Chapter 5: to Crash

They didn't have any plans to stop after leaving the diner. It had already been a whole day since they'd escaped the rainy confines of Vale, leaving only about two or three days to get to Raven, and then get back. Yang hadn't thought about what would happen afterwards.

You'd think it'd get boring pretty quickly, seeing as the expanse of asphalt turnpike never appeared to change. Every once in a while, they'd see some dumb billboard with an ad that looked like it had been designed with MS Paint— but other than that; rolling hills and patches of scraggly forest were all that flanked the car.

Mercury, surprisingly, made up for the drive's unparalleled lethargy with stimulating conversation. Those moments, where you scrape the inside of your skull for an interesting, or funny refute until your eyes practically pop, they don't seem to happen for him. All the comebacks that come to mind four hours after-the-fact just flow immediately through his coffee flavored voice.

And maybe it had always been like that. Yang wouldn't have noticed before— since those quips she'd recently grown to appreciate had initially been the very sources of that previous indignation.

It felt like he had an unlimited amount of grungy progressive rock up his sleeve, since they'd been driving for hours and the euphonious disharmonies still clung to the dust in the air with fervor. She didn't mind, after a while, even though she'd never listen to that stuff outside of that car. He talked extensively about each one— and she couldn't understand why she was so drawn to it, but didn't hesitate pull that feeling closer, rather than refuting it.

Yang usually took Mercury as the kind of guy who kept his mouth shut because he'd rather save it for those special Cardin Winchester, or Professor Peach, or Yang Xiao-Long moments. Even after their apparent life-changing motel stay, she still saw him as the actions-speak-louder-than-words guy. Evidently, that wasn't the case.

"Okay so Emerald is just standing, practically naked on my balcony at 4 in the morning and demands to be let in. So I let her in because why not, and she just makes a B-line for the shower— even though she knows I'd get fucking murdered by my old man for this shit if he knew. Anyways, she's using my toothbrush and has already made herself at home in my clothes— and she walks out into my room and suddenly freaks out."

"Why? Wouldn't you be the one freaking out?"

"It takes a lot to freak me out. Anyways it turns out that she was at Cinder's earlier that night and bolted because Salem, Cin's mom, would've fucking destroyed those two if she found them fucking on a school night."

"One, how does that account for freaking out? Two— they're dating? I didn't peg Cinder as the type." If they were dating, then why did Emerald constantly flirt with Blake?

"One; I'm getting to that. Two; no. Cinder's aromantic, I think. They dated for a bit but it never worked out since Emerald is really clingy and romantic. But from what I hear every fucking day, the sex is amazing, so."

"So… Friends with benefits?"

"Sometimes it feels like they're more 'benefits' than 'friends,' but yeah."

Yang wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but just nodded anyways.

Mercury squinted to look at a road-sign in the distance before looking down at the GPS and sighing. It looked like they had a long way to go.

"So Emerald starts freaking out and relaying all this information to me and I was like you, right? 'Dear, sweet, innocent Eminem— you have sex with Cinder all the time, why are you having a panic attack on my bed at 4 in the morning?'"

"Eminem?"

"With a nickname like 'Em,' the possibilities are endless."

"So what happened?"

Mercury narrows his eyes, onyx irises darting back and forth as he leaned in to mutter out the punchline of this story. "It turns out that she wasn't wearing her own bra."

"Who's was it?"

His lips twisted into a maniacal grin. "Salem's."

Yang didn't hesitate to burst out laughing. "Wait are you serious?"

Mercury, no matter how composed he tried to be, could not control the laughter from bubbling up from his lungs. "Yeah, one hundred percent."

"How did she not realize?"

"Maybe it was the same color or something? I don't know, I'm not Emerald."

"Obviously not. If you were a girl you'd understand that bras aren't just another grungy band tee. You know when it's not yours."

"You would know a lot about wearing other people's clothes," he attempted to say it stoically, but even he couldn't refrain from smiling smugly at his refute.

