Mercedes sat in her living room apartment, headphones snugly plugged into her ears, as she watched Youtube videos on learning how to Sign Language. She had found an amazing channel with a young man who was teaching the basics of American Sign Language, and she was trying her best to keep up so that she would be able to communicate more effectively with Sam. As she watched the video, she mimicked the motions and took notes for herself on a word document so that she wouldn't forget the signs when she saw him. He had taught her words such as 'hello' and 'my name is' and 'goodbye' as well as 'thank you' but she thought it would impress him if she was able to learn a lot more on her own. They had hung out once or twice since their meeting at the cafe, so that Mercedes could share her notes with him, even though she knew he had found someone else in his later class to type and email them to his inbox. It made her curious as to why he still needed hers, but she didn't want to jump to any conclusions. Sometimes she wondered if he liked her, but figured that he just preferred her notes because she explained them to him when they met up.
She stopped the video, closed her eyes, and decided to practice the sign for the word 'never'. It was easier for her to memorise new things if she couldn't see anything else around her as a distraction. When she opened them, she noticed that Santana was staring at her with wide amused eyes. Mercedes quickly pulled her headphones out of her ears and cleared her throat. She wasn't entirely sure what Santana would think about her learning Sign Language and she really didn't feel the need to share anything with her psychotic roommate.
"Um...hey." She said slowly as she studied the other woman's face. "How was..." She paused, "Wait, do you even go to school?" During the few weeks that she had already been attending the University, she had never seen Santana studying or with any textbooks at home. Santana rolled her eyes at the question and stuffed a spoon filled with peanut butter into her mouth. Mercedes looked down at the woman's hands and noticed the half eaten jar, which she was pretty sure was hers.
"Why go to school when all of the lectures get posted online? Ain't nobody got time for that." She scoffed before she plopped herself down beside Mercedes on the couch and stared hard at her as she sucked on the spoon. The shorter woman closed her laptop and shifted uncomfortably under the intense gaze. "So Chaka, do you have something that you want to tell me?" Santana pointed the spoon in Mercedes' direction. She had no idea what the woman was talking about and raised an eyebrow.
"No... Why? And is that my peanut butter?" She furrowed her eyebrows and folded her arms across her ample chest. Mercedes didn't mind sharing food with people, but the least that Santana could have done was ask for her permission first.
Santana shook her head and stuffed her dirty spoon back in the jar which made Mercedes cringe. "First of all, you're lying about something, and I'm abouts to find out what it is. Second of all, a house that shares, cares, alright, so there's no more yours or mine. Now it's all about ours. So yes, I am eating our peanut butter and I finished our bananas too."
"You finished MY bananas?!"Mercedes said angrily. "As far as I'm concerned, there is no ours, there's only mine, and you better buy me more peanut butter and bananas!" She pushed herself up from the couch determined to get away from the psychopath behind her, but Santana ran in front of Mercedes, blocking her way. "Listen, I'm not in a playing mood. You better move out of my way before I punch you in the boob."
"Whatever Weezy. I'm not scared of you just because you're in some gang alright." Santana stood her ground and placed her hands on her hips. "I have grapes and shit, that I'm kind of enough to share with you, so you should be saying thank you."
Mercedes narrowed her eyes. "Gang?! What gang?! What are you talking about?"
Santana rolled her eyes and laughed. "Go ahead and act all innocent Chaka, but I've been seeing you throw up gang signs all week okay. Hell I caught you brandishing one five minutes ago." She flipped her hair over her shoulder and Mercedes couldn't help the laugh and the snort that escaped from her as she realised what Santana was talking about. "Laugh it up chuckles, but getting involved with gangs can get you into some serious shit, so I'd be careful if I were you Lil Kim. If I see a tear under your eye, we're not sharing food anymore." With that she turned around, grabbed the jar of peanut butter, and disappeared into her own room down the hall. Mercedes couldn't stop laughing as she stood there shaking her head at the absurdity that was her roommate.
