- - -12- - -

Could You?

VAV

V

February came around and Blake had suggested an impromptu movie night later that day. It had been a general email to the whole fencing club, and given he was still not sure where he stood with Yang, Mercury had every intention of just leaving the message untouched. Then Emerald had pushed past him and interrogated him until he finally admitted that Weiss would probably be there. He wouldn't know though since the RWBY flat was hosting, she hardly needed to RSVP over email.

An argument that he had very carefully crafted while they had been hanging out in their room. His room, he had to remind even himself sometimes despite the added presence of a roommate who lit half the room by fairy lights and made the room smell of some fancy soap, as it was in the guys hall and she was just a guest. Then Weiss had to ruin his perfectly good plan for a Donnie Yen marathon night with a memo, because simply emailing 'sure' would have been to plebeian, stating she would be happy to attend this event.

"We're going."

"Em, why do you even care, it's not like you need to have some excuse to hang out with her."

"Shut up, your just pissed I'm making you spend time with Yang."

"I'm not pissed about that, you're the one who threatened her, not me. I'm pissed that someone else is going to be picking the movie. I had plans."

"Your plans suck, it was literally just watch movies and work out."

"I also budgeted for snacks this time. Yes indeed, high-class planning, that's me." Mercury said.

"Come on, we're going."

He almost said no, not like he had any reason yet, but Emerald's expression had hardened. People gave him grief because he was some emotionless monster, Mercury however had learned long ago that it was the emotional who were the real scary ones. 'Demon's run when a good man goes to war' and all that. He knew where he stood on that side of the equation. "Fine, but I'm going to bitch about it constantly."

"You bitch about everything."

"Its part of my charm. And you still don't need me to go to some movie night to hang out with the ghost girl."

"Her name's Weiss, and…" Emerald's voice turning into a frustrated mumble.

"What was that?"

"We didn't share numbers, ok. And she doesn't go to the dining hall, our schedules never meet even though we're both theoretically the same major. I don't even know how that's possible, I even skipped lunch Tuesday so I could try and run into her. I'm starting to think she really is a ghost"

"And you didn't even think to ask me."

"You can't even remember your teammates name, why would I ever ask you for their phone numbers?"

"Yeah, fair."

Mercury was slow to drop his feet from the desk, every intention of beginning the bitching here and now by showing up late to this movie night. Em had other plans, grabbing him by the collar and twisting so that he stumbled forward after her. Both of them knowing she was one of the only person in the world who could get away with this.

The other person, a problem for another day.

VAV

"Weiss! What's this about you and Mercury's friend."

Ruby was always the eager one, and even the tiniest tidbit Yang had fed her and Blake left Weiss in the perilous position of being gossip central right now. Her best friend pulling a chair over so that she could lean closely into Weiss' eyes as if the answer was tucked into her eyebrows. As the only witness to their encounter, Yang only turned a little so she could give Weiss a lascivious wink. The true indicator however was that Blake looked up from her current weighty tome, which was probably a school book, probably. English majors were weird, even when muted by the usual insanity of a poli.-sci. double major.

"I… may have met a young lady."

"Is she pretty? How did you meet, Yang didn't say? Do you have any plans for a date? Ooh, is that what your doing on your phone? Are you texting her?"

"She's certainly attractive. However, we may not have gotten… that far into the conversation. There were distractions." Weiss said.

"Tongues get in the way of speaking."

"Thank you Yang, I meant more along the lines of someone stealing our books."

"Book, singular. And you didn't seem to mind at the time."

"Ahem, well, never the less. I don't think anything will come of it. I'm much too busy at the moment to worry about dates or texting her."

"Ohhh." Ruby pressed her hand to her face, clearly horrified by her realization. "You forgot to ask for her number."

"I wouldn't say I forgot, I..."

"Course you wouldn't." Blake said.

"Who knows, maybe you'll run into her around campus." Yang's focus returning to the stove

"I don't think that's going to happen. I imagine if I haven't run into her elsewhere already, it's probably a non-issue."

Blake set down her book, carefully making sure her bookmark was secure as she checked the time. "Weiss, you do realize most seniors don't take morning classes. Or hide away in the library every day from 2-4. And night activities are restricted to our flat, the club, or the music department's practice room."

"Of course."

"Where exactly were you planning to meet her?"

"…She might be musically inclined."

"Says the opera singer."

Leaving Weiss to puzzle over her dilemma, the rest turned in response to the knocks at the door. Ruby was fastest on the ball, to no ones surprise, and was also the one to trip on the chair she sitting in. Also unsurprising. As Yang checked on her sister, Blake called out they were coming. Making a point to carefully stand and walk to the door, instead of the Xiao-long-Rose style of sprinting and tumbling. Weiss, was left to furrow her brow, bent into her textbook as if she was focusing on her organization theory class instead of her romance issues.

"Hi Mercury, whose your friend?" The words drifting through the hallway in Blakes usual calm, clear manner.

