Work Text:
The room is filled with steam and fog, with the only sounds being the running water and the occasional loud thumps of footsteps and shouts of voices from the adjoining rooms and hallway.
Yang sighs, shutting her eyes tightly and feeling the water wash away the sweat and grime from today.
The relief almost silences the screams of her freshly acquired wounds.
She looks down at herself at the old, present, and new bruises covering most of herself. She’s lost track of the amount of cuts and lashes, both deep and shallow, across her body at any given time.
She’s probably lost enough blood by now to fill an entire empty husk of herself.
“Yang, are you okay?”
She’s long been used to the aches by now. It’s something she’s accepted since the day she first gained her semblance. She can’t use it without getting hurt — and getting hurt is more than worth it if it means winning.
Victories are rarely won without some form of pain.
“Yang, be careful! Why are you always so careless?”
She washes herself the same as though there’s not a single angry mark upon her flesh. She scrubs and scrubs and scrubs, harsher than necessary, and ignores the flames rising in her skin in response.
“Do you often just… throw yourself into danger for no reason?”
She doesn’t do this because she wants to. She does this because she has to.
She’s strongest when she’s angry — when she’s hurting — and the stronger she is, the better she can protect those she cares about. Everything she does is to protect her team. To protect Ruby.
That’s why she’ll take all the hits and then some. Better for the one who can not only take it but also benefit from it to get hurt than the others.
She’s not the stupid little girl who almost got her sister and herself killed because she was too weak and tired to do anything anymore. She’s so much more than that now. She has to make sure of it. She has to do everything she can to make sure her friends are safe, even if it’s at her own expense. She’s trying.
It’s not her fault they can’t see that.
“Wow, you’re amazing! You have to show me your techniques sometime. I’m Nora.”
Yang slowly opens her eyes. She turns off the water.
ii.
Nora doesn’t let anything get to her.
She can feel it all — confused, scared, upset, sad. She wears her heart outside of her body so openly and proudly and intensely that trying to hold down her feelings would be like trying to put a bottle cork inside of an erupting volcano to try and stop it from exploding.
It’s simply impossible.
But no matter how strong the emotion, she never lets it stay long enough for its claws to burrow inside of her. She can’t ever let that happen.
She’s the cheerful one. The silly one. The weird and outgoing and extroverted one. If she were to be too sad, if she were to stop playing her role for only a second too long and allow the claws to grasp her emotions like an iron vice, then what good would that do for everyone else?
It’s not just her affected by whatever she’s personally feeling. If she dares to worry her friends, then they’ll be at risk for being upset themselves. And if she’s unable to cheer them up, bad things will happen.
She knows this from experience. And Ren won’t always be there to save her.
She can’t let anything like that happen again.
Her fears, her worries, her sadness — she’ll swallow them all down like a bitter pill hellbent on choking her. She’ll hide them so deep down inside of her that they’ll get snuffed out before seeing the light of day.
She’ll shine loud and radiant enough to where nothing bad can ever touch her, or those she loves.
She’ll glow like Yang.
“Yeesh, that’s gonna leave a scar,” Yang comments next to her as the other members of their teams huddle around a very profusely bleeding Jaune. “Did he not see the broken lightbulb when you guys were playing hide and seek or something?”
“No, he just kinda… laid on it… accidentally.”
Yang laughs, a pretty and luminous sound coming from her. “That wasn’t very bright of him, huh? Think he’s gonna be okay?”
There’s a widening pit of anxiousness in her stomach that yells at her when she watches his blood slowly cover more and more of the courtyard, but she stifles it. Silences it.
Pretends it’s not there.
“Oh, yeah, nothing to be worried about,” Nora lies. “It’s just a flesh wound. A couple of stitches should fix him right up.”
Yang waves her hand in dismissive agreement. “Yeah, I’ve had way worse than that. Hey,” she turns her light eyes onto her. “After he gets fixed up do you wanna hit up some clubs with me? It’s the weekend!”
Nora stares at the sun and goes after it.
iii.
It’s been only a few months since she’s last seen Ruby and their friends, but to Yang it feels like a lifetime ago.
