Who: Yang and Blake What: A chance meeting When: Today Where: A cafe Warnings: Pretty low, though some references to mental abuse from Scientology
Blake was new to the area of Orange County. She didn’t have intentions to stay longer than was necessary to build up a bit of cash and move on, however. The only question was what she’d potentially do for a job that could get her enough money to both live off here and to allow her to save up some money. She didn’t have many possessions with her, just a backpack that contained clothing and her essentials. She hadn’t been able to take more when she’d been kicked out of the church of Scientology.
Mentally and emotionally, she was deeply wounded, and while most people would seek out their family in these times, Blake didn’t have the courage to go face her parents, expecting that they, too, would cast her aside the way her boyfriend and the church had done. Being alone was scary, but she felt it was better this way.
She walked along a sidewalk, shifting the backpack on her shoulders a bit. She paused and glanced in the window of a cafe. A cup of tea sounded amazing right then, but she needed to save what money she had left from what she’d used to get here. Food was more important than tea. She sighed softly, perhaps a bit longingly, and started to move on. However, she bumped into someone.
“Oh, sorry!” She said quickly, catching herself before she fell off-balance.
"No, it's okay! Totally my fault." The voice was boistrous but kind, and its owner grabbed Blake by the shoulders to help steady her. The hands belonged to a tall, somewhat muscular Korean girl, with huge blonde hair. She was wearing aviators, and a shirt that barely contained her, ah, huge tracts of land.
Yang had been running a few errands, enjoying a nice day and the freedom of being able to ride her motorcycle again. "Wasn't looking where I...was going..."
She stared from behind her sunglasses, then coughed and patted Blake on the shoulders and let go like she was recovering from an 'i'm so gay' moment with a hot girl. Which was only half true. The other half was Blake.
It was a little difficult to miss the huge tracts of land, but Blake didn’t focus on them. She eyed the taller woman, though she only had a couple inches on Blake. She had no recognition in her face, but gave a polite nod. “Perhaps we both should watch where we’re going.” And at that point, Blake felt that was the end of things so she moved to keep walking. Where was she going? She didn’t really know, but it might not hurt to find a shelter or something to stay at. It’d save paying for a motel at any rate.
Her eyes had gone to the top of Blake's head. No ears, no bow, but she should have expected that. It was still weird.
"Yeah, we totally had a run in there," Yang said, desperately searching for any reason to keep Blake from leaving. She needed time to figure things out. But she had to do it without coming across like a lunatic.
"Do you want some tea?" She jerked an artificial thumb towards the cafe, assuming that was why Blake had been there. "My treat."
A pun. There was a pun, and Blake groaned a little at it. While she could occasionally be a fan of a well-placed and well-used pun, that one was just terrible, in her opinion. She stopped walking and glanced back at the golden haired woman, eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion. “Your treat? Why?”
After everything she’d been through, Blake wasn’t one to trust easily. Especially now that she was in a world that was completely foreign to her. She didn’t really know how to function in the world outside of Scientology. She didn’t even really have knowledge of what most people her age would have knowledge of.
She'd made Blakey groan at a pun, life was good. Her sun-beam grin didn't falter, but her heart did do a flip. "Why not? Something tells me tea suits you to a tee."
Feeling oddly shy about her right arm, she held out her left hand and added. "I'm Yang."
Blake looked at her, barely containing another groan at the next pun. “What do you want in return for it?” That was where her mind went, and she refused to be in anyone’s debt so long as she could help it. She’d been powerless for so long, she needed to keep control of her own life, even though that scared her.
The offered left hand was odd to her, and she looked at it momentarily before reaching out to shake it with her own left hand. “Blake.”
The question was a little unexpected. Yang shrugged, fighting the urge to flirt. "Nothing? It's just tea."
What was Blake's story? She seemed jumpy, suspicious. Yang wanted... needed to know more, but she had to be... careful. “It’s real nice to meet you.”
This was definitely not a situation she thought she’d find herself in today. Blake wasn’t used to the kindness of strangers, especially ones that weren’t connected to Scientology, so she was going to proceed with extreme caution. “Just tea.” She could do that, right? A cup of tea would be amazing right now, it might possibly just take the edge off. “Alright.”
It was like eggshells. And yang was stepping carefully. Still? She opened the door for Blake, unable to help a wink as she did so. “I'm afraid you'll have to get to know me better for more than tea or dinner. Or to unlock my tragic backstory.”
