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It had been two days since they'd landed in the Ever After. Two days since they lost their fight in the portal realm, since they failed, since they plunged to their supposed deaths and reawakened, blessed with a second chance at life. At redemption.
It had been two days since they'd been beaten, bruised and bloody and within an inch of their lives by Cinder and Neo.
And it had been a day since Blake caught a glimpse of a bruise by Yang's collarbone that she'd masterfully hidden with her bandana, only noticeable when jostled during the Jabberwalker fight. It had been mere hours since their time together in the punderstorm solidified their feelings for one another. Even despite how gleeful, how overjoyed it had made them both, the sight of those bruises still rung clear in her mind.
Because Blake had noticed them, as clear as pitch black ink on parchment, as the moon in the sky.
Despite her best attempts to bring it up, to have her sit down, strip off her jacket, and let her take a look – she just wouldn't. Fuck, they hadn't even talked about Yang falling yet – but she keeps avoiding everything. Every little chance she gets to try and wriggle her way in, to sidle up to her side and peel back the lips of her coat, she's brushed off.
Until finally, she's had enough.
Ruby, Weiss and Jaune had clearly sensed the palpable tension between the two, so thick you'd have to heat the knife to cut it. Weiss had rambled on about a patrol, about checking on the villagers, about sticking to schedule – and the three had taken off towards the village, leaving two subtle winks from their teammates over their shoulder towards Blake. Of course they planned this. After all, why would they be so adamant that the two of them stay back, alone?
The most worrying part is that Yang doesn't even fight it. She protests, then accepts it once Ruby orders her to stay and rest.
At first, Blake busies herself anxiously by tidying up Jaune's hut, placing misplaced things back in their rightful spots. Paper succulents on window sills, pens in pots, blankets on his bed, cutlery in a cupboard and drawer… until finally, finally, the sight of Yang pushing herself up from her sleeping bag achingly makes her stop in her tracks. Everything, every single sense, hones in on her.
She'd been waiting for her to wake up after she muttered something about taking a nap, just waiting for the chance to spring at her and understand what's gotten under her skin, more than the bruises and cuts and gashes, but what's made her so avoidant of help.
No words are said as Blake pounces, offering her hands to get her to her feet – the thin mattresses (or rather just folded blankets) that Jaune had laid out for them were proving futile to ease her partner's straining back.
One of her arms loops around Yang's back, her hand hooking under her armpit to carry her weight as much as she can. Together, they head to Jaune's room with just a couple pained grunts from twisting, turning, and limping.
Blake sets her down to sit on the thick mattress slowly, a hand caressing her cheek to loosen her up. It moves carefully down to the lip of her bomber jacket, peeling it back ever so carefully.
She takes care to be delicate, to keep her touch feather-light and cautious with the colour of the bruises she'd set her eyes upon in mere passing earlier. They looked more than just aching or throbbing. They looked agonising.
Yang struggles, wincing as she tries to manoeuvre her arms free of the jacket, to which Blake drops everything and assists in that instead.
Her hold on the jacket slackens, her fingers linking carefully under Yang's bicep to help tug them free. It doesn't work. Next plan.
"Arms up, sunshine." She drawls, urging her arms up by rubbing her hands from Yang's sides to her biceps, humming happily when she complies and her arms slide out of the jacket easier.
Folding it up, she sets it off to the side and peels off her own backpack for Gambol, folding that and placing it beside Yang's nearly folded jacket. Then comes her own, which she hooks on the coat hanger on the back of the door.
Back to Yang, she steps between her legs and presses a lingering kiss to the scalp of her bangs, breathing a contented sigh into her hair. Below her, her partner's expression stays unknown – she's just happy to know that she's letting herself be vulnerable. She's determined to get her used to this feeling. The feeling of being loved unconditionally.
Taking a step back, her arms sink from the sides of Yang's head to the orange knot at the nape of her neck, her bandana tied securely so it won't slip. A gift from Summer, she'd been told, that Yang had kept with her ever since her youth. The issue? It covers that damned bruise at her sternum that Blake needs to see to help with.
As she begins to unknot it, Yang's head lifts alarmedly, her tender lavender eyes meeting assured gold. Yang had avoided Blake's gaze since they'd begun. In truth, this wasn't the way the blonde envisioned the situation in which Blake would undress her for the first time. Not like this, she pleads, I don't want you to see me like this.