"This is Emerald, guess you can call her my roommate." Almost as if you could hear his shrug of indifference.

Mercury's words broke the furrow quickly. Weiss standing up while simultaneously trying to smooth her dress, check her hair, straighten her collar, and also make sure the table was clear. Unlike Ruby, this sprint for the door at least made it to the kitchen threshold. Just in time to land at the guests feet.

"I swear we usually don't have people falling left and right here, don't know what's with today."

"I'm sure its fine." Emerald kneeling to take Weiss' hand as their eyes locked. "It seems only natural for a lady to find other bending their knee to them."

Even prone on the floor, Weiss managed to have a poise that must have take years of experience because it lacked Yang's inherent flirtation or Blake's cat-like poise. "I was always taught that a lady has no need for others to bend there need, their strength should be unquestioned. But I can certainly thank you for this."

Pulling herself up with the proffered hand instead brought the unsteady and enraptured Emerald to the ground. Both parties quickly turning away with scarlet faces at the awkwardness as Blake rolled her eyes and stepped over the two corpses. Guiding her other guest in the process as the hallway tried its best to put itself back together.

"Two kittens playing toms." Mercury muttered to himself, stepping past the two to make his way to the pointedly less dramatic sisters. "Any way I can just ignore all this?" Waving his hand to make it clear he sought refuge from more than just his best friends romantic success. It wasn't jealousy, he really hoped Em would have at least something to help move past the whole Cinder issue. Didn't make the impending crowd or his own recent failure any easier, especially given who he was talking to right now.

"If you can move the furniture for us in the living room, Ruby's going to grab the blankets and stuff. She'll tell you where to put stuff while I finish cooking."

"Perfect."

"Current vote is 'The Martian'. Any votes against?"

"Naw, sounds good enough."

"No fight-scene analysis, but it's funny, I promise."

"…You remembered." His head tilting in curiosity, but he was already heading away from her. Like it would be easier if she didn't care.

VAV

"I'm not gonna die here." The man looked like a man half-starved, half-bled, eyes sunk with exhaustion. Wrapped up in the blank Mark Watney seemed so small. One man against a planet.

VAV

"I could never do that."

Yang looked over at him, and Mercury had a moment to realize he had said those words out loud. He didn't know what he looked like in the room, but he could imagine it was pretty grim. Hard to imagine anything else. Cast in the blue from the projector's wash, everything became shadows, and he could only imagine how it would hide his eyes, hide whatever little part of himself might imply comfort. Highlight the twitch of his face that was so sad it brought this moment into life.

"Do what?" She said. It was the obvious question. And he wanted to lie, but there was so little for him to choose from. Mark Watney hadn't done anything else for him to talk about. The scene had built up perfectly the pain laid out before the character with no tests or challenges, just grim pictures and cold realities. All leading up to his one line. 'I'm not going to die here.'

So lying was out of the question. Which ruined about half the plans he ever came up with. Then there was the worst part. He didn't want to lie. He wanted to talk about it. Talk about the weakness that he could see so clearly in himself, because it hurt just thinking about. Every other problem was so simple for him to train his way out of, to the point he sometimes wondered if he enforced his left-handed handicap for fencing so that he couldn't succeed. But this was a different issue, one that was so central to him he couldn't remember the days it wasn't true.

"I could never say that."

Yang took a couple seconds to respond, and he risked his own glance at her. Stupid, stupid Merc. The same light that made him grim, lit her up. She wasn't the die-hard athlete right now, she was a young woman in baggy, casual clothes who looked like she would be comfortable to hold tight against himself. Remind him that his statement could be wrong; maybe not today, but someday. Letting her mane of rich blonde hair fall between them, her eyes focused on the screen and he didn't know if it was in concentration at his words or the movie. He could hardly fault the latter, it was already one of the most hilarious ones he had watched in a long time.

"You would fight it." She said, "You always fight it. Nerve pain in the leg, you went a whole class without a wince. I only know about the bad connection because you told me about it. None of us expected you to last a semester fighting lefty and here you are, wearing out our handful of left handed swords still."

"Yeah."

They left it at that for a while. Both of them stealing a glance over at their friends on the other side of the room. Em and Weiss were clearly the hot gossip of the night. This late in people college careers, the attendees were either engaged in all but jewelry or content to wait. But the two acquaintances had coincidentally ended up next to each other. Possibly in relation to Weiss' belabored effort to fit twenty or so young adults into a college living room; or possibly thanks to Em's excessively polite insistence that, since she wasn't invited, she would just squeeze in where she could. Which happened to be next to the room's thinnest occupant.

But Mercury wasn't going to fall for that seating nonsense. His spot ending up in the hallway. A clear escape route, room to stretch out his legs as long as everyone else walked over them, and a floor that was only slightly uncomfortable, but better than concrete. It was a genuine confidence in his case, Yang's more motherly tendencies that had stuck her near the door where she could best access the doors and kitchen. And though head heights maybe different between a couch and the floor, his words didn't have far to travel from where his head leaned slack against that couch near her elbow.

