InsaneJournal

Yang wasn’t actually all that heavy of a drinker. She liked her fruity drink, and she could drink something harder if she was in the mood for it, but despite her size and attitude, she preferred not to let herself lose control. Losing control would be a bad thing with what she was capable of, and she always worried about the kind of person she’d be drunk.

Still she needed a drink after that unexpectedly embarrassing incident with the singing, and she’d needed one badly. She also couldn’t quite look at Blake, so after watching a few more people singing, she grabbed a bottle from the bar and fled the lounge.

There had been far too much eye contact in that song for Blake's comfort level. She wasn't even a drinker at all. She preferred to be the one who was sober, and often opted for non alcoholic drinks the few times she'd been in a bar. One only needed to look as far as Adam while he was drunk to see the result. But that night, she'd not only gotten one drink, but two. She drank them both in unison, far too quickly to read as anything other than sheer desperation to anyone else watching her.

Which meant that she felt completely awful when Yang stole the bottle and went running. She felt like it was her fault. She hadn't reacted well enough to the song, but in front of all of those people was just not the way Blake ever thought of saying those kinds of things.

So she dodged a shadow clone of herself so people would still see her sitting there, and then took off out of the room at lightning speed. Ruby wasn't the only one that could dash like hell when needed. Blake caught up with Yang by the turbo lift, then grabbed the back of her arm. "Where are you going!?"

Yang hadn't expected Blake to react at all. And she hadn't really been able to look at her for fear of being...judged, she guess. Or hated. Or maybe Blake just hadn't noticed anything at all. Yang wasn't sure which was worse, only she regretted that song. Pining was never a good look and she'd been so good at hiding it for so long. But that had been before everything had changed. Before Adam, and her arm, and Blake running, and seeing her again on the Enterprise.

It was like emotional limbo and maybe Yang had let it get to her. She jumped when she was grabbed, and looked at her without meeting her eyes. "I dunno. Observation deck. My quarters. I just... needed some air."

Yang jumped, and Blake recoiled. She'd never meant to scare Yang, never meant to trigger some kind of flashback. Yang liked to pretend she was okay and that the events at Beacon weren't still an issue for her, but Blake knew better. She hugged her arms around herself, and scuffed one of her shoes against the floor. Frankly, she was tired of the roller coaster, herself, but every time they got a serious chance to discuss it something happened.

It made her angry, and Yang’s jumpiness made her jumpy, and she just wanted it all to stop. "You can't just sing something like that and then run off!"

It wasn't even Blake making Yang jumpy, it was... everything else. The song, her emotions, her abject terror at the idea of messing up the best friendship she'd ever had. Yang grabbed for Blake’s hand, hating the thought of her recoiling like that. "I couldn't... stand the not looking at each other."

Yang fumbled with the bottle and then took a quick swig, hurriedly continuing before she could talk herself out of it. "I didn't like, pick it or anything. I just wanted something... sweet." And romantic, Yang had to face it, she'd wanted something romantic. Instead she'd gotten pain and heartache.

But she was tired of dancing around it, never entirely sure how Blake felt and too protective of their friendship to risk it. She’d forgiven her for what had happened to her, if their friendship could survive that… "Can we... not talk about this here?"

Blake didn't mind that Yang took her hand, but she did mind that there was a bottle involved. She squeezed her friend's hand while swiping at the bottle with her free one, trying to grab it away. "As long as we talk about it before either of us get too DRUNK? I don't care. But we have to talk about it. It's driving me crazy, Yang. I feel like... I don't know where we stand and I don't have my footing, and it's terrifying."

Was this a kissing moment? Yang thought this might be a kissing moment and her eyes actually dropped to Blake’s lips for a hot second. “... Okay, lets go to your room. I don’t want to scare you. I hate that I’m scaring you.”

"I'm not SCARED of you!" Blake shouted. They were making a scene, and now she wished she'd never run after Yang in the first place. She couldn't even say it was entirely true. Yang would never hurt her, not on purpose. She knew that, somewhere in her, even if she ever did make Yang that angry, it wouldn't come to blows. Why couldn't she make her pulse stop racing?

Maybe it was fear, but a different kind. Her ears drooped down, and she glanced... anywhere but at Yang. "I think I'm scared of us."

Yang frowned, hesitantly threading her metal fingers through Blake’s. She started to pull her towards whichever of their quarters was closest, not saying anything until they were inside and the door was shut. She looked at Blake’s dropped ears, then reached up with her left hand to stroke them. They were as soft as the last time she’d touched them, which hadn’t actually been that long ago. “Remember the dance?”

"That's not fair..." Blake mumbled, though it was more like a purr. Her head tilted a bit and her other ear perked back up. No matter what was going on inside of her head, Yang scritching at her ear like that calmed it all down. Sometimes she wished that the lecture she'd gotten before the dance had involved that instead of yelling and pushing. It would have been just as effective.

"Of course I remember the dance. It’s not like it’s an easy thing to forget." Aside from their tournament victory and the noodle bowls it was one of the last times they’d all been happy together in one place.

“Mm.” Yang knew it wasn’t fair, and yet she couldn’t help it. Blake’s hair and ears were always so soft. And her face always looked so kissable. The few drinks she’d had only made that a lot harder to resist. Her hand trailed from Blake’s ear, to her cheek. “When I saw you in that dress it took my breath away.”

If there was a moment, that had been it. The first moment.