Mercedes sat in her usual spot at the cafe, with a cup of white hot chocolate, as she read a novel for fun. She was getting more and more invested in the book when the sounds of people arguing in front of her caught her attention. While trying to look inconspicuous, she looked up over the edge of her book, and stared at the two men who sat at the table ahead of her. They were speaking in hushed tones but she could still make out the conversation that the two were having.
"Jason...I thought, I thought you felt the same way about me...I...the other night we..." The man with the blonde dreads whispered to the dark haired man with green eyes. The dark haired man, Jason, shook his head and took a deep breath.
"Yea...the other night we were both drunk and it ...it was an accident you know...you're my best friend Ian. Let's not ruin that for us."
"Let's not ruin that for us? No you mean let's not ruin that for you!" Ian replied angrily and Mercedes sunk lower in her seat. She didn't do very well with embarrassing or awkward situations like these and she tried to ignore the conversation so that she wouldn't die from the second hand exposure to what was happening.
"Goddamnit Ian! Why do you have to make this so much more worse than it needs to be? Look we've been friends since we were like 8, do you really want to lose all of that because of a stupid thing that happened in the back of my car?" Jason spoke forcefully to the other man.
"Because it wasn't just a stupid thing to me. Because you held me close to you during the entire night. Because you weren't as fucking drunk as you'd like to pretend that you were because you're not able to accept the truth about yourself that we've both always known." Ian spoke quietly, but loud enough for her to hear. "Because you want to be with me, but you can't handle the realities that will come with that decision." Jason stared at Ian and quickly glanced over at Mercedes who immediately looked down after the eye contact. She could hear him clear his throat.
"Can we...please talk about this somewhere else...somewhere more private?" He whispered to the blonde man.
"Where did you have in mind? The back of your car?" Ian spat out. "I think we spoke about it enough, there's nothing left. Nothing."
"Ian, you're making a mistake...please don't do this. Let's just be friends, hang out...I just, I want you in my life, but...jesus Ian, please stop."
Mercedes glanced up and saw that the man with dreads had started to cry. "Leave me alone. Just go away." He said quietly to his friend. She watched Jason stare at the other man for a few moments before he got up and walked out of the cafe. Ian's body began to shake with silent tears from his spot on the chair. She knew that it could be a bad idea, but she just couldn't handle seeing others struggle when they were right in front of her, so she grabbed a Kleenex and stood up. Slowly she walked over to the crying man and sat down across from him at his table. He looked up at her with bright hazel eyes as she handed him the tissue. Staring at her for a moment, he took it from her, wiped his eyes, and blew his nose. "This is so embarrassing." He shook his head and tried to laugh through his embarrassment. "I'm such an idiot." Mercedes reached out and placed her hand on the stranger's.
"No you're not an idiot. I'm really sorry that I eavesdropped on the whole thing...I just know how it feels to fall for the wrong guy, who doesn't really want you at the end of it." She looked to the side and tried to push the negative memories away from her mind before she looked back at the man in front of her.
"Yea, especially when your friend is a 'straight' dude in love with his girlfriend." He rolled his eyes and then shrugged before he outstretched his hand. "I'm Ian." She smiled and shook the larger hand.
"Mercedes." He grinned and then took a deep breath.
"Well, I think I need to go for a walk and just...clear my mind you know? I just need to try to forget about that Harry Potter rip off." Mercedes laughed and felt her phone in her pocket vibrate.
"Sorry, excuse me." She said politely before she pulled out her phone and read a text from Sam asking her to meet him at the school library to study for an online quiz coming up. A smile graced her lips before she replied back. Turning her attention back to the man in front of her, she apologised again.
"I was going to invite you to come with me, but I know that look anywhere." He smiled sadly and stood up. Mercedes was confused about what he was talking about. She was about to ask him, but thought better of it and stood up as well.