It's like Yang's confidence is sucked dry when anyone tries to take away her bandana. She'd seen her top blow when she'd lost it one time back at Beacon – it was the first time she'd yelled at Blake, and even though Blake made it known that she knew it was purely out of indirect irritation (but it still made her flinch too violently to go unnoticed), Yang took her out to dinner to say sorry for the outburst once they'd decided that they'd look for it, and find it, together – which they did, Blake gleefully tying it around her neck for her. She'll never forget the shiver that ran through them both when her fingers brushed her nape.
The bandana comes loose, and instead of folding it and setting it aside amongst the rest, Blake carefully tucks it into one of the pockets at the front of Yang's overalls – to keep it with her, on her person, a tidbit she'd let slip to Blake when they were relaxing on the train between Haven and Argus. An attempt to make conversation to fill their painfully awkward silence, grasping at whatever their senses picked up to procure idle chat.
("Whenever I lose it," She'd informed, "I get so weirdly scared. It makes no sense, but it's like I lose her all over again."
"Her?" Blake had questioned, "Summer?"
"Yeah," Yang confirmed with a sorrowful nod. "It's all I have left of her. If I lose it, I lose her." She'd tugged and toyed with the frayed edge of the bandana around her neck, "Sometimes, I swear that it's– it's probably not that. I think I just lose myself.")
Blake closes the pocket's button with a click, keeping the banana inside, padded, safe, and above all, on her person.
Yang blinks, slow and steady, at her girlfriend. A silent thank you.
Now, though, her collar, her sternum, her shoulders, her neck; they're all bare, and most noticeably to Blake, unnaturally black and blue with a tinge of sore purple. Her heart plummets fast, too similar to the speed it fell when Yang took it with her off the edge of the portal realm platform.
They're lacking in dust by now, too little for them to be at ease. If a large battle awaits them in this world, they barely have enough to make do.
But Blake still reaches for the container of spare dust Weiss carries for Myrtenaster and the rest of the team, plucking a few capsules of deep ocean blue Hydras dust and icy blue Geluas dust from their precise indents in the case.
Carefully, she grabs a cloth from a cupboard in the makeshift kitchen, releasing the Hydras dust cartridge into it to completely soak it through. Without missing a beat, she releases the Geluas dust next to freeze it once she's neatly folded it into a quarter of its previous size.
It isn't rock solid, but it's freezing. That's enough for Blake as she makes her way back over to Yang, who had been watching her intently with an exhausted look to her usually vibrant, sparkling orchid eyes.
"Not to state the obvious, but…" Blake clambers onto the bed and tugs at Yang's hand to join her in shifting around so that they're sitting in front of one another, Blake sitting on her legs while Yang sits cross-legged. "..This will be cold."
The pack meets a particularly dark, painful-looking bruise on Yang's shoulder. She winces immediately and lets out a whimper, something she'd never, ever heard from her partner before. Not since then, when she'd hoisted her up off of the ground of the Beacon cafeteria, Yang's body protesting unconsciously as she whimpered in agony at the way white hot pain tore through her limb.
She must be staring, because Yang's hand comes under her chin, angling it up until their eyes meet. Right. She was staring at her fucking arm again. They'd both lost count of how many times she'd dozed off staring at it when the thoughts got too loud, too guilty, too saddening. And yet, every single time, Yang pulls her back.
"I thought we were past this." Yang murmurs, the back of her fingers moving to caress Blake's cheek. From there, her girlfriend pushes herself into the warmth of her hand, making her turn it until she's holding her cheek in her palm. "It's not–"
"Not my fault. I know." Blake nods, turning slightly, just enough to press her lips to the lines engraved in her palms, wondering if those calluses and creases will fit like jigsaw puzzles with the lines etched into her own.
Raising a brow, Yang's voice comes out croaky. She'd been yelling at Jabberwalkers and taking hits for them the whole time they'd been in this world – it's no surprise, especially considering the light bruises her bandana had been covering around her neck. "So what's on your mind, then?"
Blake shrugs, a chill running through her similar to the one she felt back at Haven, when she first laid her eyes on Yang after months of time apart, only being able to see her face in her dreams.