Blake gave Yang a bit of an odd look as she stepped inside. “Why would I want more than tea or dinner?” She cut herself off before adding the tragic backstory to that. Blake had the tragic backstory, but she definitely wasn’t going to give that up anytime soon. And she definitely wasn’t looking for anything more than tea. Relationships or anything of that sort were right out. She’d had more than enough of that for the time being.
“It’s a… joke.” Yang let the door close behind her and sighed. She wasn’t looking for a relationship, but she wanted to kindle a friendship with her partner. Her very sexy, very smart, always in need of a hug partner. Which might be a problem. The hugging. And the sexy.
She led the way to the counter, ordered herself a strawberry smoothie and then without thinking about it ordered Blake’s favorite tea. She caught herself, too late to not order, but not too late to recover. “Shoot. Oops! My roommate loves that stuff. I’m so used to ordering it. Do you want something different?”
“Oh. Sorry.” This was why Blake was skittish around people. Maybe this was a bad idea to let this perfect stranger buy her tea. Though at this point, it would probably be intensely rude to just leave, right? Right. Even if Blake kind of did want to leave. People made her antsy, and she had to wonder if any Scientologists were watching her. Paranoia was in there too, but she managed to not look over her shoulder much.
“No, that’s fine.” It was good taste that Yang’s roommate had. She shifted the straps of the backpack on her shoulders again.
“Cool, cool.” Note to self, tell Li what her new favorite tea was. “Li and her girlfriend are always drinking tea and meditating. It’s kind of nice actually. Really low key.” For how loud she looked, she didn’t mind low-key. At long as people were willing to have fun and let loose sometimes, anyway.
“Going to UCI?” Yang asked, casually, thinking out loud. “I was, on a karate thing until my accident. Been trying to figure out what I want to do now. I mostly just want to help people. Protect them. But I don’t want to be a cop. I raised my little sister practically by myself, maybe something with kids...”
“Ah, I see.” Blake wasn’t precisely interested in Yang’s roommate or this roommate’s girlfriend. But she could appreciate someone’s love of tea. Tea was amazing, and she always drank it. She always refused coffee.
Blake almost asked what UCI was, but she quickly discerned it must be some sort of school. “No.” She answered simply. And then Yang seemed to divulge her tragic backstory. And she again wondered why she had agreed to tea. “I’m sure that you’ll figure it out.” It was more than what Blake had figured out for herself, at any rate.
Unknown to Blake, she had the secret cheat code to open Yang’s tragic backstory already. The barista handed them their drinks and she took a seat, wisely letting Blake have her back to the wall. “I might. What about you? Any big plans?”
Slipping her backpack off, she set it down next to her as she sat down. She held the tea between her hands for a few moments before she took a careful sip of it. She let out a soft, contented sigh. Tea definitely hit the spot. “No, I don’t.”
At least, not anymore. Whatever plans she may have had went up in smoke and a lot of pain. She absently rubbed her arm. She was wearing a hoodie, but even so no marks would’ve been visible. It had been long enough that the bruises had healed, and abrasions could be easily played off to clumsiness.
Now that was a familiar sight. Yang suddenly ached for the Way Things Were. Weiss and Ruby bickering in the background. Blake with her tea and sharing a look with Yang about the bickering. Stabbed through the heart suddenly would probably be a better description than ‘ached’.
“Plenty of time to figure things out.” Pleased that her voice hadn’t caught, Yang took a sip of her smoothie and made a pleased, groaning sound. “Oh that’s good.”
Blake wished she knew what a familiar sight was. The tea was about as close as it got for her. She almost cradled the cup between her hands and she looked down at it. She wasn’t trying to be rude by not looking at Yang, she just didn’t feel that comfortable.
“I guess. I wasn’t going to stay here long.” Keep on the move seemed to be the running theme currently. Blake felt like her ex-boyfriend was just behind her sometimes. And she almost always felt like she was being watched. If she didn’t make eye contact with anyone, then she wouldn’t catch anyone’s attention. Or so she thought, anyway.
No, that couldn’t happen. As much as Yang didn’t want Blake to suffer or be hurt, she needed her around. And she’d seen how much Blake had grown, backtracking not withstanding. For all the pain of the dreams, Yang felt like she was a better person because of them.
“Life is like a cat,” Yang said. “You can’t always control it and sometimes it has a mind of its own and it’ll scratch you, but if you treat it right it’s worth it.” She paused. “I think that metaphor got away from me.”
Blake gave a half-hearted, self-deprecating chuckle. “I don’t think we ever control our lives.” It had been dawning on Blake just how much she’d been controlled and manipulated. Her head was a mess, but she refused help. She felt like she deserved it, and deserved to be alone. She glanced up at Yang finally. “The metaphor could use some work.”