"Fuck off."

"How about I fuck you instead? Oh wait…"

Mercury continued to chuckle, and Yang continued to giggle— until they reached exit 16, where the GPS pushed them to turn-off.

As much as she wanted to press on the whole "we had sex" thing, she decided against it. Maybe after all of this was over they could figure it all out.

They quieted considerably once they were on a populated road. When they realized that they weren't in Vale anymore. The road had that typical post-exit feel. A few gas stations and a one room police station that connected to one of them. A Walmart. It was surreal— Yang had never been to a Walmart in her life, choosing the pleasanter option of an actual market. But the people who lived here only had one option.

"This is so weird," she emphasized her feelings through speech, and Mercury just hummed in agreement.

"Our destination is still an hour away, so luckily we won't be in this fuckin' nightmare forever." Thankfully, he seemed to hate the small town feel just as much as she did.

"How did you meet her, anyways?"

"Who?"

"Emerald. I knew you were friends, but you seem pretty close."

He nodded, pulling into one of those aforementioned convenience stores and pulling out his wallet. She listens as he gets out of the car and tells the story.

"I think it was second or third grade when we met. We were both shoved into that one class where they put all the hopeless cases. Like, the kids who were too antisocial to be smart, whose parents didn't pay for the placement tests, or who were too emotional to function. It was a huge bullshit move on their part because Emerald is such a nerd.

It was insane— she had a different book every single day. She'd talk on end about them. They weren't that Harry Potter bullshit though, that every kid reads. Em read like Hemmingway and Wilde and Dickens. She'd do all the book reports on those books too. You'd think the school would've noticed, right?"

She nods, even though the question was rhetorical, and Mercury tears the store's door open— an action which prompted a resonant chiming that all convenience store doors had.

"My dad… he was too cheap to pay for the placement exam— he's not one to care about my grades or whatever. Em was a foster kid, you know? She was seen as volatile and stupid because of it, or something. But we sat next to each other so; one thing led to another and we had this weird alliance?"

He shrugged, grabbing a tube of Pringles and tossing it between his hands a few times before putting it on a different shelf.

"I don't know if that's the right word. But we refused to call each other friends. Hanging out was just sitting in silence on the swing-set, or being finished with the work before all the other dumbasses in class and sub-sequentially taking that time to sleep.

That's how it was throughout Elementary school— and it continued into Middle school. It only changed after… after the accident. That's what I'll call it: an accident."

Yang's breath hitched in her throat, but she didn't say anything.

"But like, we always cared about one another, I think, but it didn't show until Emerald came to see me in the hospital. She snuck out of her foster home and everything— she was the only person to come and see me. Junior came, but he was already there— you know that already. She was the only person who ever did something like that."

He stopped talking as they perused the candy aisle, holding up two chocolate bars for Yang to choose from. When she indifferently chose one, pointing with a lazy index finger, he scowled in disgust and just ended up getting the latter. Not that Yang cared.

She grabbed a pack of Oreos and sneakily slid them into the lineup of snacks being scanned in by the cashier. Mercury gave her a dirty look and she shrugged. "What? I'm paying for gas!"

He rolled his eyes and tossed a twenty at the cashier, who barely blinked as they went to retrieve change. "Keep it," Mercury called back, already out the door.

"Why'd you do that?"

"It's Cardin's money anyways."

Oh right. Mercury stole the car from Cardin— and the money too apparently, which brought Yang to her next revelation. "You never told me why you stole it."

"You never chose," he said immediately, before repeating the question from the night prior. "Are you asking why I stole it? How I stole it? Or why I did it now?"

"I can only choose one," she affirmed, before stretching with her thought. "Can I ask for more wishes?"

"Ha, jokes on you— I've seen Aladdin, they explicitly say you can't wish for more wishes."

"More genies then," she joked, still trying to figure out which question she'd ask.

"Do you really want more than one of me— I pride myself on being hard to handle."