"I hope things get better for you Ian." He grinned and looked out the window as a couple passed by. She watched the sadness cross his face and she looked down at her hands.
"Thanks. Thanks for everything actually." He leaned forward and gave her a quick side hug before he grabbed his coat and left. She hoped that she did the right thing by getting involved in the situation. It was a good and a bad habit of hers to see someone who was struggling and end up trying to fix their problems for them. She remembered a time when her sister was having difficulties meeting men and was always upset about it, so one day Mercedes decided to make an online dating profile for her. Serena was livid with her little sister when she first found out about the profile and told her not to interfere, but she quickly changed her mind when Amir sent her a friendly message a week later. Taking a deep breath, she moved back to her table, packed up her things, and headed over to the school's library to meet up with Sam for their study session.
Mercedes looked through her phone for Sam's text message as she stepped into the library's elevator. After finding the message, she punched in the floor number that he had told her that he would be studying on. Once the elevator doors opened, she quietly moved through the tables and book stacks as she looked around for the tall blonde. She caught a glimpse of the left side of his body peeking out from behind one of the stacks and excitedly walked towards him with a grin. Her expression changed when she noticed that Sam's friend Puck was sitting across from him. He was staring at his textbook with intense concentration and obvious confusion. With a sigh, he looked up and wiggled his fingers in front of Sam, who in turn looked up at his friend. She watched Puck sign something quickly to Sam and pointed to the book on the table, Sam signed something back to his friend, and Puck nodded before his attention turned to Mercedes who was approaching. His eyes lit up and he wiggled his eyebrows at her.
"Well hey there my little croissant." He said with enthusiasm. Mercedes laughed at the term of endearment and covered the side of her face in embarrassment.
She waved shyly as she finally approached the table and noticed that a girl of Asian descent was sitting beside Sam. He noticed her presence, looked up at her with a wide smile, and gave her the sign for hello. She signed back to him excitedly and he quietly chuckled at her enthusiasm. The girl beside him noticed the commotion and looked over at Mercedes with a grin.
Hello my name is Mercedes. Mercedes signed to the girl. The girl grinned and signed something very quickly to Mercedes that she didn't understand. Sam noticed her confusion and wrote down on his notepad so that she would get it.
She said that her name's Tina and she's never met anyone with the name Mercedes before
Mercedes read it and looked up at the girl, whose expression had turned sour. The girl 'Tina' began to quickly sign to Puck. He laughed and shook his head.
"No, she's not deaf." He said out loud and pulled out the chair beside him so that Mercedes could sit down. Tina looked at Mercedes with annoyance and back down at her textbook.
"Oh." The girl muttered and moved some of her hair behind her ear, which revealed a beige hearing aid in her left ear. Mercedes sat down uncomfortably beside Puck and almost jumped when Sam touched her hand lightly.
How are you? He signed when she finally looked at him.
Good. She signed back with a small smile. He nodded and picked up his textbook to show her what page they were on.
"So, I don't think we ever had the pleasure of properly meeting." Puck said with a devilish grin. "I'm Noah, but you my little sugar cookie, can call me Puck." Mercedes laughed and shook his hand.
"I'm Mercedes, it's nice to properly meet you."
"I thought we were here to study." Tina said in annoyance and looked at Mercedes from under her eyelashes. Mercedes narrowed her eyes at the girl and tried to figure out what was making her act the way that she was. She didn't think she had done anything that would piss her off, but with some people you just really didn't know.
Puck rolled his eyes at the dark haired girl. "Listen, if you have a problem with us getting acquainted, you can turn down your hearing aids." Tina glared at him before she reached up to her ear and clicked a small switch and she did the same process to the other hearing aid in her right ear that Mercedes hadn't noticed before. Tina lightly squeezed Sam's hand and began to sign happily to him and he silently covered his mouth and laughed before looking at Puck.
