Chapter Text
Chapter 4: Like you're going
"Okay, so we don't have enough supplies for each lab group, so I'll pair you all up into groups of four," Professor Watts announced. His eyes narrowed at the loud groan that filled the classroom. "Shut the hell up, I let you pick your lab partners. You're going to have to deal with meeting new people, that you've known since the beginning of the year. Boohoo."
Watts, quite frankly, was the biggest dick on the school's lineup of teachers. It wasn't always a bad thing, he could be a really cool teacher when picking on the most annoying students, or when he let his Chemistry students play around with toxic materials. But his condescending tone and sadistic nature always pissed everyone off. Once he gave a pop quiz where every single answer was C. Everyone failed that, even though it was an easy test. Because he was a dick.
"Anyways, since I'm too lazy to remember any of your names, just partner with the group closest to you." He narrowed his eyes at Yang and Blake, who's heads turned to the table next to theirs, holding Weiss and Ruby. Fake-coughing, he decreed; "vertically."
It would've been fine if the table behind hers held anyone other than Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai.
By now, she'd decided she hated him. Like really, really hated him. Freshman year had come and gone, and his smirk remained. Emerald wasn't much better, especially since Ruby had an enormous schoolgirl crush on her, and Yang was basically the president of the Ruby-Protection-Squad.
Blake must've seen the look on her face, because she rested a hand on Yang's shoulder and held her back from the edge. "It's just one lab, Yang."
They turned their bodies around to the other lab table, across from Emerald and Mercury. Emerald gave Blake a slight smile, and Blake beamed back, blush staining her cheeks.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Yang muttered, rolling her eyes. What about Emerald was so appealing to lesbians?
Mercury snorted, twirling his pen at a remarkable speed. "That makes two of us."
They did the lab. It wasn't a hard one— especially since 3/4ths of them understood everything perfectly. Yang didn't get all the equation balancing, but was content with mixing all the chemicals and cleaning shit up.
By the end of class, Emerald and Blake had 'gone to the bathroom', leaving their respective best friends to glare at each other.
Watts strode by their table, eyebrows raised. "Who knew you two could be left alone and not tear each other apart?"
"Were you looking for a show?" Yang snapped, arms crossing.
"What if I was?"
"Then you wouldn't be doing your job." Mercury seemed to have mixed feelings towards Watts. On one hand, he laughed at all or the teacher's sarcastic remarks, but on the other, he hated people talking down to him. It was the only thing that seemed to really get on his nerves.
"That's weak, Mr. Black, I was expecting better." Watts smirked, before chuckling. "If you two aren't sleeping together by graduation, god really isn't real."
Both of them gagged. As if she would even be in a room alone with the jackass— let alone fuck him. And Mercury seemed to agree, what with the grimace on his face.
Her heart hammered in the back of her head. It was like a machine gun was rapid-firing against the inside of her chest. Everything was just so overwhelming— she was seeing the world for the first time. It was like she was blind her whole life until now.
A lot of importance lies in the little things, at least Yang thought so. Every moment warranted a reaction— every grudge had a story, every love had a click. A moment where everything felt completely right. Mercury obviously wasn't like that. He didn't hold grudges. Love, for him, was messy and incomplete— like an abstract painting. Moments of serenity, moments of chaos.
When she kissed him, smashed her lips against his, it was like that. It didn't click— not in the way that it should've, and that excited her.
She remembered her first kiss, with her first girlfriend— Coco. Her mind went blank and everything around her vanished. The only things that were real; the arms around her neck, the wetness of the other girl's lips, the certainty.
But now, now it was more like that painting.
Her mind didn't go blank like it always did, but rather flooded with every thought that could've rained into the crevices of her brain. It wasn't clean, or passionate, or quick— it was fingers entangled in violent brushstrokes of hair, the ugly friction of fire and ice, the beautiful flowers that bloomed across her skin with every touch he returned.
And maybe now she got it. Why Mercury preferred this to the latter.
Initially, Yang had thought his way was too simple, too clean. No details. But now, as she dug her fingernails into the pale skin of his neck, feeling each color that he hid underneath that first layer of skin, she realized it went the other way around.
Her shirt (his shirt, really) came off first, tossed aside as if unveiling her painting. A saturated sunset of colors and oil that smeared onto his ocean of grey with each impact. Because that's what is was, an impact. They'd touch and it was like a bomb went off right in that spot.
Her heart hammered in her chest, and she just danced with it.
"It all starts and ends with a heartbeat. Just a heartbeat."
They fit together like… Like Yang Xiao Long and Mercury Black. Nothing more or less.
She didn't know how long it was before she had to actually breathe. It was like her head had been underwater and she finally came to the surface— a gulp of air, a loud gasp, looking at the popcorn ceiling and the fan's shadows dancing on it. She regretted that everything was so clear now.
Her chest kept contracting and expanding as she panted, slowly calming after a long while. Even after Mercury had fallen asleep next to her. They didn't go all the way— they didn't need to, but she was stripped down to her undergarments (which were embarrassingly enough bear-patterned panties and a sports bra. She didn't expect to be intimate with someone when she'd put them on!) Mercury still wore his pants, socks too— but his chest was bare.