She’s not exaggerating either. Who she was, the girl she used to be before Beacon, that person’s gone. She used to look in a mirror and make sure each piece of her hair was in place, and now…
Now she looks tired. Now she sees bags under her eyes that were never there before. A thin neutral line where a permanent smile used to be. Shallow cheeks, darker eyes.
And a missing —
. . .
She used to pride herself on her fire. She used to walk into a room and everyone would have no choice but to notice her because of how bright she was. She would turn heads, command a presence, force herself to be known and revel in her rightful existence.
She used to be invincible.
And now that light, that spark that used to burn so brightly and blindingly, has muted into something almost unrecognizable. Her colors have drowned, her inferno has lessened into embers, but…
But being dimmed doesn’t mean being gone. Her fire is still there. Her light hasn’t completely gone out. She’s still the same person she’s ever been, but just a different version now. Her old life may be gone but despite how brutally tragic that ending was she’s still here. She’s still fighting. She’s still doing everything she can for Ruby and Weiss and her friends. If she can’t be her friends — her family’s shield and protector, then what’s left? A sad girl who hides behind cheap jokes because she’s too scared to face her feelings?
That’s laughable. That’s not who she is.
She refuses to be defined by what she’s lost or how she’s feeling. She’s made of sterner stuff than that.
And here, sitting at the long shared table listening to their stories from the past few months, Yang thinks she’s not the only one to have changed.
Ren is a bit louder. Jaune is a lot quieter. Where there used to be cold arrogance in Weiss, there’s now a certain kind of hard confidence that flows around her with each step. She’s softer, kinder, and a lot happier. She seems to be the one who transformed the most out of all of them.
Even her sister is different. She’s always been a decent leader, always had a good head on her shoulders, but now she’s taking things more seriously. She’s holding her responsibilities closer than before. She’s not even following Yang around anymore; she’s walking her own path and it’s Yang who has to catch up with her. Ruby’s growing up right in front of all of them.
It’s such a strange and bittersweet feeling. She doesn’t know what to do about it.
But despite all of that, despite everything they’ve all been through, none of them can compare to Nora — the only one of them who hasn’t changed at all.
Yang is both awed and perplexed by it. How can she face the things she has and stay the same? How can one walk through a valley of horrors and remain themselves no matter what?
Yang wishes that was her. She wishes her trauma didn’t weigh her down, that she could’ve taken everything on the chin like she usually does and get back up the same happy person afterwards. She wishes she didn’t have a constant cloud of reminder following her while pretending to everyone and herself that nothing’s wrong.
She may be the fighter in her team, but Nora’s strength is absolutely unparalleled. It’s everything she wishes she had. It’s everything she wishes she could be.
Her eyes lock onto the other’s as they settle for an arm wrestling match. She feels herself pulled in by Nora’s wicked smile, her daring stare, even her slight citrus scent as they sit closer together than they ever dared before. Yang almost forgets to breathe.
Nora’s arm is up, waiting and expectant. She grabs a hold of her hand while staring at her arm, and feels a jolt of electricity shoot through her.
Everything has changed.
iiii.
The screaming and crying has finally stopped.
Nora doesn’t dare to move away from the back of the disconnected car yet, hammer in hand, despite their half of the train having been Grimm free for the past twenty minutes. But she does look around with sharp eyes.
She sees a sea of worried and scared faces, lit up in color again from the gray hue they were just a minute ago. Many are tear-streaked and flushed, while other’s are creased with lines of concern and murmuring soft reassurances to those around them. Everyone is huddled together so closely it very briefly reminds her of a pack of penguins she once saw.
She looks at Ren and Jaune and the anxiety coiled tight in her chest very marginally starts to loosen.
They’re both leaned on each other against the wall of the train car. Jaune is looking at the scared passengers and is whispering something to them while Ren sits with his hand on his side, his head turned down towards the ground.
They both look exhausted and for good reason. Ren had exerted his aura to protect everyone, and Jaune had taken some pretty hard hits during the earlier fight. They both have to recharge just like everyone else.
