Mercedes tugged Sam's hand towards the Ferris wheel. "Are you in the mood? Or would you prefer the rollercoaster?" She pointed at said rollercoaster with seemingly neverending loops, people were screaming loudly.
Sam gulped. "I don't know, looks pretty hardcore to me."
At that moment, a petite eight-year-old girl went past them and got into the rollercoaster.
When Mercedes threw him an amused glance, Sam said: "Well, that girl seems to be tough. But she can handle it, she's strong."
A pregnant woman with a round belly walked to the rollercoaster as well.
Sam scratched his head. "Okay, that's an exception. But it's nothing for the faint-hearted."
This time, an elderly man with a walking aid entered.
"Oh, you got to be kidding me!", Sam groaned while Mercedes cracked up.
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.
"Wait, let me get that straight", Santana said when she was sitting at the counter next to Mercedes and Kurt at the spotlight diner (Actually, Santana needed to work, but there were almost no costumers) "Trout mouth asked you out?"
"That's not his name!", Mercedes protested. "And yes, he did." She still couldn't believe that she got a date without even having tried that hard. She let out an excited squeal, and the Latina covered her ears, annoyed.
"Do you already know what you will wear?", Kurt asked her curiously "That yellow neckholder dress you bought last week suits you perfectly."
Mercedes took a sip of her coffee. "Yes, you are right. Whether I can still wear my beanie?" She pensively touched her head. Since she needed to hide her cat ears, she had bought an entire collection of super stylish beanies and even some berets, her bonnets were slowly turning into her trademark. Today, she had decided on a plain white beanie one saying Normal is boring in black letters.
"Why don't you just let your cat ears disappear, like I do?", Santana asked her with cocked eyebrows. "Beanies suck. They are all itchy and scratchy and have no sex appeal at all; it's annoying as hell."
Kurt turned to Mercedes, interested. "That's what I ask myself as well."
"Because, you guys, firstly, it hurts retracting them. Secondly, my senses are by far better than without them. And thirdly, I want to stay true to myself."
Santana rolled her eyes. "So staying true to yourself means hiding your true self under a piece of cotton?"
At that, Mercedes threw her a killing glance. "If I was you, I wouldn't say anything."
"Sannie!" Someone else came rushing over to the trio and quickly pulled the Latina into a hug.
"Britt!" Surprised, Santana hugged her back. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to have classes now?"
The blonde, Brittany, shook her head. "Our teacher is sick; I have the rest of the day off." She leaned over to kiss Santana on the cheek. "And I want to spend it with you."
"Guys, this is my girlfriend Brittany", Santana introduced her to Mercedes and Kurt, the latter one suddenly seemed to be interested in studying the menu. "Britts, these are Mercedes and…"
"Kurt?" Brittany smiled at Kurt who slowly looked up from the menu.
"Oh, hey, Brittany.", he said quickly.
Confused, Santana and Mercedes looked back and forth between them. "Wait, you know each other?", Mercedes spoke up with a frown.
Brittany nodded eagerly. "Of course we do. We both-"
"Satan, I think there is a new costumer over there that wants to order", Kurt cut her off, nervous for some reason. Mercedes threw him a weird glance. What was up with him all of a sudden?
Santana ignored him. "What do you do, Britt?", she asked curiously.
"Kurt and I, we both share math classes", Brittany ended her sentence with a beam.
Kurt had buried his hands in his face and let out a groan. "You okay, white boy?", Mercedes asked him.
In the meanwhile, Santana looked at Brittany confusedly. "But Britt, you are majoring in dance studies. What do you need math for?"
"At Juilliard, they don't offer math courses, so they sent me to NYU", Brittany explained. "They offer courses for people who are super, super smart, just like-"
Kurt coughed loudly so that they didn't understand what Brittany was saying.
"Wait, you mean that academic program for those brainiacs?", Santana asked her and scratched her head. She put her hands on her hips when realization dawned on her and started smirking knowingly. "Oooh, so Lady Lips, that's your dirty secret? You are not only gay as hell but also one of these uncool smartasses? No offence, Britt."
Brittany just blinked. "What?"
Kurt glared at her angrily. "That's not true!", he exclaimed, and other people at the restaurant turned to them.
"But that's nothing you should feel ashamed about", Mercedes said softly. So that's why he had always scribbled those calculations into his Vogue-magazines...
"So Lady, if you really are that smart, what's fifty-six to the power of two?", Santana asked him challengingly and crossed her arms.
Mercedes looked at her, furrowing her eyebrows. "Leave him alone, he is no hand calculator or something."
"Three thousand one hundred thirty-six", Kurt muttered almost inaudibly, and the girls turned to him, aghast.
"He is right", Mercedes confirmed after she had retrieved her phone and typed in the calculation. "How the hell did you just do that?"
