Work Text:
His painting was going bloody amazing, for once.
Uranus was on a streak with it—ever since his moons had left for another one of their little club meetings, the silence had given his brain a rest that meant he could finally paint without a worry in the world. He’d taken a bit to write in his diary… well, the newest version of it, since the last one had been practically torn to bloody pieces by that menace in the Asteroid Belt.
(Which he wasn’t going to forget. Did anyone know how long he’d been writing in that diary?
Billions! Billions of years, was it.
Not that it seemed to matter to anyone else.)
Uranus was finally painting now, and it was going well as it’d ever gone. He’d gotten the background all painted on, a dark near-black, and now it was time to add all of the stars big and small. Once he’d done that, he could start adding the pièce de résistance of…
He coughed into his fist, thoughts trailing off.
Admitting that he was going to be painting—
“Uranus! Hey, Uranus!”
A small voice jolted him out of his thoughts as he instinctively moved to hide his canvas, whirling around with a confused pinch to his brow. “Hello?” He didn’t recognize the voice, so it certainly wasn’t Neptune or any of his moons. Had one of those other bloody moons gotten lost somehow?
“Right here.” His eyes widened when he finally caught sight of who stood in front of him, waving one hand in an attention-getting gesture that stopped when their eyes met. “Hey, dude.”
“Mars?”
It was Mars, right? Uranus really hoped he hadn’t gotten that wrong.
The smaller rocky nodded, dusty orange curls moving with it.
“Earth wants to ask you something.” He hooked a thumb back over his shoulder, drawing Uranus’s eyes towards the Inner Solar System where he could see the bright smear of the other rockies gathered together. “He’d come out here himself, but we all think his Earthlings have gone through enough ice ages this past while. So I volunteered.”
Out of every planet in the Solar System, Earth wanted to ask him something?
“…Right,” Uranus said, slowly. He tugged at the end of his braid, glancing backwards to Neptune’s orbit just in case he was within sight. (Of course he wasn’t. Neptune could be bloody anywhere at this point, now that they were allowed to leave their orbits.) “And you’re sure you’ve got the right ice giant, mate? Neptune’s orbit is just past mine.” He absently added, “’Specially if it’s numbers related. Neptune’s got the mind for that bloody stuff, not me.”
“Pretty sure,” Mars said, mouth tugging up on one side. “He said your name and everything.”
“As in… jokingly?”
“Nope.” Mars lifted an eyebrow. “Is it that unbelievable, dude?”
“No! No, just—” Uranus gripped the end of his braid tightly and then released it, sighing so heavily his shoulders dropped. “Nevermind, mate. What’s the question?”
“Sorry, dude. He wants to ask you in person.”
“Oh.” Uranus blinked. “Okay…?”
“If you’re busy, I’m sure we can distract him with something else,” Mars said, eyes briefly darting to the side and towards the canvas behind him. He dragged a hand through his hair. “No worries.”
Uranus quickly dematerialized everything he’d been using and turned to Mars with a stretched smile, still a little confused about the whole matter. “Don’t worry, mate. I’m not busy.” He almost gave a thumbs up and rethought it at the last second, hand clenching hard. “Lead the way?”
Mars did exactly that, turning and waving him on to follow.
It was a long… long… long journey. Uranus felt amped up on something, his core twisting upon itself in his chest. “Mars?” he asked. Despite the fact that they’d shared the same Solar System for billions of years, the name somehow felt foreign in his mouth. “It’s nothing bad, is it?” He toyed with his jacket zipper. “I haven’t done anything. I’ve been out here the whole time, you can ask my moons, they’re… well, at that bloody Moon Club thing. But you can ask them later.”
“Dude, relax.” Mars said, glancing back, the corner of his mouth twitching. “He wouldn’t tell us what it was, he just got that look on his face and wouldn’t play his cards until I left. But I know Earth. It’s nothing bad. Probably annoying, if anything.”
Uranus relaxed a little.
He could deal with annoying, after all. “Thanks, mate.”
Mars nodded, already focused on the distance still left to travel. “Anytime, dude.”
Saturn wasn’t within his orbit when they passed thorough it, but he was within Jupiter’s (of course) and as they went by both Jupiter and Saturn seemed to do a double-take before lifting their hands in a passing wave. Uranus just waved back, a little miffed about how obviously confused they were.
He could talk to the rocky planets! What was so odd about that?