"I hate seeing you in pain like this." Maybe that isn't the right thing to say, because Yang's mischievous smile drops instantaneously once she's finished speaking. Catching herself, Blake continues in a desperate attempt to salvage. "But… It makes me happy that you're letting me do this. See this,"
Yang's blondish-brown brows pinch, her frown growing confused, torn. "How can this make you happy?" She asks, "To– to have to see me like this. To have to help,"
"Okay, I'm stopping you there." Blake's free hand, the one not pressing an ice pack to a mottled purple and blue bruise by the curve of her collar, plants a thumb over her lips. Her hand, her palm, fits perfectly into the curve of Yang's cheek like this. "I don't have to do anything. I'm doing this because I want to, sweetheart." She leans in, nuzzling her nose against Yang's for a brief moment, their foreheads bumping together softly. "You… put yourself in danger way too often. Getting to do this for you, It– it helps."
"You?"
"Yes, me." Blake says with a bubbliness that says it's obvious. She moves back to her normal sitting position, peeking under the freezing cold fabric at the bruise that’s beginning to lighten in it’s colour. "I know you think it's for the best, but… I get so worried, Yang. More than you realise." Her other hand stays, caressing her girlfriend's cheek, a soothing constant to remind herself – and Yang – that they're together, despite everything, they're here in the present. "I can't keep watching you get hurt for others."
Even though it's not said directly, Yang knows what this is about. It's not just the punches taken from the Jabberwalkers or the wooden chess piece pile-on.
Her voice takes on the scowl she wears. "Would you have rathered I let Ruby die?"
"No! Yang– Gods, no." Blake nearly recoils but stays strong, her resolve solid – her thumb sweeps soothingly over the curve of Yang's cheekbone, the other hand moving from bruise to bruise periodically to keep her from freezing. Busying herself with these things helps her keep her head on straight. "You can still protect people without putting yourself in harm's way instead."
"But– that's not–" Yang splutters, sighing defeatedly as she melts into the warmth of Blake's hand against her cheek. "I'm the muscle. The tank. I have to,"
"Says who?" Blake counters, removing the cloth completely to set it aside, her cool-palmed hand mirroring the other on Yang's cheek. "You're the only one saying that that has to be the case! Does anyone in Team JNPR take hits for each other like you do?"
"No, but–"
"Or FNKI? SSSN? CFVY?" Blake rattles off the list, her thumbs continuing to soothingly sweep across her cheeks. "I'm not relenting on this, Yang. You don't– you don't know what it was like–"
Her eyes snap shut and her head hangs low the moment her word is cut off by a shuddering sob breaking loose from her throat. A sniffle sounds, loud and clear, making the tears she's trying to hide obvious as she recoils from Yang's attempt to touch her chin, angle it upright, like she's been scorched.
She jumps up from the bed, not to leave, but just to stand, because if she stayed so close to Yang she'd just end up feeling as though her heart couldn't take any more of the strain. Her hands move diligently to cover her face, to breathe into them and calm herself.
"Blake–"
"We thought you were dead." Blake mumbles as flatly as her wavering voice can manage. "Weiss, Ruby– we all thought– and I had to watch you fall. I failed to grab you and Weiss had to stop me from–"
Her lips press into a thin line the moment she cuts herself off. Yang shouldn't know that. She shouldn't have to know that. Make her realise that what she did was shitty for everyone else to watch, sure, but– but that is–
"You watched? You– you tried to grab me?" Right. She was… quite out of it as she fell, considering how hard the blow was. It's no wonder she doesn't remember. "And… Weiss had to stop you from doing what?"
Blake swallows thickly – this isn't where she wanted this to go. Not at all. She haphazardly wipes away her tears and moves back towards the bed, perching on it, then swivelling round to turn towards Yang, unable to meet her prying gaze. With the iced cloth back in her hand, she continues to dab at the bruises littering her neck and shoulders.
"Blake," Yang coaxes, "This – protecting each other – only really works if we tell each other the truth. What we really feel and all that, yeah?" She smooths some of Blake's bangs out of her eyes, her hand moving down to caress her cheek and hook under her chin, lifting it so that their eyes can meet – watery amber meets lavender and she realises, finally, why Blake's been avoiding her gaze so much. She can't help but soften at the sight; it had felt like forever since she'd last seen Blake cry. "You've done a good job of that so far. Just… keep going. If you think I need to have something, you should tell me." She leans forward, pecking a kiss to her partner's forehead. "You should feel safe enough to tell me, and I'm going to do everything to make sure that you feel as safe as can be."
"That's not what– Yang, I already feel safe with you." Blake's voice betrays her, wavering and breaking mid-sentence. "I've never felt safer with someone than I have with you, so please don't– don't think it's that." She reassures, shaking her head softly. "This is a me issue."