"Kurt is super duper smart", Brittany said proudly and patted his shoulder, he looked down. "He is one of the best of our course. But when one of the professors wanted to convince him to change to MIT or Caltech, with a scholarship, he said no."
Mercedes looked at him, questioning. "And why, Kurt? I mean, we are talking about two of the best science colleges of the states! I would take that chance immediately if I was you."
"But that's not what I want, okay?", Kurt suddenly snapped irritatedly, and she flinched. He put a couple of dollar bills on the counter and quickly got up. "It's my life, and I don't want to spend it sitting in a sad lab all day long. What's so hard to understand about it?" With that, he huffishly left the diner.
The trio looked after him, confused.
"That's what he said to the professor as well", Brittany commented sadly. "Even though the professor said that he had the potential to become one of the smartest people of this planet. You know, the ones that will find cures for AIDS or cancer one day."
Santana cocked her head to the side. "And what is he doing instead? Wasting his time with wimpy fashion and gay arts, therefore confirming the superficial opinion everyone has about gay guys. Yeah, great job, Lady Lips. Sometimes, I wonder what the hell is wrong with him."
Mercedes got up as well. There needed to be more to this story, and she was going to find out what. "I will go talk to him. Wish me luck.", she said to the two girls before leaving as well.
~ (Ф ﻌ Ф) ~
She found Kurt at the pond of NYU's campus, watching the ducks and swans on the water. Not saying anything, she took a seat next to him on the bench.
"Do you know how it is to be someone else all your life?", he suddenly spoke up without looking at her.
Mercedes scratched her head confusedly. "What do you mean?"
"Being gay in Chesterfield was hell", Kurt started recounting. "People hated me for who I am. They started judging me without even knowing me. They labelled me as the gay boy with all those clichés about liking fashion and musicals. But no one ever came up with the idea that I could be different."
"I'm so sorry to hear that", she said quietly.
"I always knew that I was…different", he went on while he stared at the pond. "And I don't just mean me being gay. I was always bored during classes. I understood math and natural sciences way faster than the others did. But I also knew how all those smart kids at school got treated so I pretended I was average. At exams, I purposely made more mistakes so that the teachers didn't get suspicious. Whenever teachers posed me questions, I always gave the wrong answer.
I kept my mouth shut whenever I noticed that the calculations of my math teacher were wrong. Instead, I pretended I was into fashion, musicals, dancing and singing. I signed up for glee, took piano and dance lessons, everything that was necessary for suppressing that part of me I hated. And one day, I even acquired a liking for arts. I tried getting into NYADA and even was successful.
But a couple of months ago, I decided that I could no longer continue living a lie. I left NYADA and went to NYU." He grimaced "But actually, I'm still lying to myself by not picking a science majors, so nothing changed."
Mercedes still needed to process what he had said. "So you are telling me you are denying an important part of yourself and hiding behind a big cliché? But why?"
"Do you know how hard it is to be the only gay kid in the city?" Kurt frustratedly kicked a rock away. "Let's add super smart to the list. Yes, I was out and proud, and that was already hard enough. Imagine what people would do to a gay AND smart kid. I did everything in my power so that people didn't find out about it."
"I understand." Poor Kurt. Trying to hide an important part of himself was surely not easy. "But this is over, right? You are in New York now. People don't judge you anymore. You can be whoever you want.", she pointed out.
Kurt pensively scratched his head. "But as I have just said, I acquired a liking in fashion and arts even though I still scribble math theorems into my fashion magazines. That's why I wanted to study Fashion Design and Photography. All those details of making sketches or taking photos are close to scientifical perfection, at closer than dramatic arts. And I agreed on taking math courses every now and then, but that's all." He crossed his arms and frowned. "I'm not that kind of person that wants to research in sad laboratories, day in day out. I want…more. People say I waste my intelligence, but they don't know me."
Mercedes reached out for his hand and squeezed it. "But I know you. And you do not waste your intelligence, white boy. After all, it's you who not only designed an awesome, sophisticated allrounder suit for me, you also think of all the strategies on how Catgirl can defeat villains and safe people more efficiently. You are the brains of Team Catgirl. Without you, Catgirl would be screwed, and so would be those people we have saved in the past. You achieved so much more than all those geniuses that sit around in their labs." She winked at him. "And you know exactly I'm right, right?"
Kurt sighed deeply, but at least, the corners of his mouth were twitching upwards.
"Right?", Mercedes repeated with a laugh.
"Okay, okay, you are right", Kurt finally gave in and even laughed a bit. "Catgirl wouldn't even exist without me."
Mercedes boxed him in the shoulder. "Hey, don't exaggerate, white boy", she grinned, kind of feeling triumphant because Kurt was smiling again.