She turned onto her side, frowning at the stains on his skin. Bruises that didn't match the ones she'd just left along his collarbone— scars littered over his ribcage and spine.
"Admiring the view?" His voice rumbled in his chest, gravely and lazy, she could feel it. She thought he was asleep, she was wrong.
She was wrong about a lot of things.
"What the fuck, Mercury?" She snapped, jerking away so fast and hard that she almost fell off the bed. It was a twin sized mattress after all.
His eyes were closed up until then, eyelashes gently brushing against his cheekbones, curling upwards as eyelashes often do. They fluttered open as he smirked, playfully watching her embarrassment. Yang wished that she could mask things like that, in the way he did, but inevitably her face would heat up and her muscles would tense— she was just pure unadulterated emotion all the time.
"I don't get why you're getting all ashamed now— you were the one who kissed me. Seriously it was perfectly timed," he closed his eyes again, flopping onto his back, stretching his arms upwards until he heard a crack. "I definitely didn't expect it."
She got a good look at his left side now. Before, she'd been too engrossed in their sex, or he'd been lying on his side— but right then she bore witness to a splatter of scars and marks, discoloring his alabaster skin. The biggest one creeped out from below his pants, evidently being the tip of the iceberg.
"Seriously, I know you hate me— it wasn't anything special or whatever, I'll forget about it if you—" He paused at her silence, eyes flickering onto her worried look. He followed the gaze; from her vibrating irises, to the marks on his skin.
Yang gulped, trying to look away as fast as possible, but he already saw it— that look. "You really get into that many fights?"
He gave her this pointed look, one that expressed frustration with her lack of genuineness, rather than the sarcasm usually engraved across his complexion. "You really think all that is from fights? Not even a hacksaw can leave this shit."
He was right. It wasn't a cut, or a place where a broken bone hadn't healed up right. It looked like someone had splattered red paint across his side, and let it fade for a few days. Yang shifted awkwardly, not sure how to reply.
"Where was this taken?"
"Junior, he…" Her eyes darted around a bit as she figured out what to say. What to ask. "He said you were at the hospital. When you met…"
"Yeah," he nodded, biting his lip in thought, eyes looking into the nothing in front of him. "We did."
Yang nodded, sighing silently and getting the feeling that he wouldn't say anything else. Why would he? They may have just gotten hot and heavy on a spring mattress, but she still thought she hated him.
"His wife had some weird ass heart thing, it's how she died but that was before I met them— anyways, the twins have to get checked out every few months to see if they have the same thing. It was coincidence that they ran into me." He ran his hand over his face in exasperation, scared of what he would say. "If he hadn't footed my hospital bill I'd have been fucked."
"Can I ask why you were there?"
He shifted his weight a few times, somehow hot despite being right next to the air conditioning, and right under the fan. "You can ask, not sure if I'll tell."
"Why were you there?" She wasn't sure why he made her repeat the question. It was implied when she'd asked if she could ask in the first place, that that was the question. She guessed it was to stall, or to prepare. Maybe both.
He didn't say or do anything for a good ten seconds, before he quickly sat up— he looked really unsure about what he was doing.
"I know you hate me but I swear to fucking Christ— if I show this to you, you don't tell anybody, or mention it to me, or give me any of those looks people give me."
She didn't know what to do so she nodded.
He sighed and began to unbuckle his pants, fumbling with the zipper as his hands shook. Yang didn't notice because her face was in her palms.
"Why are you stripping?!"
He rolled his eyes. "Just shut the fuck up, Yang, I can't really show you if my pants are on."
"Does your dick not work or something? It's not surprising, but you don't need to show me! Really, I get the idea!"
He stopped, then, pants still on, despite being unbuttoned and such. She could get a glimpse of boxers, and a little more of that one scar. Mercury looked pretty pissed. "Can you at least pretend to be serious about something, for once? Like I'm about to give you personal information, you, and you're making fucking dick jokes, how mature!"
At the onset of this barrage of criticism, Yang was taken aback, physically recoiling from it. As if he was the epitome of serious. He was the kind of guy to laugh at a funeral, to mock ugly-cry faces. He said it himself— "Easy and fun."
"Yeah, and you're so mature," Yang snapped, rising to defend herself. She didn't care about what they just did. The fact that he'd given her so much in the past six hours.
"Yes, actually. More than you."
"Really? How the fuck are you more mature than I am?" She was on her feet now, so was he. "What makes you so much better? Huh?"
"I'm not living my life in this little bubble of pettiness, of hypocrisy that makes you so naïve to the actual nature of people. I don't act surprised when people are assholes!" He's yelling. She'd never heard that.
"You think that I'm naïve? That I have the perfect little life? My real mom left me— my step-mom died, my dad is never happy with anything I do. I'm probably not going anywhere because my grades are so horrible, no matter how hard I study." She has to take a breath, but it's not the same gasp from just 30 minutes earlier. Passionate, addicted, ready. It was a broken breath that ended in a hiccup. "I can't form a genuine relationship with anyone because I don't want them to leave me! That sound naïve?"