"I didn't know there was such a thing." Yang tries to lighten the mood with the half-flirtatious joke, wincing as Blake moves the cloth to her neck, humming acknowledgingly at her whispered apology. "But… even so, you can still tell me. I want to help, baby."
Blake stays quiet for a short while after nodding in acknowledgement, just moving from bruise to bruise while she tries her best to formulate a way to word the news she's about to break that'll make it… less devastating than it is.
But there's no way to sugarcoat it. No matter how you look at it, it's impossible.
"After you fell," Blake begins, quiet and careful, feeling Yang's eyes hook onto her immediately – she remembers their agreement back at Beacon to look into one another's eyes when telling the truth. So, she does. She meets her eyes. "I… failed to catch you with Gambol. I aimed it so that– so that if you couldn't catch it, then it'd– it would at least snag your foot and we'd be able to pull you back up."
Yang winces, nose scrunching, and yet she nods for her to go on. Continue, I'm listening.
"But it missed. You disappeared, and I just– I couldn't deal with it, so I–"
She swallows her pride, her dignity, her promise back when they first encountered Yang again here in the Ever After to keep this to herself and to never let it slip that she'd been driven to such a literal edge.
"I tried to throw myself off of the platform." Her voice is barely above a whisper, watching in real time as Yang's eyes take in the information, widen, soften, grow watery– "I couldn't live in a world where you weren't. I couldn't live without you. I– I can't live without you."
Yang's palms are cupping her cheeks in an instant, warm and safe and homely. Lilac burrows into amber, searching for a lie that doesn't exist. Searching for hope that that – that terrifying prospect – didn't actually happen.
But Blake's eyes are gleaming with honesty, brimming with love that would never let a lie filter through to the surface – and Yang breaks.
"Oh, gods," Yang chokes, her expression morphing into one of anguish, "You didn't– you–"
Seeing her partner crumble at the seam weakens her own pillars – the thumbs thrumming her cheeks, the sight of tender, delicate orchid; it pushes her to yet another edge where she finally falls apart.
"I'm sorry," Her voice bubbles with her cries and she hangs her head, the eye contact finally proving scorching instead of comforting. "I– I'm so sorry, Yang, I–"
"No! Gods, Blake, don't apologise. Don't," Yang stops brushing her cheeks with her thumbs, giving herself a hesitating second to wonder what to do next – her hands slowly let go of Blake's cheeks for an agonisingly cold moment, the draught hitting her cheeks, a reminder of solitude. At least, it is for just a second, because Yang hooks her arms under Blake's armpits and pulls her into her chest, head pillowed against her shoulder while she speaks by her temple. "You… You tried to–" Her lips press into a thin line, stopping herself from going any further, especially when a sob rattles the chest of the woman in her arms. "I'm so sorry that I made you feel like that,"
"Yang–"
"Blake, I want to apologise."
"Well, I don't want you to!" Blake pushes away, her hands unconsciously staying pressed against her chest. Even though their faces are mere centimetres apart, Blake practically sitting in Yang's lap, she speaks with all the conviction she can muster. "It isn't– wasn't your fault. You couldn't control falling. You couldn't control my reaction," Her hand lazily trails up and down Yang's side, careful to be delicate and light due to her injuries. "The situation could've been different. You could shield, deflect, I don't know, just– there are other ways."
Yang listens, but one thing still rings in her mind, over and over and over, solidifying the guilt in her heart.
"You tried to kill yourself," She breathes feebly.
Swallowing hard, Blake looks into her eyes for one long moment, lips pressed together to stop them from quivering – but her voice as she admits it betrays the action, bubbly and weak from tears. "I did."
A gasped sob wracks Yang's chest, her hands planting on Blake's cheeks again to caress them and pull her in, their foreheads bumping softly.
"Do you–"
"I don't feel like that anymore, Yang." Blake reassures, using her name as if it's to seal her sentence. "You're here."
"But… have you felt like that before? Before then?"
Blake falls silent then, because this isn't where she wanted this conversation to go. She'd expected to pin Yang against all of the awful nights they'd spent coaxing her to go to the nurse's office, whether at Beacon or Atlas, after she'd taken the punches for the team again. The nights where she'd crawled into her bed because she'd seen the injuries she was hiding and needed to make sure she continued to breathe, that her heart continued to beat.
