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Marrow couldn’t sleep.
This isn’t normal. His strict schedule leaves him exhausted by the end of the day, and he’s usually the first one asleep out of all the other Ace Ops. Clover had even found him knocked out on the couch several times as a cadet, too tired to even make it to his bed.
He glanced at the clock. 3am. Great.
Deciding he wasn’t going to get any sleep in his current state, he rose from his bed and threw on the Atlas Academy hoodie that still fit him, somehow, from when he graduated years ago. It had a tear in the cuff of the sleeve from wearing it thin from rubbing at it with his thumb, but it was mostly intact. Marrow thought that counted for something. Why throw something out when it’s still usable, even if it’s not pretty anymore?
Gently creaking the door to his room open and closing it behind him, he tiptoes as quietly as possible past the other bedrooms of the Ace Ops. He can hear Elm’s snoring through her door and sends quiet condolences to Vine, who was no doubt cuddling up with her “for warmth”.
As much as Clover and the rest insisted they weren’t friends to the kids, Marrow knew that was a lie. He’d known about Vine and Elm for a few weeks but their shared looks implied it had been much longer since they had gotten together. And he’d seen Clover around that Qrow guy. He’s practically a schoolboy with a crush...it was almost embarrassing. Yeah, as much as they pretended they weren’t friends…
Marrow stops walking. He had made it out of the Ace Ops dorms and down the hall towards the training room on instinct. They were friends, right? ...Right?
Clover pats him on the shoulder with a “good work” now and then, but he laughs more around Elm. Harriet barely gives him the time of day, so he supposes they aren’t there yet. Elm likes to tease him but friends tease each other, right? Yeah. Vine...well he doesn’t talk much with Vine, but then again Vine just doesn’t talk much.
He thinks about the teams of kids that flew in a week or two ago. They look so battle worn and they’re, what, first years? Maybe second years? It’s unfair, he thinks, when he looks at Ruby’s bright silver eyes and notices them dimming every so often. But she had her team behind her, her friends . Not just a stiff pat on the shoulder, but a gentle hug. Not just laughter, but inside jokes and playfulness that feel different than what he knows. Even with her sister Ruby was generally outgoing and sweet. They’re all so close. He...he wants--
Marrow shakes his head and enters the training room, predictably finding it empty. Not having Fetch on his back feels odd, but he didn’t want to have to clean it back up after he was done. He just needs to blow off some steam, that’s all. He sets up the room, watching all the hologram boxes materialize over him, and takes a running stance.
He jumps, flips, kicks, punches, falls, gets back up, falls again. Maybe he needs a different strategy. He changes which direction he comes at the target and gets knocked back. He jumps across a gap and misses, nearly face planting on the floor of the training room. He yells in frustration and yanks his hoodie off and kicks it across the room, flopping down on the floor.
“Wow someone’s in a bad mood!”
Marrow jumps at the perky voice behind him. He sits up and turns around to find a chipper, pink, if with a bit less makeup than usual, Neon Katt. She has a hand on a cocked hip and stares at him with a raised eyebrow and a knowing smile. Her hair is styled in a big poofy ponytail instead of her classic twin buns. Yang hadn’t been kidding in her description of Neon. She was bright . Even though it was 3am she was still sporting her white and pink hoodie with the cat paws on the sleeves and a bright blue crop top. Her roller skates are slung over her shoulder, tied together by the laces, and her tail swings lazily behind her.
“What are you doing up this late?” he asks, finally finding his voice again. She walks further into the room and sets her skates down, going to put them on.
“Same as you, I guess? Couldn’t sleep, got way too into your head about something stupid, wandered around until your instinctive Atlas schooling brought you to the training room.” She holds up a peace sign and winks . Marrow blinks back at her. Damn, she’s good.
“Are you always this, uh..?” he gestures vaguely to her. She giggles, lacing up her skates with fervor.
“Annoying? Yeah! I do it on purpose, plus it's just so much fun,” she replies. She finishes lacing her skates and gets to her feet, doing a few twirls and laps, rainbow trailing steadily behind her.
“Wait, you said ‘same as you’,” Marrow calls after her. “So you...you’re also--”
“Losing my mind over something that’s making me angry at ass-o-clock? Yeah!” She does a one legged twirl around a corner and stops next to him with a smile on her face.
“You don’t seem that torn up about it,” Marrow snarks at her. Neon sticks her tongue out at him.
“That’s all part of my brilliant master plan,” she sings. “Make them think I don’t care at all and then go beat the shit out of them on the battlefield.”
“Them?”
“Oh, racists mostly.”
Marrow’s eyes widen. She laughs at him.
“You should see your face ! Like, it’s okay, you can say it, we have racists in Atlas. This isn’t exactly news.” her tail swings behind her in a graceful arc. Marrow’s tail makes one lazy thump on the floor in return. He flushes.
“W-well I mean, I mean --”
“Don’t!” she points a finger at his face, inches away from his nose. “Don’t even!” Marrow shrinks away. She huffs at him.