A jolt runs through her as she stares at them, suddenly feeling deja vu at how all-too familiar this scene is.
Jaune, leaned against a crumbled wall, his body so slack she walked up expecting he was dead. His eyes so far away from them all, his grief screaming in silence from every pore.
She understood it. She herself had wanted to yell and shout and cry out to the skies above. She wanted to run and run and run until her legs gave out and all she could do was lay there in the dirt, hoping that somehow, someway, Pyrrha wasn’t actually dead.
But she couldn’t do any of those things. She couldn’t let her grief swallow her whole when Jaune was being actively consumed right in front of her.
Instead, she had held him for hours and hours and hours, forcefully holding back her sobs because he didn’t need that right then. Not when his own tears seemed to stream endlessly from his heart full of despair.
But, like always, she succeeded. He eventually hugged her back.
Her eyes glance over to Ren’s just as he tiredly looks up to stare at her back. Another flash of recognition goes through her.
The shock and adrenaline had worn off mere seconds after the Nuckelavee disintegrates.
Ren fell to the ground, his breath labored and fevered with hard emotion. He glanced up at her wildly, his eyes wide and shaking; searching for an answer to a question he couldn’t say out loud. It was the most desperate yet exhilarated she’s ever seen of him.
And all Nora could do was laugh. Loudly, high on disbelief and joy, the world around her burning so bright it was almost impossible for her to keep her eyes open. She nodded as fast as she possibly could.
After years of tears and sleepless nights, the nightmare that has plagued their lives was finally over. They could finally breathe again.
She watched his expression change from shock to relief to peaceful yet utter exhaustion in almost an instant.
He slumped against her, all the fight inside him now leaving his body. She wrapped her arms around him as he started relaxing for the first time in literal years.
Her eyes welled with tears. Her arms started trembling. It took all she had to not break down right then and there.
She made sure he never noticed.
Jaune’s voice pierces through her thoughts.
“Are you alright, Nora?” He asks.
She blinks, before giving them a small smile. “Of course. I was going to ask you two the same thing.”
Jaune nods while Ren keeps staring at her. She shifts, suddenly feeling like she’s being held under a magnifying glass, exposed in front of the person who knows her the best.
“What about the others?” Jaune continues. “Do you think they made it out okay?”
The vice in her chest tightens up again painfully. She squeezes her grip on her weapon to stop her fingers from shaking.
“Obviously,” she answers. “They’re capable fighters. And they have Yang with them, don’t they?”
Truthfully, she has no idea if they’re fine or not. The second the train got separated, every Grimm in the vicinity had dove right after them and left this train car alone. And there were quite a few of them. For all she knows, they could’ve gotten overwhelmed almost immediately after separating from them. They could have lost the relic. They could have lost someone like they lost...
But Yang would be there. Yang would protect them. If there’s anyone in this group — anyone on the entirety of Remnant, even — that Nora could wholeheartedly trust to keep everyone safe, it’s Yang. She has enough power to take down five goliaths alone, she wouldn’t let anything happen to anyone. Her strength is surpassed only by her stubborn determination and unbelievable resilience in herself and those she trusts.
Yang’s bravery unmatched. Her spirit is the brightest Nora has ever seen. She’s drawn to it like a moth to flame.
Nora takes a deep breath in and out. Yang would believe in them, to trust that they’re doing their very best in this situation, so she has to do the same. She has to, she can’t imagine anything else. She can’t do anything else.
The thought of Yang getting hurt, getting beaten, getting killed —
Nora forces the smile to stay plastered on her face. “There’s no reason to worry. We just have to keep moving forward, right?”
She ignores the way Ren’s eyes narrow at her.
iiiii.
“Try to keep up! If you can.”
“Oh, please, I can run faster than you in my sleep!”
To banter in the middle of Mantle as a hoard of Grimm move around them all doesn’t seem like the smartest thing to do, but it is the funnest thing Yang and Nora could do right now.
Yang watches with lidded eyes as Nora bounces off of her hammer, using her momentum to shoot toward an incoming beowolf and hitting it with enough force to completely annihilate it in one hit.