“Yeah, that one was a catastrophe.” She gave Blake a lopsided grin. The pun was catastrophic too but that was on purpose. “But we can control our lives. It’s just kind of hard sometimes.”
Probably too soon to spring the depression on Blake, and honestly Yang didn’t think she would unless Blake pressed her. She wanted to protect her and didn’t want her eventually blaming herself. Besides, right now everything was too new. Eggshells. Still.
That pun got a little groan. It would’ve been bigger if Blake had started dreaming, but since she hadn’t, it went by with only a groan. “More like impossible.” Blake sipped her tea again and shifted a bit in her chair. Someone a couple tables over dropped a book on the floor, and the sound made Blake flinch. Her heartbeat sped up and she looked over at the person picking up the book. She tried to calm herself down. No need to make Yang suspicious or anything about why she jumped at a seemingly innocuous noise.
Yang was probably laying enough of a ground work to make Blake suspicious when she started dreaming. Or at least make her wonder if Yang was influencing her dreams.
“You okay?” Yang had started to reach out to Blake before she caught herself. “For awhile after I was hurt, I jumped at a lot of noises too. Broke a dish once, boy was that fun.”
There was a high probability of Blake blaming Yang for the dreams if she started to dream. But as of right now, she didn’t know anything about dreams or that Orange County was weird. If she had, she probably wouldn’t have come anywhere near this place.
Blake looked back at Yang, taking a slow breath. “I’m fine.” She wasn’t about to open up to a complete stranger about her problems. She’d deal with it herself. Maybe tonight she’d stay in a motel instead. At least it’d be relatively quiet there.
“Okay.” Yang took a sip of her drink, thinking over Blake’s resemblance to a skittish cat. Did it have anything to do with Adam? The thought made a chill run down Yang’s spine and her eyes flashed very quickly red, then back to their unusual purple.
One of the three people she cared about most in the world (and if she was being honest with herself, Blake almost rated higher than her sister) and she couldn’t do anything. “I don’t know you well enough to pry.”
The lie tasted sour on her tongue.
“But if you’re gonna hang around the OC, I could give you my number and show you around sometime.” She thought leaving it in Blake’s hands might...never result in a call but at least she wouldn’t feel pressured.
“No, you don’t.” Blake didn’t want anyone prying. She didn’t trust anyone, and considering people she’d trusted had recently betrayed her in very bad ways, she wasn’t willing to trust. Not that anyone could blame her after what she went through.
“I don’t have a phone.” It was an honest answer, and the easiest one that would result in Yang leaving her alone. Without a means of contact, it wasn’t like Yang could seek her out easily.
“Just in case.” Yang pulled out a piece of paper to scribble her number in it. She tried to not let herself feel hurt. Blake didn’t know her, she had no reason to trust her. “I know what it’s like to be somewhere new and alone. Anyway…Is the tea good?”
Blake had to wonder just what angle Yang was playing. She was going to be suspicious of everyone, and she’d just have to find a way through life without anyone else. “Yes, it is. Thank you. You didn’t have to buy tea for me.”
“I wanted to!” Yang grinned at her. “People can be nice just to be nice. I always try to pay it forward.”
“Not in my experience they aren’t.” Of course, Blake had thought they were nice just to be nice. But that was definitely not the case. She sipped her tea and closed her eyes for some moments. There was a lot about the real world that she needed to learn.
“There’s a lot of bad people out there. You just can’t let them win.” It was personal to Yang. She’d almost let Adam win, even if he wasn’t here. And it had been even worse in her dreams. Again she wondered at Blake’s story. She burned with curiosity, and compassion. “But lots of good people too. Like my sister. Eternal optimist, always trying to help people and make them smile no matter what the world throws at her.”
“Maybe. It’s hard to see how anyone can be optimistic in this world.” Considering her entire life she’d heard about how bad the world was, how the people who weren’t part of the church were bad and misguided, she didn’t understand how anyone could be optimistic that wasn’t within the church. “It’s not exactly a great place.” Of course, what little experience Blake had with the real world was with the not-so-great parts of it.
“You got my phone number,” Yang pointed out. “If you want to find reasons to be optimistic, just find a phone and give me a call.” Even if Blake wasn’t… Blake, Yang would have offered. To help, to listen, whatever she might have needed. Yang just wanted to help.