By the time they got to the Asteroid Belt proper, he was feeling the heat enough to unzip his jacket, which meant this was about to be a bloody uncomfortable talk. Mars sped up through the Asteroid Belt with his eyes fixed straight ahead, and Uranus followed easily, glancing around for sight of Ceres before he gave up.
(His poor diary. It didn’t deserve that!)
The other three rocky planets were bunched in Earth’s orbit just as he’d seen before, a mess of cards hanging in the space between them. Mercury sat up against Venus’s side with one silver-speckled wing folded along Venus’s arm, and Venus was letting him even if he was visibly scowling down at his hand of cards.
(Awkward.)
Earth was sprawled on his back looking bored; his moon sat behind him with a hand of cards, studying each one in turn. When Mars was close enough, Earth reached out and grabbed the bottom of his jacket, pulling him down beside him without even looking up at Uranus, who stopped awkwardly on the edge of their gathering with his gravity pulled in tight. (He’d rather not accidentally start pulling one of them in.)
Then Earth’s head snapped up.
“Uranus! Dude, you came!” He rolled upright, the cards scattering out of his way. “Okay. Okay, okay. So, I have a question. A question for you! A very important one.”
Venus’s scowl grew deeper. “He’s been like this for hours,” he grumbled, turning to Earth a moment later to demand, “Ask him already so we can move the hell on.”
Earth scoffed. “You’re just mad you’re losing.”
“I am not losing—”
“You kind of are, Venus.” Mercury’s eyes were still on his own hand. “Sorry.”
Venus cuffed him behind the head. “Shut up, pipsqueak.”
He awkwardly stood there and watched, eyes darting between the Sun in the near distance (well, at least, near to him compared to his orbit) and the four rockies. Earth finally seemed to remember his question and looked at him, grinning.
Uranus tried for a smile. “Go on, then? Ask away, mate.”
“That!” Earth pointed at him with both hands. “That, right there. Why do you always say ‘mate’?” Uranus opened his mouth, then closed it at a loss for words, his brow furrowing as he tried to find the answer to that question and came up empty.
“I… huh.” He grabbed the end of his braid, twisting it round his fingers. “It’s just a thing you say, I ‘spose. To your mates.””
“That’s using the word to explain the word,” Mercury pointed out.
“Come on, dude,” Mars said, tossing a card at Mercury, who caught it and dropped it onto the pile between them. “Let him think.”
Uranus was thinking.
He was thinking about the first time he’d actually spoken to someone else after his formation, which now was a dim memory that took some work to bring back, and he… could only remember just already having the word. He’d never really gained it, it’d just been there. It was part of him as much as his core.
“Uh.” He could feel his cheeks warming up. “M—I’ve got no bloody idea.”
“You almost said it again,” Earth pointed out, grinning. “Come on, it’s like your signature move! All those different words you use. Like Saturn and his fancy talk.”
“Fancy talk?”
Earth flapped one hand. “We can talk about that later. I just want to know why you say mate… mate.” The word sounded off in his mouth, and Uranus tugged at his braid again, mind whirling in a search to figure out why he spoke how he did.
The only answer he could come up with was that he just did.
Which made no sense at all, and was such a brilliant answer, wasn’t it?
“And here’s the thing!” Earth abruptly continued, pointing one finger at him. “I’ve got this whole landmass in my southern hemisphere where my Earthlings talk exactly like you. The word, the voice, all of it. So either they got it from you, which, how? Or you got it from them, and you’ve never even been to my surface, unless you somehow time-traveled as an itty bitty baby planet and learned Australian from my Earthlings.” He paused, squinting like that was an actual thing to consider. “Have you?”
“Never, mate,” he answered. “I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered time-traveling.”
“A-ha! See, you did it again!”
Uranus pressed one hand against his mouth to hide his smile, unable to help it at Earth’s sheer enthusiasm. “I really dunno. It’s just how I talk.”
“So that’s it? You don’t know?” Venus had finally looked up from his cards, one eyebrow climbing. “We stopped the game for that?”
“It was a worthwhile venture!” Earth was already sweeping the scattered cards back together, shuffling them in his gravity with a practiced flick. “And it’s fine, he can get back to me. We’ve got like five billion years before the Sun eats us, so I can wait.” Mars sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “Anyway!” Earth said. “Uranus, you want in?”
It took him a moment to work out that the question was for him, even with his name.
“In the game?”
“Yeah, in the game. We always need new people.” Earth looked up at him, holding out a deck of cards. “Come on! It’s fun, I promise.”
Uranus glanced back in the direction of his orbit, then back at the rockies.
…His painting could wait.
“Sure, mate. I'll join.”