"I only went with Sun because he'd asked..." Blake mumbled, repeating something she'd said before. And Sun had looked good that night, but he'd also refused to wear a shirt or make an effort. Which, she supposed, was Sun's deal. But Yang had looked amazing. "We should have danced more times, I don't know why we didn't. Sun wasn't exactly... the best dance partner ever."

Or the best date to take to a formal dance. But she'd actually had fun, which was probably the point.

Blake having fun had been the entire point of getting her to the dance. More than anything that had been what she’d wanted for her. Well, not more than anything. Yang stepped closer, until there was really no way for Blake to easily escape. ”I didn’t want to mess us up. Because if I messed us up, it would mess up the team, and it would mess us up.”

Yang ran her thumb over Blake’s cheek, and then down to her lip. Her head was just right amount of fuzzy to finally get the words out. “Then stuff kept happening. And happening. And I just...kept it to myself. And we don’t have a team here and I think I’m going to explode. I really, really like you, Blake.”

These were exactly the words Blake had been waiting for weeks for Yang to say. And now that they were out there? Her stomach was doing flip flops and every instinct in her was telling her to get out of dodge. It didn't help that Yang had cut off every escape route and pressed her against the wall.

She didn't understand it, but she was still afraid. It was like the hand on her cheek suddenly belonged to someone else, and she was transported to another time and place, one where Yang couldn't reach her. But Blake knew that Yang wasn't Adam. This wasn't the same situation, at all. That still didn't stop her body from trembling.

Blake took a very shaky breath and let it out, "Yang... I'm not running... okay... and I like you too, but I- Could you dial the intensity down. Please."

Yang pulled her head back, looking down at Blake with confusion in her eyes. Blake was scared. Blake was terrified. Of her. She suddenly recoiled so quickly that she tumbled over the back of the couch and landed on the cushions. Her voice drifted across the room, shakey. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

For what she wasn’t sure yet, but she never wanted to scare Blake like that and while it hurt and she didn’t understand, she also cared about her enough to want to know how to fix it. It didn’t even occur to her to be mad about it.

When she was sure(or at least hoped) that her hurt wasn’t in her eyes, she sat up and peered over the back and hoped Blake was still there. If she’d run from her or something Yang didn’t think her heart would survive it.

Blake had promised not to run, and she meant it. Even though the last time she'd faced something she was terrified of it had ended with a knife to the gut and the thing she loved most losing an arm. That was terrifying in and of itself. While Yang had recoiled and tumbled off, Blake had slid down the wall.

There she stayed, legs folded up against her chest, curled up in a ball. "It's not you, it's... It was like... I don't know how to explain it. You weren't there anymore, for a second it was someone... someone else."

And she hated that Yang had pulled away like that, even though that was exactly what she'd needed at the time. Blake took another steadying breath, and squeezed her legs. "I'm sorry."

Yang chewed on her lip, then climbed over the couch. She came over, sitting next to Blake and hugging her own legs. “What did he do to you?”

That had to be it. That was too much like the flashbacks Yang had when there was a loud noise or like that one time she’d accidentally cut herself making dinner.

"It was never any one thing," Blake said, after taking a few more seconds to breathe. It was better with Yang by her side, and she flopped against her for comfort. Like that, where she could escape if she needed to - not that she wanted to - Yang turned back into that safety net that made Blake feel kind of warm and fuzzy inside.

"But he'd press up against me like that sometimes, in that way that makes it so you can't escape. Adam... we loved each other but his was always... have you ever felt the air right before a rainstorm? You can still breathe, but just barely. It presses in all around you, and you feel like you're being smothered. And that was him, all the time. He'd say 'my love' in a way that made it sound like an accusation, or a weapon. It was just too intense. And now... I know that it was wrong. It wasn't the right kind of... he wanted to own me, to control me."

Blake glanced over at Yang. Her eyes were rimmed with tears, even if her voice was still calm. "That isn't love, is it? That's not how it's supposed to be."

Yang couldn’t help but return her hand to Blake’s head and her ears. Just the simple action of Blake flopped against her had alleviated most of the hurt from earlier. She leaned her cheek against the top of Blake’s head. “I don’t want to own you. Or control you. I might get… really intense sometimes, but I don’t mean it in any bad way. I’ll try to do better and remember that.”

She nuzzled Blake’s head then looked back at her. “Because that’s not love. Love is supposed to be warm, love is supposed to be like coming home. Love is supposed to be trust and this feeling in your chest when you look at your person and … and…”

And the words failed her, but Yang looked at Blake with that feeling in her chest and her eyes watery.

And Yang's words could have trailed off into infinity. Blake scooted over to Yang just a bit more closely, so that when her head rested on Yang's shoulder her lips were nearly right up against her neck.

Then... before she could lose her nerve, she placed a kiss there. "I know you don't want to control me, or hurt me, or scare me. I... I love you and that's terrifying, but it's not in that way. Not in the way he scares me, I mean. And I don't have any control over my reaction right now, but I'll try. I want to try."

Yang went still, in that sort of way where she just didn’t want to ruin the moment. Blake’s lips were impossibly soft and she just fit against her. Yang didn’t want to move. Ever.

She was so distracted by it that it took three seconds for Blake’s words to sink in and then her cheeks were wet. “I know you don’t have any control over it. God, I know what that’s like. But I love you and we’ll get through this.”

Saying it out loud was both terrifying, and freeing.

"We'll get through this," Blake repeated Yang's words in a whisper, nodding her head just slightly in agreement. She lightly kissed Yang's neck again, and then squeezed her eyes shut.