Puck's jaw dropped and he began to quickly sign back at Tina, which caused Sam to laugh even harder until the point where tears fell from his eyes. Mercedes stared on in confusion as Tina and Puck continued to bicker with each other through signing and felt utterly left out of the situation. To her it felt like she had journeyed to a new country where everyone spoke a different language from hers, where she was definitely the outsider. She pulled her textbook out of her bag and focused all of her attention on it so that no one else would notice how lonely or out of place she felt. A heavy cool hand covered hers and she looked up into Sam's warm green eyes. He grinned at her before he picked up his chair, placed it beside hers, and grabbed his textbook from his side of the table. He took her hand in his and wrote on the palm of her hand with his finger, 'can you help me with this'. Flipping through the pages of the book, he pointed to question one and then looked at her. She forced herself to look away from his face and focused on the question in front of them. He handed her the notepad and she wrote out an explanation and underlined key phrases in the text with her index finger as she explained.
Sam reached out and took her hand in his again, 'You smell like vanilla', she laughed and raised an eyebrow at him. Her body wash was vanilla bean, but her perfume was floral and much stronger than the vanilla. She was surprised that he had picked it up and brought her wrist to her own nose to see if she could pick up the scent herself, it was very faint, but she could make it out. He took her hand again, 'I have a really good sense of smell', and then lightly laughed with a small sound escaping from his mouth.
"I can see that," She said slowly before she laughed. Puck watched the exchange between the two and grinned. When he looked over at Tina, her stare was fixated on the pair, and she looked extremely unhappy. She quickly closed her book, gathered up her things, nodded at Puck and walked away briskly. His eyebrow rose up, but Sam and Mercedes didn't seem to notice her exit as they communicated with each other. Puck yawned, closed up his book, and tapped Mercedes on the shoulder.
"Nice meeting you my curvaceous goddess, but I have to go." He said with a smile and then signed something to Sam quickly. Sam signed back with a smile, fished some keys out of his pocket, and threw them over to his friend. Mercedes caught the signs for home and see you in the exchange.
"See you later Puck." Once Puck was gone, Sam turned his attention back to Mercedes and then stood up. She watched as his shirt pulled up a little bit while he stretched and then looked back down at her book when he moved his chair to sit back down across from her. They studied for half an hour more before Sam closed his book and rubbed his eyes with exhaustion. Mercedes felt tired too, but she enjoyed being out and away from home for the time being. He reached for the notepad and pulled out his pen.
Ready to go home?
He slid it back over to her and she signed the word yes to him. He smiled at her and then gathered up his things and she followed his example and gathered up her own stuff. They made their way down to the first floor in a comfortable silence before he held the door open for her and walked with her to the subway. She glanced at him from time to time and noticed that he seemed to be in deep thought.
They passed by a homeless man on the street and Sam stopped for a moment while he fished through his pockets for some change which he handed to the man. Mercedes reached into her own pocket and handed the man a five dollar bill that she had gotten back as change when she had gone to the cafe earlier. He thanked both of them and the pair walked off. They stood by the subway stairs staring at each other before Sam outstretched his arms and she walked into them and he gave her a warm firm hug. He pulled back from her, playfully pinched her cheeks with a grin, and she swatted his hands away with a laugh. Sam cocked his head to the side and put his hand up, bending his four fingers up and down towards his palm, the sign for goodbye. She mimicked the motion before she turned around and headed towards the stairs. A gentle tug on her coat kept her from walking down and she turned to face the blonde man, he pulled her hand into his and wrote, 'Drinks on Friday?' She tried not to laugh as the question mark tickled her palm and then looked into his eyes.
"Yes." She said with a nod.
Good, he signed the word happily and then shoved his hands into his pockets before he walked away. Mercedes stood there unsure of what the invitation meant, but she couldn't wait to get home and tell her sister.
A/N: Alright this chapter was a little bit longer, sorry that it was not by much. I'm astounded by the interest in the story and I really hope that you guys like wherever it goes, thank you so much for the support. Thanks to JG for helping me with everything!