“ Grownups think they know shit all they know is trauma and lie about it ,” she mutters. “Don’t be ignorant, Mr. Ace Operative. I know you probably see it more than I do. The way people treat you, the way people treat us .” she sits down next to him on the floor, legs crossed and knee bouncing.
“I know you have this, like, idea planted in your head that just because Atlas let you into the high ranks that everything’s fine or whatever but I know you don’t think that’s true. I’ve seen you with your team.”
Marrow’s breath catches in his throat. He looks away. He thinks about the time the Ace Ops were patrolling Mantle and he made eye contact with one of the Faunus in the mine trucks. He felt so disgusting in that one moment, so seen and not in the way he wanted to be. He fell behind from the group because he’d been standing and staring at where the truck had been for a minute or so. He got ragged on by Harriet, scolded by Vine, and laughed at by Elm. Clover had just smiled and turned away like nothing was wrong, the same way he did when the truck passed.
“Hello? Earth to Mr. Fancy Boomerang?” Neon waves a hand in front of his face. Marrow blinks back to reality.
“Rich coming from miss ‘These Are Just Glow Sticks’,” he responds. Neon rolls her eyes at him, clearly not upset. She gets back to her feet and starts doing laps around the room again. Marrow follows, stretching. He gets into a sparring position and waits for Neon to round the corner before he swings at her. She dodges expertly by doing some fancy kick move and knocking him off his feet. He must be really off his game for a freshman to take him down this easily. No wonder she got into the academy.
They spar for a while longer, Neon getting far more wins than he’d like to admit (rationalizing in his head that he isn’t used to being up this late), before they both collapse on the floor, worn out. Neon checks her scroll. 4:37am. Oh boy. Tomorrow’s gonna be hell. Neon must have the same thought he does, as she starts unlacing her skates. Marrow stops her just before she leaves.
“How do you do it?” he asks, still breathless. Neon cocks her head at him with a smile that’s too innocent. “How...how do you deal with all of the…” he sucks in a breath through his teeth and releases it in a huge sigh. “The racism.”
She doesn't look at all taken aback by the question, putting a finger to her chin in mock thought.
“Hmm...well!” she places the same hand on her hip as her tail does slow circles behind her. “I have thick skin, but that doesn't mean I don’t care. Like I said, I’m annoying on purpose. If they don’t see that it gets to me, then they look like the crazy ones. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, and I worked hard to keep myself...well, myself!” she gestures to her entire body, covered in glitter and rainbows.
“I never truly let them get to me. Just because my parents and I wanted a better life for me doesn’t mean I have to conform exactly to what Atlas thinks is a good soldier--no offense,” she adds at the end, not at all looking sorry. “I know I’m good at what I do. So if they try to expel me for stupid reasons then they can fuck right off for all I care. I’m here because I earned my place here. I love myself, and I’ll never let them take that from me. You shouldn’t let them take it from you, either.” She gives him a peace sign as she leaves the training room, leaving Marrow on the floor, processing. After a minute he goes and gets his hoodie from where it landed an hour earlier and leaves the room too. He’s too awake again to try and fall asleep now, besides he has to be up in a couple hours anyway.
He ends up in the briefing room after wandering again and decides to start the coffee. First one up is the one who makes the pot, unofficial Ace Op rule. He sits sideways in one of the chairs so his tail isn’t shoved uncomfortably against the backrest and stares at the mission board, bathing the room in a low blue glow.
‘ I love myself, and I’ll never let them take that from me. You shouldn’t let them take it from you, either ’
“What if they already have?” he whispers aloud to himself.
“What if who has what?”
His coffee tumbles from his mug when he startles just barely missing his sweatpants and spilling on the floor. He groans and turns around. Blake is standing there sheepishly. What is it with cat Faunus and scaring the shit out of him tonight?
She hands him a few napkins and he thanks her, getting most of the drink from the floor and discarding the trash as Blake sits a seat away on another chair, watching him. Marrow heard from the rest of her teammates she was a bit more nocturnal than the rest of them. He doesn’t know if it's the Faunus genes or the Being Blake. He doesn’t ask. Her eyes shine yellow in the low light and he realizes he can’t hide from her, not with her night vision. Marrow sits again, staring at the blue screen.
“What if who has what?” she asks again, hands folded politely in her lap. Marrow relents, deciding to tell her because, well, what if she understood? She looked at him that day in the mines like she knew something. Besides, he’s already gotten one pep talk tonight, why not?
“What if...what if everything you thought you knew about--about how you were raised, trained,” he stops, sighing through his nose. “What if it’s not what you thought it was? And...and it scares you, but you--you can’t leave, you don’t even know how ?”
He turns to her. Blake’s eyes are far away, staring past him at the wall. She doesn’t blink, doesn’t even seem to register that he's stopped talking. He shifts in his seat so he’s facing her and waits. After a few moments she blinks back, eyes darting around, before settling on him again.
“Sorry…” she fusses with the hem of her sleep shirt. “Believe it or not, I know what that’s like.”