Mercury didn't say anything, instead he finished taking off his pants.
Initially, though she'd deny it, her eyes gravitated to a very tempting crotch area. But as he finally peeled the jeans away from his lower body, she didn't know what to look at.
"Mercury…"
The scar wound through his boxers and to his thighs. Both of which ended, right above the knee. Or rather, where the knee was supposed to be. Because Mercury's legs weren't flesh and blood, but rather plastics and metal.
"I won't tell you how, but this is why I was there."
She nodded, not looking up at his face. "How can you walk so well? Like isn't that super expensive?"
"Cinder Fall." He stated bluntly. "Her family is most definitely criminal— but they're rich. We met at the end of middle school and she helped me out."
"Oh."
Yang wasn't expecting Cinder Fall to be the answer. She should've, since it made a lot of sense really— she was one of his best friends, and had plenty of money. But for some reason she'd hoped it was something more heartwarming like part time jobs, or his parents selling some car or something. But it was Cinder Fall.
"And you can feel everything?"
"I can understand if something's touching them, but I don't feel it— it's weird."
"Okay," she nodded, still breathing heavily, taking all of it in before repeating "okay."
"No more questions?"
She shook her head, but then changed her mind halfway through. "Is that why we didn't go all the way?"
"Yeah, I don't trust that with anybody."
"Now that I know, can we finish what we started?"
And so they did.
"Should we talk about it? What this means?"
They'd fallen asleep pretty quick after all that. It was pretty late, or early, depending on how you looked at it. For them, it was late.
They were up by 11:00 AM and out the door, no bags to pack— just growling stomachs and a place to go. The woman at the counter gave them a dirty look, and they weren't sure if it was because she'd heard them, or because she was a bitch. Yang had her money on both.
"You mean last night? Or this morning, or whatever." Mercury hadn't answered until he'd pulled the car out of the motel parking lot and onto the highway. He wasn't as blasé as he was usually— since he didn't know what anything meant either. He spoke in choppy sentences, with how awkward he was about all of it. Cute. "I assumed it was a one-time thing, since you hate me and all. Or a two-time thing, if you think that hate sex is hot. Which it is."
"I don't hate you, Mercury. Not anymore."
And she didn't. She definitely didn't hate him now. Whether it was the glimpses of humanity she'd witnessed, his sarcasm beginning to grow on her, the sex, or the bombshell he'd dropped on her before— it was evident that she felt something positive towards him. But she wasn't sure what that was.
"So what does that mean?" He pestered, eyes darting between her and the road.
"I don't know."
Mercury sighed, dragging his hand over his face in exasperation. "That sure throws a wrench in my plans."
She wasn't sure what that meant, but she didn't press on it. "Can we just, I don't know, figure it out?"
"That's tougher than it seems, Yang." He muttered before running his bottom lip between his teeth.
"It's a good thing I'm tough, then."
He nodded, long and calculated breaths becoming shaky as he did so. She knew he was hiding something from her— multiple somethings, but was fine with pretending she didn't. Because she realized that maybe she was using too much energy on hating him, hating everything that she didn't understand— and maybe she was tired of it. It was easier to go along with it. To do what felt right.
Their comfortable silence was interrupted by a loud rumbling emitting from Yang's stomach.
"Know any more good, roadside joints?"
"Thought you'd never ask."
They ended up driving for another hour or so before stopping somewhere. It was lunch time, by then, so more and better places were open. It was a busy diner, which Yang was initially skeptical about. Why the fuck would Mercury choose this family-friendly, full of people diner? He hated people. Especially happy people.
"Yang, all the good places are crowded."
"Junior's had like 2 people there."
"It was like 3:00 AM, Yang."
So there they were, awkwardly standing in line at some burger joint, that Mercury assured her had "the best burgers, and the second best cranberry juice." As much as she'd learned about him, Yang was still completely out of the loop when it came to Mercury's apparent addiction to cranberry juice.
"Can I help you?" The woman at the counter asked, pulling her pen out from behind her ear. She had her reddish hair pulled into a tight ponytail, revealing tan skin and an abundance of freckles, her nametag read, in bubble-letters "Illia". She had that fake, bright smile that was commonplace in restaurant staffs— but her eyes met Mercury's and her smile dropped into a blank, sarcastic, silent scream of a face. "Oh."
Mercury sighed, looking at Yang, "what do you want?"
The woman, Illia, rolled her eyes, "you've been waiting for like a year and you haven't decided whether you want a hamburger or a cheeseburger? Typical."
"Hello to you too," Mercury sighed, smirking, "just as much of a bitch as usual, I see."
Because of course Mercury knew the cashier at the random diner.
"Do you want me to get you your damn cranberry juice, you fucking creep?"
Yang laughed, this chick was funny, whoever she was. "I'll just have what he's having."
The cranberry juice was mediocre at best.