She can't keep going through that. It's been eating away at her. It's not what pushed her to that edge back in the portal realm, but it did, sadly, make the turn of events a little less surprising.
For now, she chooses to be completely honest, to open her heart and let Yang in to see all her icky, grizzly insides.
"During the White Fang and my early days at Beacon, definitely." Blake admits, nuzzling her nose against Yang's softly. "Then it subsided for a while, but when I left, it–" She shrugs half-heartedly, shoulders slumping as they fall. "It got so much worse."
Yang swallows, like she wishes that wasn't what she had to hear. Like she wishes that was never the case.
"And since then?" She wonders.
Shaking her head, Blake feels herself relax in the warm ray of Yang's gaze, like sunlight beaming through a window. "I've been a lot better."
"Good, that's– that's good." Yang smooths some of her bangs out of her face, admiring her girlfriend – some months, years ago, she'd never have let that information slip. She'd never have let Yang see that side of her. But now? It's easier. "And… promise me something?"
"What?"
"Just– if you ever feel like that again, can you promise to tell me?" The blonde tucks a stray lock of ebony black behind her ear for her, planting a kiss to the side of the bridge of her nose. "I want to be here for you and to help however I can, y'know?"
Tilting her head, Blake closes in, her lips ghosting Yang's. "I promise."
The kiss they pull one another into is quick, soft, salty from fallen tears and chaste; it doesn't last long – not long enough, by either's standards – but they suppose they can save the longer kisses for later. For now, though, they simply longer, warmth ebbing and mixing like they're becoming one until finally, finally, they pull away. Or rather Blake does.
"And you," She jabs a finger into Yang's chest, right by her collar, where she knows it'll miss her bruising. "You need to promise not to do this again." Her other hand moves idly to grab the ice pack that had fallen to the side, still frigid, crisp and solid. "Taking the punches, putting yourself in danger, you– there are other ways to help people, Yang." She leans forward, pecking a soothing kiss to her cheek as she presses the ice pack against another bruise, hoping to ease her shiver with her lips. "There are other ways of showing people you're there for them."
At first, Yang doesn't reply, her eyelids fluttering as she directs her sight down at the hand that reaches to hold her own, pillowed in her lap.
"Putting yourself in danger, getting yourself killed… we want you here, Xiao Long. Your life is more than a sacrifice for others." Blake starts, and Yang knows where this is going, "Putting yourself in harm's way like that is a good way to doom us. We need you here." Lifting Yang's hand – her prosthetic one – to her lips, she trails kisses along her knuckles. "I need you here. And if not just for me," Her own advice rings clear as day in her mind as it's repeated to her. "Then at least stay for the people you care about."
Ruby and Weiss' concerned expressions that morning that Blake had tackled her, mere hours after they were so sure she had died, that four had become three. The sight of her sister, teary-eyed in her declaration of you must've forgotten who raised me.
"We don't want you to get yourself killed for us." Blake continues with such warmth, such gentle firmness that Yang is sure she's going to melt before she can even get the chance to seal the promise. "We want you to live for us. With us. By our sides,"
Their foreheads bump together once more, Yang's hand lowered so that Blake can tangle her hand in the hair at the back of the blonde's head soothingly. Her fingers knead at her scalp for her, her lips raising to pepper kisses across her forehead.
"I promise." Yang sniffles, burying her face into Blake's chest, taking in the lingering scent of coconut and cherry blossom from the scents she hasn't applied since they left Atlas.
Blake hums, the two spending a few moments just enjoying the warmth of one another's arms around their backs, their sides (with the exception of the ice pack being held down which is kinda the opposite of warm, but whatever).
"Good." She mutters into Yang's hair before pushing away, properly reapplying the ice pack as Yang winces. "And while I'm on it, you should let me do this more." Her eyes fix upon the rigid, cold cloth that she holds against a mottled bruise on her girlfriend's shoulder. "It's nice to help like this."
Staying quiet, Yang simply watches Blake fuss over her for a while, continuing to hold one another and press lingering kisses here and there while the iced cloth does all it can.
"I'm not, like, a hundred percent comfortable on… all this, yet." Though she doesn't say it properly, Blake knows that she means this – being tended to, looked after. "I'll try. I– I want to try. Is that okay?"
Taking in what she's being told, Blake hums happily and kisses the tip of Yang's nose, a huge weight being lifted from her shoulders.
"Okay?" She smiles, holding Yang close, "Okay doesn't even begin to describe it."