he hates that they don’t react. hates the monotone voice, the lack of any and all flicker in magenta hues. wolf needs a reaction, needs to know that he’s being listened to - yet ren responds and he can feel nothing but that unbridled rage threatening to boil over. he doesn’t care what they think - doesn’t care what they want because this isn’t his fight. he is no more a part of this than they are - no more a willing participant than a child is in their parent’s arguments or a civilian is in their leader’s vendettas. mercury black is only here because he needed to be, and now he has no obligation. no ties or loyalty. all he has is himself. except, ren is right - aren’t they? lip curls and nose wrinkles in a barely contained snarl as the assassin bristles where he sits. marcus black was nothing but a washed up old man who hated the child he ended up with, mercury black is nothing but a waste of space who thought he could play the world into giving him more than he deserved. yet here he is. broken and useless with nothing but a stubborn pride that he shouldn’t possess. here he is, staring down ren as if staying silent was an option. he doesn’t want to work with them. doesn’t want to admit that the kid is right, that mercury doesn’t have any other option but to eat and tend to his injuries even where his fractured aura refused to.
mercury has half a mind to kick out at the bowl between them, to send it flying right back at the other as if it would serve in place of an actual, verbal response. he hates this. hates being cornered, being weak and vulnerable. it doesn’t matter that ren isn’t actively threatening him - that really their words could be seen as something of an encouragement. get up, spit your mouthful of blood, move move move– it doesn’t matter because mercury doesn’t want to listen. even if he knows it’s the path with the least resistance, the path that means he gets away quicker and with less resistance–
“why should i listen ta anythin’ you have ta say, anyway? i’m out, i got out - it don’t matter ta me if y’ get the info you’re lookin’ for cus it ain’t my fight no more - you get that?! i don’t care where all’ve you go from here, don’t you get that? my legs are fucked, sure - i ain’t goin’ nowhere fast but that don’t mean i wanna help you.” he doesn’t look away, doesn’t dare break the glare that he has aimed at their features, he can feel blood staining his skin - feel the way his aura struggles to heal anything before it’s all used up again. can feel the way his prosthetics don’t seem to register anymore, can feel that they’re damaged and useless. that he’s defenceless unless ren tried to perhaps cross the room and slap him rather than anything else the student could do. “i don’t want your food and i don’t want your bartering, i ain’t choosin’ a side - doesn’t matter how much you try ta get me on side, it ain’t happening. cinder picked me up when i killed pa - i’m sure y’ know who he is, right? y’ always did seem the prying type. cinder did nothin’ but use me like he did. i. don’t. trust. you.”
his voice is smaller then, bitter and distant. “you all just wanna use me.”
it was ironic that the role of interrogator fell to the lotus, ren with a voice that was as clear as it was soft, with the capability for the most gentle eyes, whose food was made with such love and care that it often brought forth a feeling of homesick nostalgia. but one supposed that didn’t really work for someone who hadn’t had a home, not in a real sense, not for someone who had just been trapped in a house with a monster. gone had been the quiet affection, the awe in which they regarded mercury’s strength, the good natured smile whenever they took mercury’s sparring invitations with more enthusiasm than one thought ren was capable of. they tried so hard to avoid weakness in front of the enemy, but even then this was exhausting, wasn’t it ? it took almost everything ren had not to grit draconic teeth and snarl. already, when they spoke, little wisps of smoke left their mouth, the little clouds appearing only when they felt an urge to bite. it was such an obvious tell, despite ren’s precise control over their facial expressions, but that perfect mask, too, was breaking.
‘ it wasn’t very difficult to find. i lived here once too. ’ years spent in the mistral underground, and one still couldn’t shake the old habits no matter how hard they tried to change their image.
you all just wanna use me.
‘ ... it wasn’t always like that. ’ a splinter, a crack, the more mercury spoke. ren couldn’t do this. they weren’t cut out for acting unfeeling and bitter, despite how much they desperately wanted to. they felt so much and they just weren’t strong enough to contain these emotions, even with the use of their semblance. they thought about how beacon had proved to advance them, and yet ren had left the grounds feeling so much weaker than before. ‘ my semblance allows me to feel what you do, and yet i can’t see past this seething rage over loosing my teammate, my friends, and watching my home being decimated. what you did — ’ agitation rises, ren’s voice spit out as a reverberating growl. and then, they caught themselves, because despite whatever mercury assumed, ren had been listening. ‘ what cinder ordered you to do is driving a lot of good people to make bad decisions. ’ ren exhaled then, a cloud of smoke as they broke what had been a seething glare to look down, expression pensive and conflicted instead of stoic. ‘ this is one of them. we don’t want to keep you here against your will. at least ... i don’t want to. ’
‘ i really thought it could have been different a year ago. ’ ren let that exhaustion over their situation take root, expression tired and wistful as they smiled, somewhat bittersweet. ‘ i enjoyed spending time with you. i looked up to you. i wanted to be your friend, mercury. ’ ren could make mercury trust him. that was the convenient piece of their semblance they were leaving out, the ability to manipulate someone’s emotions. all human feelings were a concoction, brain signals, chemicals, and trust was an easy one to mix. but ... ren didn’t want to. they didn’t want to take away someone’s ability to choose what they were feeling. it was the path of most resistance. to be good, and kind, and just was difficult, but they wanted to tread that path as long as they could. ‘ one of the cruelest things i could wish on you is the hope that you find someone you love as much as we did her, then maybe you could see how much it changed us to have her taken away, and how much we want cinder to pay for what they did. ’