She looks at him as if he needs her confirmation to keep going. She doesn’t, but Marrow nods at her anyway.
“I was once a part of a group that I thought was making a difference. For a while, we were, we really were...but then things started changing. By the time I realized, it was too late and I didn’t know how to get out.” she breaks eye contact with him again, looking up at the ceiling, as if tracing an invisible pattern. “I’ve always...run from problems, never faced them head on. When things got difficult I just...ran. It was a problem with my team, for a while. After Beacon fell...” Blake closes her eyes, ears pinned back. “After Beacon fell, I ran. I thought it was best for me to be alone, that I was the one causing all the problems. But when I reunited with my team I realized I wasn’t alone anymore. Any problem I had, I could look to my friends for answers.”
Blake’s ears twitch on top of her head. Marrow’s tail wags lazily back and forth.
“I think having a good support system helps. I have my team, my family , always there to back me up, to support me. I love them, they love me, and I know that.”
She looks at him. Marrow looks back. There’s a silent understanding passing between them. Marrow knows what group Blake was a part of. Blake knows what he means when he says he wants to leave.
Blake slumps back in her chair. This is the most he’s heard her speak, ever, since the teams landed in Atlas and it must be taking a toll on her. Bless her introverted soul.
“They don’t even have holes in the chairs for tails,” Marrow mutters. Blake gives him a tired smile.
“They don’t even have any good eating establishments that serve Faunus,” she replies. Marrow throws his hands up.
“Brothers, I know ! It’s so frustrating! I just want a good sandwich…” Blake covers her mouth with a hand and laughs into it. Marrow smiles. He hasn’t gotten to talk about this kind of stuff...um, ever. Ever. He relays this to Blake. She makes a face that’s somewhere between a cringe and a halfhearted attempt at a kind smile. Her eyes drift again.
“When I was hiding my ears I heard a lot of comments from other people. I felt like, like I could stand up more for the Faunus when I was passing as a human. It didn’t seem out of place for me to be doing so. But I also regret not doing more. I have this upperclassman, she’s a rabbit Faunus with ears,” Blake motions with her fingers to show they point up. “And she would get her ears yanked every day by this... fucking asshole and I didn’t do anything to stop it. I regret that. I don’t think she ever found out that we were both Faunus. I don’t know if I could face her now.”
Marrow sinks down in his seat.
“I think it’s admirable you stood up at all. I can’t remember the last time I said anything. Every single day my job is at stake for just existing and so I’ve been sort of...conditioned into being quiet about stuff.” Blake throws her head back. By this point they’re both so slumped in the chairs that they’re sliding off.
The door opens behind them and Marrow falls off his chair. Blake sits upright and stares at the incomer. Clover is standing there, already dressed, and awake as ever.
“Have you two been up all night?” Blake and Marrow look at each other.
“No?” Marrow says at the same time Blake says “Yes.” They look at each other again. Blake’s ears go back in embarrassment. Clover moves to the coffee pot.
“Well, it’s good to see you two bonding. Hope it was worth being exhausted today.” he’s got the ‘disappointed leader’ tone in his voice and Marrow drags himself up off the floor. Clover stops him before he gets to the door.
“Marrow, I wanted to check in and make sure you were doing okay. Our last patrol of Mantle you seemed...a little out of it.”
Marrow blinks. His eyes pass to Blake and then back to his leader.
“I...I’m okay. Thanks.” Clover pats his shoulder. He’s still stiff.
“I know they pick on you ‘cause you’re the rookie, but they’ll come around eventually. Don’t worry about them. They said the same things to me when I was a cadet. I know exactly what you’re going through. Us Mantle boys have to stick together, right?”
Marrow barely manages to school his expression into something neutral. Out of the corner of his eye he registers Blake’s ears flattening against her head. Yeah, he felt that one.
Clover smiles at him and turns back to the coffee pot, and Marrow finally manages to look directly at Blake. They share a look that can only be described as ‘are you kidding me. Are you seriously kidding me.’. Blake tilts her head towards Clover. Marrow widens his eyes at her with purpose. Blake nods more firmly. Marrow puffs his cheeks out, sighs out a breath, and then goes up to Clover.
“With all due respect sir, you don’t understand what I’m going through. We may both be from Mantle, but that doesn’t mean we have all the same experiences. Making fun of me because I’m the rookie might go away eventually, but,” and he motions to his tail. “This won’t. The least you could do is see me as a Faunus, see me for who I am, instead of ignoring it because that's easier than having to face your prejudice.” and with that he walks out of the room as fast as he can without making it seem like he’s running. Blake being his emotional support gave him more strength than he realized as he drops all formality and starts booking it around the corner to the dorms to get dressed. He hopes Clover puts him with the kids today. He doesn’t know if he can face his leader after what he said.
As he’s pulling his pants on in a hurry with his ascot in his mouth a feeling of euphoria washes over him. He did it. He finally stood up for himself.
“Phug ‘eah!” he yells around the fabric in his mouth and then trips on his pant leg. One step at a time.