~ (Ф ﻌ Ф) ~
Whether she was excited because she was going to have a date in less than five minutes? Not in the slightest.
That's what Mercedes kept on telling herself while she was sitting in that restaurant where they were supposed to meet. She was fidgeting in her seat, waiting for Sam to turn up. Finally, she had decided on a black beret with her yellow neckholder dress and high-heeled ankle-boots (Kurt's idea). Already nervous, she played with her silver hoop earrings.
And then, he saw how he entered the restaurant. When Sam spotted her, he started smiling and came over to her table.
"Hi", he greeted her and sat down on her opposite.
"Hi", she greeted him back with an almost shy smile. "How is it going?"
When Sam laughed, she cocked her eyebrows, surprised. "That's the first thing you ask me on a date?"
Mercedes grimaced. "Sorry, I didn't have that much dates in the past." Actually, she could count the dates she had so far on one hand. How embarrassing.
Sam smirked. "Don't worry, it's always the same old story: The boy tells the girl how pretty she looks, the boy looks at the girl and looks away whenever she looks at him and vice versa, they do small talk the entire evening long, the boy brings the girl home, and that's pretty much it."
At that, Mercedes needed to laugh, and the ice was broken. "You sound like a real pro." She amusedly took a sip of her iced tea and looked back to him again. "How about we break with the precedent?"
Interested, Sam looked back at her. "I'm all ears. Conventional dates are lame."
"Good." Mercedes got up and held out her hand. "Shall we, Mister?"
Sam took her hand and cocked his eyebrows. "Oh yes."
After they had paid for their drinks (The waitress was somewhat irritated they didn't order anything to eat), Mercedes led him out of the restaurant and to…
"A theme park?" Sam seemed to be surprised when they stood in front of a giant Ferris wheel. "Well, interesting."
Mercedes tugged his hand towards the wheel. "Are you in the mood? Or would you prefer the rollercoaster?" She pointed at said rollercoaster with seemingly neverending loops, people were screaming loudly.
Sam grimaced and gulped when he saw people that had paled who left the rollercoaster. "I don't think my stomach will appreciate that, unless you want to see my lunch. And breakfast."
"I appreciate your honesty, Sam", Mercedes said while she tried to hold back her laughter. "So the Giant wheel it is."
They were lucky; even though the queue was long, they were able to get one of the cabins. As soon as they all had gotten in, the wheel started moving upwards and Mercedes sighed dreamily. Up there, she could see how beautiful all the illumination of the never sleeping city looked. It was picturesque.
"Looks pretty amazing, right?", Sam spoke up, and Mercedes turned to him with a smile.
"You can say that again.", she sighed. To be honest, she could stay up there forever, enjoying the view.
When she told Sam so, he needed to smile as well. "I totally get that. Stay up here, far away from all your problems, from the hectic pace of our daily lives. Far away from our suffocating dullness of everyday life."
Mercedes nodded in agreement. "Finally someone who understands me. You know, Sam, that was really deep."
"That's music to my ears, considering that I'm dyslexic", Sam commented with a wink. But for some reason, Mercedes could hear the bitterness behind that sentence.
"You are aware that dyslexia has nothing to do with your IQ, Sam, right?", Mercedes told him and couldn't help but think about Kurt who hated himself because of his intelligence. "I mean you got into NYU, plus you are majoring in Medicine. That's impressive enough."
Sam looked at her, pensive. "Sometimes, people make me feel like I'm stupid. As if I wouldn't be able to achieve anything in life. They treat me like that stupid blond guy who has the looks but no brains. And that's…kind of frustrating, to be honest. I got professional help to make it through high school and now through college, but those people don't seem to get how much I need to struggle to make it." After he had said that, Sam rubbed his neck. "Sorry, I didn't want to kill the mood with my depressing stories."
Mercedes waved it off. "Those people are idiots, Sam. But believe me, one day, you will be the one who will laugh last, I promise. One day, you are going to be the best doctor the world has ever seen and look down on their envious faces."
Sam needed to laugh. "Thanks, I guess. I don't know why I'm telling you this. I usually never talk about how I feel, not even with Blaine."
For some reason, they seemed to be closer to each other now than a couple of minutes before.
"What do you think is the reason?", Mercedes whispered, feeling how the atmosphere in the cabin charged up weirdly.
Sam looked at her with an unreadable face expression. "Maybe it's the way you make me feel that makes me trust you instantly."
Slowly, their faces came closer to each other, and they leaned in to –
The cabin came to an abrupt halt. Startled, the both of them jumped apart, and the doors glid open automatically.
"Well, seems like the ride is over", Sam muttered and slowly got up, Mercedes followed suit.
"Y…Yes", she stammered, for some reason, her knees felt as soft as butter when they left the giant wheel. "What a shame."
Frankly speaking, she was not only meaning the ride.