62

"Sooooooo…"

"So?"

"So."

"Soooooooo…?"

Cinder sighed, crossing her arms as she rolled her eyes at her two non-mute teammates, who were just saying "So" at each other at various pitches because they were bored as hell and had nothing better to do as they took the utterly slow and boring way down to Vale- ie, taking a Bullhead like a normal person instead of commandeering a set of rocket lockers so they could airsurf their way to the edge of the commercial district and crash land there. 

Ugh.

Teenagers.

Okay sure, Mercury and Emerald were almost out of their teens by now, but come on . Idiots.

"So!"

"So?"

"Sooooo~"

"SoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-"

"Will you two idiots please shut the fuck up already? I swear to fuck if you don't just quietly play your stupid games on your scrolls until we land in the city center, I will kick you in the dick, Mercury," Cinder spat, finally growing tired of the nonsense and leveling a perfectly manicured middle finger at the gray haired boy who dared call himself her cousin. "And Emerald, if you don't stop egging him on I will take you over my knee and spank you until you cry."

"Yes mommy- I mean wait shit no-"

"..."

"..."

"..."

The rest of Team CMNE stared at Emerald as the dark skinned girl flushed and sputtered out her embarrassment and vanished from view… which didn't really work because they could still hear her gay panic through the hallucination, so they just kept staring at her with silent judgement for the better part of thirty seconds before Emerald managed to calm down enough to drop her illusion.

"... So… uh… you… wanna explain that one, Em? Cuz you just said some horny shit right there and as much as I try not to judge what people get up to sexually considering what me n' Yatsuhashi do when we have the time… that's a lot to be saying that out loud in public…" Mercury cleared his throat awkwardly, scooting slightly away from Emerald and wishing he could be anywhere else.

Neo just palmed her face and shook her head- of course Emerald's gay crush (which WAS NOT SUBTLE AT ALL) hadn't gotten any better. Noooo, of course Cinder's family friend/unrelated "not cousin" that she picked up when she was like sixteen or whatever was still ragingly gay for the woman who was already taken . Ugh.

And after a whole year of them being on the same team together- one would think that would temper the crush, but nooooooo. Ugh. Neo was pretty sure that if she didn't do something super drastic soon then Emerald would be stuck in a forever loop of useless gay lesbian pining. Ugh, at least she actually knew how to deal with it, unlike her not-yet-sisters-in-law's teammate, Weiss.

Poor girl, still hadn't learned the purpose of a productive few hours in a secluded alcove with one's fingers. Oh well. She'd learn. Probably. That, or Yang and Blake would finally get off their asses and start dating the snow princess? Hopefully. 

Cinder, meanwhile, just decided to turn around and walk to the other side of the Bullhead, because… well. Fuck. How the hell was she supposed to respond to that? What kind of possible response could she give to knowing that Emerald's stupid gay lesbian crush on her had only gotten stronger? And, unfortunately, kinkier?

Was that why Emerald still followed Cinder around like a lost puppy? Was it just because Emerald was as stunningly gay as every other girl in the family was????

Fucking hells.

She sighed, shaking her head as she stared out of the window, Vale passing by slowly bit by bit underneath the ship. 

"What the fuck do I do with this information, Neo?" Cinder asked, immediately reaching out and taking the shoulder of her girlfriend in a one armed hug, the pink glass of her shattering illusion highlighting their features for a moment- she'd finally managed to learn how to sense Neo's Aura after all this time, had learned how to do it halfway through first year. Neo hadn't decisively won a spar since, but only because Professor Goodwitch banned her from flashing Cinder with an illusion of her bare titties. Anyway. 

Neo shrugged, patting Cinder's back reassuringly as she bumped her head against the side of Cinder's boob. As usual, Neo's silence told volumes- subtle shifts of body language, Aura density, and microexpressions telling Cinder that the two of them should really get it over with and start dating Emerald instead of letting her marinate on her crush. It worked with Mercury and Yatsuhashi, didn't it? Probably work out fine since the two of them already did feel some kind of mutual attraction right back. They just… hadn't acted on it because of… reasons?

What reasons did they have, really?

"Huh. Y'know, I don't think we ever actually talked about polyamory… we kinda got thrown into the deep end of back to back missions and training and schoolwork that…" Cinder frowned, huffing quietly as she regarded her diminutive girlfriend, the two of them standing there at the window for a long while as Mercury teased Emerald about her mommy kink. "... Yeah I don't think it ever came up? Even though we've all known about Emerald's big gay crush for… how long now?"