"No."

"What?"

"I don't alway fight it." He had Yang's attention now and he didn't even know what he was saying. The words coming out in self-loathing dribbles whenever his chin slackened from the mental exhaustion of holding this all in. "All I want is to not have to fight it. But I can't. Every person I meet I'll go against, every situation that seems hopeless I'lll stand as strong as I can, every time I'm told it's impossible I'll laugh and go the mile to prove them wrong."

"Like I said, stubborn to the core."

"I try to be. But I only ever learned how to play a losing hand. Endgame I got in spades. And there were times when I could go beyond that, but only when I was ready to sacrifice it all. I never learned how to take the next step."

"Yeah, but if you were out there on Mars, you'd be the guy spiteful enough to grow a farm just to colonize mars and not die."

"Sure, if I understood any of the botany stuff, I'd buy that. But I would never have thought that far ahead. Getting the camera-robot thing, plotting all this out with the eggheads and the crew. No, I'd never be able to get that far. Just make my peace and be done with it. Not the first time I had to admit it was impossible, might as well be the last."

He didn't know what he wanted Yang to say to that. He never did. As long as she heard and understood, he honestly didn't care if she said nothing. Even if they had agreed to stay a little more distant, it didn't change the distance he wanted to have anyways.

"I'm sorry." She said.

He gave a quiet grunt. Sorry was the kind of word he wanted out of his vocabulary, and here she was saying it so easily and heartfelt. "Don't be. It's just easier when I don't think in those terms."

VAV

The movie over, the snacks all eaten, the hour too late; If they weren't all living in easy walking distance, they'd probably have been invited to stay over. As it was, Mercury wouldn't have accepted even if it was suggested. Though he probably should have done something as Emerald's sole wingman to make it an option for her. But this was him, he waved his goodbyes wordlessly and then hung around as Emerald did the polite chatter to tell everyone goodnight. Somehow making her lingering hand with Weiss seem natural and unworthy of note. Maybe not intimate, but it had a promised future in a few fingers that he couldn't stop glancing at.

It wasn't good to be jealous of friends, he reminded himself. That path only led to more pain.

With people moving towards the door, and him now unfortunately caught on the wrong side of the pack, he found himself looking into the kitchen. With Weiss and Ruby on the door-host-duty, Blake and Yang were tackling the mess. The silence in their work might have been comfortable for them, but it felt stifling. Like he was invading something unnatural. Like it had at the Nikos household.

Finally; as yet another group started to leave, Emerald seemed no closer to leaving herself, and he had positive visual confirmation that the backdoor was too blocked for an exit without arousing suspicion from Blake steely eyes; he gave up. "What about you?"

Blake was the first person to notice what he had said, but she took one glance at Yang and decided to remain silent. Politely pretending to not hear in a way that made her far more endearing than he ever expected from one of Yang's crowd. And that was after a largely successful semester of already knowing each other.

"About what?"

"Would you be able to do it?"

Yang looked up from the dishes she was quietly cleaning, Handing off one set of clean pots to Blake, as her friend traded with more dirty dishes from the living room. Her eyes met his for a moment, but then they locked on Blake's quiet efficiency, Ruby's boundless smile, and even Weiss' awkward attempts at flirting with Emerald. They seemed to take in everything about the kitchen that seemed so odd to him. Pictures of her dad and sister, group photos of the RWBY flat's college career, the little notes they had sticking everywhere reminding them of groceries and everything else under the sun. One wall had a framed sketch of an old yet cheery house and garden, signed in one corner by a stylized and neat 'B.B.'

She had a glazed look in her eye that he wasn't used to. Their time in fencing club and their, ahem, rendezvous had led him to have a good idea of her in most situations. He was really second guessing how large the other sides of her were. It gave her a steel so utterly unlike his. Rooted and ancient oaken lines, not spring steel and jagged edges. Maybe that was why they would never work, a voice in his head whispered.

"If my family needed me, I could do whatever the hell it took to make it back."

"Yeah," He said, and believed it. "And you call me stubborn."

VAV

V

Well it's long one if nothing else. And apparently WeissxEm is not my strong suite. Thoroughly shocked I tell you. But I really do like the idea of them playing up a lady and knight persona, and then promptly screwing it up.

I recently gave a friend access to my nom-de-plume, a rarity due to some personal moments, and they commented on how Fox was like an alternate version of me. Funny that. Perhaps because I always imagined Fox as someone who had all my sins and yet somehow kept his hope. Mercury, by contrast, never got that alteration. Only a far shittier childhood. Fox may be oblivious on occasion, Mercury is more insane than he lets on. Fox is who I want to be. Mercury is honestly closer to the truth. Which is why he has a lot less success.

For clarification, Coco and Yang are not based on real people, though occasionally they pick up quirks of mine when I'm not looking, along with occasional . And that's all I'll say on the matter.

Course because of all this, the movie is now The Martian. Not the Princess Bride, the obvious choice for a Fencing AU and a change for which I must apologize.