coming from him, who’d probably hurt Mercury… a few times.
But this was different.
“Venus—!?”
The Sun’s loud voice sent relief shooting through him like it only had once before. “What happened? What’s wrong with Mercury?!” The heat around them increased as he bent closer, the temperatures ratcheting up until his own skin prickled with it, and his voice only grew louder. Venus grimaced and held Mercury down that much harder, his hands pressed flat against Mercury's thrashing shoulders. He just kept thrashing hard enough that he even loosened the grip after a second, weirdly concerned that Mercury would somehow break something fighting back against the hold.
“What are you doing, looking? Get Earth,” he demanded. “Now!”
Normally, that kind of demand towards the Sun might have gotten him a solar-flare and angry look that could have scalded even his surface that much deeper… but the Sun really did seem to be trying to change, because all he did was look at Mercury for another second before straightening up and calling out loudly enough that Venus’s jaw clenched in pain, “Earth! Get over here!” The Sun might be able to heal them—they were his planets, after all—but Venus was… he’d paid a little attention to the Earthlings, okay? Hard to ignore life when it was all you wanted! Not to mention Earth dragged them down to his stupid surface every chance he got, even if he’d never acknowledge that it was… fun.
So Venus knew this was definitely more of an Earthling thing than a planetary thing, which just made why it was happening to Mercury even weirder. Stars, could the universe let them have one damn day?
He grimaced even more when he spotted the thin trail of spit escaping the corner of Mercury’s mouth.
“Pipsqueak,” he demanded. “Pipsqueak!” It felt like an absolute eternity before Mercury finally stopped—and when he did, it was just as quickly as it’d started, leaving him absolutely limp and unmoving underneath Venus’s weight still pinning him. He waited for a moment… and then another… and another, and when his eyes finally drifted down to Mercury’s chest he scrambled off of him and furiously shouted to the Sun, “Would you tell Earth to get here quicker? He’s not breathing!”
Technically they didn’t need to breathe exactly like Earthlings, but…
It still meant something was very, very fucking wrong.
By the time Earth finally came running towards him with Mars and Luna both close on his heels, he’d already taken a moment to—begrudgingly—use Mercury’s own tank-top to wipe away the thin trail of spit trickling down his chin, idly fixing it back into place once he had.
(What? He could be nice. Sometimes.)
The Sun was still hovering behind him, muttering loudly enough that it was somehow incomprehensible despite being so close, and he made an audible sound and literally dragged a surprised Earth in the rest of the way as Venus crouched next to Mercury, watching and waiting for him to start breathing again.
…Maybe a quick thump to the chest would help.
He was seconds from doing exactly that when Earth skidded in next to him (nearly falling straight over Mercury, which would have been both funny and annoying as all hell).
Breath heaving, he demanded, “What the hell happened, man?”
“You think I know?” Venus shot back. “Mercury was standing here ignoring me, and suddenly he drops and starts shaking like crazy!” He gestured down towards him. “And now he’s stopped breathing, if you hadn’t noticed!” Earth’s eyes widened as he looked up Mercury’s entire limp frame.
“Shit,” he said, making Venus briefly blink before watching as he bent down, pressing one palm with his fingers spread wide over Mercury’s chest. A brilliant blue and green lit up underneath each digit, seeping into Mercury’s still chest; and as he watched Mercury abruptly shot up into an upright position with a hard gasp, eyes wide and completely unseeing for a moment.
And then he just as quickly collapsed backwards a second time into another dead faint… this time breathing.
Venus rolled his eyes, suddenly uncomfortable with the moment and not wanting to be there when Mercury actually woke up.
“You have fun with that,” he said, backing away. “I’ll be in my orbit.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Earth muttered, still crouched over Mercury. “Thanks for helping him out.” Venus huffed once and kept backing away, aware that it was dumb to not just turn his back to them to go back to his orbit and still unable to do that. He… wanted to keep his eyes on them. On Mercury, to be precise.
(Definitely not to be sure he was okay.)
(Definitely not. Ha!)