Neo shrugged, somehow perfectly getting along the concept that they'd known for years now and just never did anything about it. Probably because Emerald hadn't been legal until earlier that year? Or something? 

Whatever.

"Ugh… we can deal with it when we get back. I'm not opposed to Emerald joining, by the by. She's a fine young lady and as much as she's… occasionally referred to as a cousin… which…" Cinder paused, furrowing her brow and scratching her head. "Wait, is Emerald legally a cousin at all or is she just a family friend that gets called a cousin and no one thought to check otherwise?"

She looked over at Neo for a moment, who just shrugged and rolled her eyes. A thing that she did with such regularity one could almost set a clock by it depending on how stupid someone on Team CMNE was being that day.

So… every day.

"... Whatever. Emerald's cute and I'm enough of a dom-" Neo let out one of her vanishingly rare snickers, marking the first time she actually made a sound other than shattering glass in literal months , "-hey fuck you! I am totally a dom!"

Cinder pouted, crossing her arms and sticking out her lower lip as she tried to assert her dominance over Neo, who just raised an eyebrow and flicked her on the nose with a silent command to kneel … and Cinder did on instinct.

Because Cinder… was a bit of a bottom. For all that she acted like a top or a switch, for Neo she was a subby bottom. A subby, easily flustered bottom who blushed instantly the moment that she realized what she'd done.

"Wh- I- dammit!" 

Neo just smirked, grinning as she tapped Cinder's chin and gave her girlfriend (and… hopefully fiance by the end of the school year) a kiss on the cheek before motioning for her to stand up again.

"Right, right… I- you need to stop doing this to me in public…" Cinder sighed, flipping her hair irritably as she stood up and made her way back to where Emerald was studiously ignoring Mercury, and Mercury was very obviously sexting with Yatsuhashi. "Oi vey… you two are disgusting, Mercury. Emerald… we'll talk about your gay crush later and finally get something over and done with in regards to that. Anyway- we're meeting up with Team RWBY…P… Specifically, Yang and Weiss because they have the afternoon off… in about a half hour in front of the last remaining Valeburger that Weiss hasn't gotten banned from. We've got a lot of shit to do today, so be on your best behavior, make sure to keep a weather eye out, and do not fuck this up-"

"Aren't we literally just going dress shopping for Pennster for the dance next semester?" Mercury deadpanned, raising an eyebrow slowly as he looked up from his scroll. "And wardrobe shopping, I guess, since she literally only has the one copy of her combat outfit and the Beacon uniform."

"It's important! We have to make sure she's dripped out of her fucking mind, Mercury!" Cinder shot back, glaring at the asshole that was her partner and giving him as much of a stink eye as she could. "She's basically Ruby's first girlfriend in all but name and they're so heart wrenchingly cute together it makes me sick with diabetes! We have to do right by Penny otherwise the entire trip is a waste!"

She paused, then shuddered. "Also we need to stop Yang from stuffing Penny into something wildly inappropriate, because there's no way Penny and Ruby's pure, delicate, baby gay romance would survive if she showed up in body hugging leather."

"Weren't… you planning on showing up to the dance in body hugging leather?" Emerald asked, raising her hand as though they were in class.

Cinder scoffed, rolling her eyes as if she were utterly disappointed in Emerald's statement. "Of course I'm wearing body hugging leather, it shows off my tits and ass and it's more for Neo's viewing pleasure than anything else. Just like how Neo's going to be dressing up in silk."

"... You two are disgusting," Mercury deadpanned, swiftly losing all interest and returning to sending a disgusting amount of heart emojis to Yatsuhashi without ever once looking interested in his phone beyond that slight smug smirk on his face.

Ugh.

If Cinder weren't so well aware of how Mercury showed affection (which was to say, spamming appropriate emojis in chats and shin kicking… and the occasional gift), she'd almost think he was leading Yatsuhashi on. Unfortunately, she'd seen the two of them fu- ahem.

"We're not disgusting, we're fucking adorable ," Cinder answered, smooth as silk as she draped her arm over Neo's shoulder again. "And also if you keep insulting Neo she's probably going to shove Hush's blade up your ass."

"... Yeah yeah, whatever."

There was a comfortable silence then, for the next few minutes. As the Bullhead landed, Cinder and the rest of the team all stood and made their way to the exit platform, with Cinder raising her fist in the air and giving one last announcement before they stepped out into Vale proper.

"Time for shopping! Let's do our best!"

"Yaaaaaay!"

"Yay…"

".....!!!!"

Notes:

Writing these four as a bunch of idiots who've known each other for too long is honestly really funny to me ngl