If she asked why he stole it— he'd likely spin it as "I stole Cardin's car because Cardin was a dick," rather than why he needed to steal the car in the first place. If she asked how he did it— he'd probably answer in full, but she wouldn't find anything worthwhile out, other than that Mercury was even more of a badass than he pretended to be. She didn't really know what the last question meant.

"Why did you stop?"

"What?"

"You didn't have to stop— especially since we hated each other and all. Why did you stop the car?"

Mercury sighed with the purr of the engine, tossing her Oreos at her (which she gladly obliged in). "I don't know. I wanted do something worthwhile in Vale."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It just happened, Yang. I'm a dick but I'm not a Car-dick Winches-turd." Yang chuckled and he pouted, "admittedly that one was pretty awful."

"They can't all be winners."

"You were," he said, pulling out onto the road and weaving through post-exit-small-town traffic. "I made the right choice in stopping."

"You did."

Was this a good time?

"Later, Yang," he added, out of nowhere taken out of context.

Evidently not.

"Anyways," he managed to transition to another topic faster than Donald Fucking Trump— except he could actually do it seamlessly. "You should probably check in with your family or something. You don't have your phone, right? They probably think you got kidnapped or something— could have an APB out on your ass."

"APBs are for suspects, not victims," she corrected before adding; "you're probably right."

"I know where to go from here, you can use my phone."

"You sure it's not Cardin's?

"Ha ha, you're the pinnacle of comedy, Xiao Long." He detached the device from the dashboard once they arrived at a red light, placing it into her palms— only letting go of her hands when the car behind him let out a frustrated groan when the light turned green and Mercury hadn't driven forwards. "Jesus fucking Christ, I get it, buddy!"

It didn't cease honking until they'd turned onto a back-road for the sole purpose of shaking the asshole off. Yang sighed and turned Mercury's phone on, only to be barricaded by a popup asking for a password. She attempted to bypass the issue by tapping random words that he might like.

Pinkfloyd

Pinkfloyd-420

Pinkfloyd-69

69696969

She really didn't know much about him, to be honest.

"Flan," he said randomly. Yang gave him a confused look, prompting further explanation. "The password is Flan. Capital 'F'."

"I never would've guessed that."

"That's the point, Yang. That's why people have passwords."

"Right."

The wallpaper was some dumb frog meme, which she refrained from commenting on in favor of opening up the dialpad to call someone. Who? She wasn't sure until she'd typed the answer unconsciously.

Blake then. It turned out she was a contact on his phone anyways— probably some school project, since they took AP Chemistry the year prior (she wasn't sure if that meant they were smart or idiotic).

"Mercury? Why are you calling me— have you seen Yang by any chance?"

"This is Yang."

"Wait— Yang? What are you doing on Mercury's phone? Where are you!? Your dad put out like an APB out on you or something!"

"How many times do I have to say that APBs are only for suspects?"

"That doesn't answer my question. Or rather— questions. Plural. Because I have a lot."

"I'm going to find Raven."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

"And then what about—"

"Mercury's my ride."

"I'm not even going to ask."

"Good— because I wouldn't answer. Just… just tell Ruby and Dad that I'm ok."

"Are you? Ok, I mean."

"Ask me in…"

Mercury butted in with the answer (he had a lot of those), "30 minutes."

"Ask me in 30 minutes."

She hung up, before turning to Mercury. "Prepare for a fuckton of worried calls from random numbers."

He shrugged, for the thousandth time that day. "I don't get any of those— it'll be an adventure!"

Yang debated for about 30 seconds (which felt a lot more like 30 minutes) whether to continue on this train of conversation, or let this be her stop. It wasn't like she didn't have the time to ask him after this was all done, but at the same time, it was a better time than any.

"Your parents don't get worried? When you go on your… road trips."

From the way Mercury recoiled from the words, she decided that the decision was a wrong one. The car slowed down— either because of what she said, or because the road he turned into was a narrow one. He lifted a hand behind his head, fingers fiddling with choppy strands of silver. "No— they don't."