“Me and optimism don’t really go together.” Not anymore. Blake sighed softly. If she had any optimism and a backbone, she’d go find her parents and hope that they wouldn’t hate her. She had neither, so she was slumming it, more or less. Blake nearly asked Yang a question, but stopped, figuring she could find it on her own.
“You’re a bit glum,” Yang admitted. She slurped the rest of her smoothie very loudly, then set it down. “But that’s okay. Just make sure you don’t sleep too much. You’ll only get deep rest.”
“I’m not in danger of sleeping too much.” Staying in shelters or at cheap motels tended to not be indicative to getting much sleep. That paired with Blake’s need to not stay in one place too long, and she didn’t get all that much sleep as it was. Especially with some of the nightmares she tended to have lately.
“Deep rest,” Yang repeated, raising both of her eyebrows as she waited for Blake to get it. She really, really wanted to get Blake to laugh.
Blake looked at Yang, not really getting what she meant by deep rest. Was it a terrible pun again? Or was it a reference to something else? Sleeping Beauty, maybe? “You mean like Sleeping Beauty?”
“I’m sure you’re a beauty when you’re sleeping. But say it. Deep rest,” Yang said. Then she said it faster and waggled her eyebrows. “Deeprest.”
“I doubt that.” Blake lowered her gaze. Compliments were not something she was used to getting. She tucked some hair behind her ear, then looked back up at Yang when she practically spelled it out for her. And then she got it. And she groaned. “You never stop with puns, do you?”
“You’re almost as hot as me,” Yang assured her, pointing at herself with her thumbs and trying not to flail at the hair tucking. “I’m a one stop pun machine. The Pun Master. The Puntastic Yang. You might even call me puntacular.”
“Well you do reflect the sun rather well with your hair. I thought you were on fire, so that explains why you’re hot.” Blake said that completely deadpan. She did have a sense of humor in there somewhere. It had just gotten lost in everything that had happened. “I’ll just call you untacular.”
“Ooh. From compliment to disaster in a single breath!” Yang clutched at her chest dramatically. “I don’t think I can take it. I think this is it, Blakey. I’m done for. I’ve lost my will to live so it’s a good thing that a will is a dead giveaway!”
Blake sighed at the pun. “Do your friends tell you how bad your puns are?” Yang certainly seemed nice, but that’s what she’d thought about her ex as well before he’d showed his true colors. Angel on the surface, devil on the inside.
“All the time.” Yang winked at her, proud of that fact. “They’re funny though. I’m just having a bit of an off day, your fire joke won.” Because she was on hot and she could be on fire.
“This is an off day for your puns?” That almost gave Blake a headache to think about. It was bad enough dealing with the puns right now, and this was considered an off day?
“When I’m on, I’m on,” Yang assured her. Like that was actually some kind of assurance. She leaned her elbows on the table and grinned. “But I think you won today.”
“I suppose miracles can happen,” she responded, though she didn’t quite feel like she’d won anything. Blake didn’t exactly feel like a winner. She certainly had done nothing but lose ever since her parents had been kicked out of the church.
Yang’s sunshine got a bit of a shadow over it. What did she expect? A tearful reunion and hugs? It hadn’t been easy to get Blake to open up in the dreams, after all. And Blake didn’t know her. But she could tell something was wrong. “Yep. you totally won. I admit defeat!”
“Alright then,” she responded. Blake wasn’t sure what to do with that, but she supposed that at least it wasn’t something bad. At least not now. She wasn’t certain how long she’d be staying here. It depended on how quickly she could make money. Which meant looking through want ads.
Yang chewed on her lip. “I’ve gotta get back to my errands. Do you need a ride anywhere?” She pointed out the window at the unusual flame-colored motorcycle parked across the street, not expecting Blake to take her up on her offer. But she was Yang, and Yang had to offer, it was just a part of who she was.
“No, thanks. I’ve taken enough of your time. I can walk.” Blake said, feeling guilty that she’d taken Yang away from her errands. It was how she’d been programmed to feel by her ex. “Thank you again for the tea. I needed it.”
“Eh, I needed the break anyway.” Yang got to her feet. “Besides, it gave my roommates some more alone time.”
She winked, then forced herself to turn and walk away. It was one of the harder things she’d done, but she had to do it. And she didn’t know how she’d find Blake again. Yang only knew she had to.
Blake gave a little nod. Once Yang left, Blake turned her thoughts back to figuring out where to go next. The library would probably be the best bet, actually. Access to newspapers and computers that way. After she finished her tea, she picked her backpack up, slid it over her shoulder and headed off, eventually finding her way to a library and to look at what jobs were being advertised around here.