She hears the sounds of gun fire and weapon slashing all around her but her focus is completely elsewhere.
She watches the other glide through the air as though born with wings. Her smile wide and eyes gleaming as though she were right where she belonged; not just a natural born Huntress but just a natural born combatant in general.
It’s the most beautiful sight Yang has ever seen before.
She’s so preoccupied with staring that she almost misses Nora’s excited warning.
“Batter up, Yang!”
She blinks, and as though in slow motion she sees Nora swing her hammer and hit a particularly large boarbatusk. She hits it hard enough to send it careening through the air like a missile.
Aimed straight for her.
Yang smirks in turn. She steels herself, plants her feet hard on the ground, and cocks her arm back.
It gets closer, and closer, until…
“Swing!”
She throws her arm as hard as she could into the Grimm. Setting off an explosive at the same time, the creature ignites and explodes like a dark firework.
Once it’s gone they both look and stare at one another, standing just a mere few feet apart.
For once, Yang doesn’t know what to say. She wants to compliment her — to tell her that she fought well, that it’s nice working with her, that she’s the most efficient teammate she’s ever had, and hey, did she know that she’s so pretty, does she want to hang out more and more with just the two of them, would she want to go on a date sometime, does she feel the same way? At all?
Instead, all that comes out is a short and stilted “You sure know how to hit stuff, huh? I mean… wow, right?”
She almost regrets saying that as soon as it leaves her mouth.
Almost.
It’s completely worth the smile Nora gives her in turn.
Calm down. Remember to breathe.
Before she could say anything else to embarrass herself further, a sharp movement behind the other catches her eye and she tenses.
Ruby was swarmed. The relic on her hip glints in the light like a mocking trail of glitter, and most of the Grimm in the street were trying to get to it rather than everyone else.
Yang shouldn’t be too worried. Ruby can take care of herself, she knows that, but there’s so many at once and she’s focusing only on the ones in front of her, and she’s not paying attention to the sabyr behind her —
Yang is already sprinting ahead.
She’s running on pure instinct as her mind struggles to keep up with her. Her only thought is to get to Ruby, her second thought is trying to plan to hit the Grimm in it’s stomach, and her third thought is processing the flash of pink running right next to her.
Yang watches without a word as Nora lifts her hammer all the way behind her head with both of her hands, and then throws it as hard as she could across the street to the sabyr.
It arcs perfectly through the air, completely missing Ruby herself but landing square onto the Grimm who had pounced toward her sister as soon as they started running.
It, too, gets killed in one shot. It didn’t even have a chance.
She slows down, her heart is almost pounding out of her chest like it always does when her sister gets too close to danger. It always leaves her breathless, a bit shaken. It sets her nerves aflame like nothing else.
She doesn’t need to show Ruby that, though. Her sister is fine, so she is fine. She just needs to settle herself again. She’s gotten good at that, at least.
The two of them stand still and catch their breath as Ruby sheepishly grins with a quiet “Haha, whoops! Thanks! Didn’t even see that one.”
“No problem,” Nora shrugs off. “Just glad that you’re okay.”
“Yeah,” Yang says, turning to her. “Thanks for that. That could’ve been really…”
She pauses.
She notices something.
Although Nora’s cheerful demeanor and the casual way she leans against her hammer is normal and unassuming for her, a closer look makes Yang notices the cracks in her armor.
Her fingers are trembling ever so slightly against themselves. Her body is tense despite the position it’s in. Her usually blinding smile is subdued, not quite reaching her eyes.
And her eyes themselves look over at Yang’s full of hidden worry and fear.
Yang stares back, surprised. She’s never once seen Nora like this, not even anywhere near fearful or concerned. She’s always been loud, confident, sometimes entirely too optimistic for her own good.
She’s always been the happy one, the cheerful one, the brash one, the invincible one —
Oh.
Yang doesn’t hesitate for long. She lowers her shoulders, settles herself into something she hopes gives off a feeling of comfort and warmth, and she reaches over to set a gentle hand against the small of Nora’s back.
Her heart picks up again at the touch. Focus, focus.