"Oh."

"To be honest," he started, with a look of hesitancy smeared across his face. Yang stilled, not expecting elaboration. "That's why I go on them in the first place. My dad."

"Why?" Yang gulped, fingernails digging into the set underneath her palm with a anticipation.

"Don't ask questions you already know the answer to."

She nodded, not pressing further. It seemed like the way to answers, in Mercury's case, was patience. After all, only hours ago, Yang was accusing him of all sorts of things.

"How about one I don't know the answer to?" She asked carefully, lips curling underneath her teeth, leaving the cracks filled with saliva and expanding like Rice Krispees. "Why'd you kill the snake? Back in freshman year."

"Because I didn't like it? I thought I told you that."

"That's all?"

"No."

Yang prepared to push closer to the answer beneath the surface, because she had come so far, had gotten so close to it. She could see its silhouette, shadows on a wax paper wall that he kept around his words and eyes so that no one could decipher his true colors— and she wanted to see more.

However, this endeavor was halted when large buildings began to sprout from the land around them, and it became apparent that they were close. To Raven. To answers. To the end. The phone in her hand vibrated, or had been vibrating, and she only noticed it now. As she recognized her father's number, she froze.

"You going to get that?"

"I don't know." And she didn't know. Her dad wouldn't care that she needed this, he was like that. He thought he knew what she wanted— what she needed. He didn't.

She took a gulp of air and dove under, pressing her thumb down onto the screen hard enough to cause that holographic rippling effect around it— she slid it to the right, and released. It felt less like a release and more of a death sentence.

As she put the phone against her ear, a relieved sigh resonated through the tinny speakers.

"Hello? Is this… Mercury Black? Could you put Yang on please?"

"This is Yang, dad."

"Oh— Yang! Where are you? Blake gave me this number— I'm sorry about how our conversation left off. I want to explain, wherever you are I can pick you up."

"Dad, I don't need an explanation. I know why you did it— and I don't care. I'm facing this on my own. Sort of."

"Yang, you're not thinking straight—

"I am thinking straight. Straight towards my mother."

Mercury's breath hitched and Yang realized that oh wait, Mercury doesn't know who Raven is because I asked him not to ask. And then the irony of that realization dawned on her, since when Yang asked him, he didn't even mention it. And he was driving her cities away. Huh.

"Yang,"

"No! I'm not going to let you stop me! I don't care if she rejects me, or flat out forgot about me. Because at least I'll know!"

She hung up and threw Mercury's phone against one of the back seats. "Really, Yang? How am I supposed to find the building now?"

They're on a bridge now, and the sun is high in the sky— beaming down on the canal below them. It's narrow, and he slows down to stay steady.

"Magic."

"Of course, let me just take out my portkey and teleport to Brawnwen Law Firm, and then I'll Avada Kedavra myself."

Yang narrowed her eyes, "are you by any chance… A huge Harry Potter nerd?"

"…No."

She didn't move her eyes from him, and she felt him crack under the look. It was a victorious feeling.

"Okay, maybe— but that's besides the point. My point is that I need the GPS."

He reached behind himself, fingers barely stroking the leather seat as he strained his arms. Yang admired said arms without shame— because they were very nice arms.

It suddenly occurred to her that Mercury's arms might be the last thing she thinks before she dies— because one second, he's reaching for the phone, and the next— the car is driving off the bridge.

x

x

x

A/N: Oops spilled a cliffhanger. I'm just saying that the title was self evident enough ok (even though I just broke up a kpop quote for the titles and this plot point coincidentally ended up here)

Also my sister usually reads these before I publish them and I didn't let her this time so... THIS IS WHY IF YOU WERE WONDERING

Comments Are The Only Reason I Write Fics

Plus I'm self indulgent but...

yeah! Comments and critiques are love! Because I put so much effort into these chapters hahaha

Stay tuned!