“Thanks,” she tells her softly. “We’re fine now. Don’t worry.”
Nora looks at her for a long moment before finally nodding and relaxing. The relief and appreciation on her face twists something fierce in Yang’s stomach.
The heat between them burns.
+i.
The first thing Nora notices when she wakes up is that she hurts.
Everywhere.
Her eyelids feel as though weighed down by anvils. So do her arms, and her legs, and her stomach and head. There’s a hint of a headache threatening to attack her. Her entire body is tingling. Everything is heavy. Everything hurts. She’s never felt so tired in her life.
Something next to her on the left stirs, and she slowly turns her head.
“...Yang?”
Even though her voice is whispery and extremely raspy and gravelly after days of not being used, Yang immediately sits up from where she had been half-laying down on the bed.
“Nora,” she says quietly before a small smile blooms across her face like a star through night. “You’re okay.”
Nora tries to smile back, but she didn’t have the energy to do anything. All she could do at the moment was glance around her room.
“Where am I? What happened?” she asks.
Yang’s smile slowly fades, but she reaches over to set a gentle hand on her thigh. She keeps her eyes on Nora’s as she continues.
“You’re at Weiss’ place. You… took a pretty heavy hit when you struck that electric door. You were out for days.”
Nora nods calmly. Well, she nods to herself in her head, because she doesn’t want to move her head right now. Not when the warning of the headache is still here.
She remembers all that has happened, so the only surprising thing was that she had been taken to the Schnee Manor, especially with how much Weiss had been trying to avoid her family.
But then again, there was no real safe place for them in Atlas or Mantle at the moment. Everywhere they went is a risk in and of itself. It’s sort of ironic then that this place seemed to be the safest.
She notices the tingling in her body coming and going in waves. It feels as though pinpricks and static are running through her like a river.
“Yang? Can you pull my blanket down a little bit?”
Yang holds her eyes and nods. “Yeah.”
She pulls down the blanket a little bit, and the first thing Nora sees are the deep new scars trailing down her arms.
As she stares at them, Yang adds quietly “They’re all over your body.”
A heavy hit indeed. That would explain the full bodied tingling.
“They look like lightning strikes,” Nora mumbles. She almost wants to laugh. She didn’t even gain a single scar from when she was actually hit by lightning.
She looks up at Yang and her eyes start filling with tears. Not from how she looks — she can tell her wounds are going to grow on her in time — but from… well, everything.
Her tense arguments with Ren, Oscar having been kidnapped under her care, losing the relic, Salem showing up, everything they’re trying to do to save Mantle but nothing they’re doing is really working.
There’s so much happening all the time. It makes the Nuckelavee seem like a decades old memory.
Yang notices her holding back and scoots closer to her.
“Hey,” she says, her voice the softest that Nora has ever heard. “You can cry around me. It’s okay. I’m not here to judge.”
She doesn’t think she could stop herself even if she tried. As water trickles down her cheeks, she has to hold back a sob. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you with the others?”
Yang’s eyes light up in surprise before turning away. “I just wanted to check in on you, y’know? And…” She hesitates.
Yang’s silent for a long time, but her eyebrows are furrowed and tensed in hard thought. She wants to know what she’s thinking about, she wants to reach over and smooth the tense lines on her face. She wants to cup her face, lean against her shoulder, and stay there forever.
No Salem. No monsters. No more fears. Just Yang.
Finally, Yang looks back at her. Uncertain, worried, almost nervous. An expression that doesn’t belong on her face in any way.
She lowers her voice as she says “…And there’s no other place I’d rather be right now.”
If it were anyone else, if she had acted in any other way, then that sentence would just be a completely normal and benign one drowned in a sea of a billion other sentences.
But Nora’s not stupid. She’s all too aware of what’s happening. This phrase stood out as less of a statement, and more of an admission.
Her teary breath shudders to a stop. Slowly, gently, achingly, she moves her left arm toward the other, moving her palm upward to the sky. The sun. Her scars shining brightly in the dim room.
Yang exhales deeply. Her once shy eyes now gleam with hope.
She leans forward, and rests her prosthetic hand into Nora’s.