Ruby Rose | Team RWBY (eyesofsilver) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-06-16 07:48:00 |
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Yang sat on the roof, legs dangling off the edge, not really paying attention to anything as the moon slowly moved overhead. She’d been doing okay, she’d been doing so okay and then her dreams had to finish what they started and rip open two wounds and her abandonment issues at the same time.
What should have been something happy,what should have been a good dream after all the hard things and her mother running away again had instead made her spiral, and as always she had no outlet, at least none that wouldn’t require airing Blake’s personal issues, and since Yang refused to break Blake’s trust(and Blake was the person she’d have otherwise confided in anyway), she only had herself to talk to. She definitely couldn’t talk to Ruby or Weiss, they didn’t deserve her bullshit.
At least that perspective allowed her to understand Blake’s actions better, while her dream counterpart just assumed that she’d get hurt again. But both versions of her would accept that over and over again as long as Blake stayed around. And Weiss, and Ruby. She knew it was irrational, but feelings were never rational. (like the thought of pulling a Blake, leaving, and letting the others not have to worry about her being pushy and clingy and she’d already tried to pull away enough that they didn’t get sucked into the black hole that was her mood half the time)
“Damn it.” She wiped her eyes and hoped no one was awake. Yang figured Ruby was probably exhausted, between school and...wherever she’d gone. Which kind of irrationally hurt too. Yang wanted to help and protect her sister and her friends and what’s more she had absolutely no direction right now. No idea what she wanted to do with her life. All of her plans had been wiped away when she’d woken up with a severed arm and nothing had really felt right since. Honestly, the dreams had kind of ruined her life, even if she’d rather crawl into them forever, half the time.
She laid back on the roof and reached up with her right hand to close it around the moon. Okay, okay, she’d be okay, and at least somewhere she’d gotten that group hug. Think positive, Yang!
What was the saying? I’ll sleep when I’m dead? That about summed up Ruby’s current state of being. She was actually doing okay with her studying as it was more just wanting to be sure than anything given everything she’d been doing in the lead up to finals week with searching for Ilia and then the rescue mission she couldn’t even talk about given the nature of what had gone on. Which...really awkward and uncomfortable. Not that she would have known how to put into words what she’d done. But Ilia and Jing-Wei and Deryn had been rescued, the missing posters for Ilia were down and that left…. Studying and then graduation on Friday.
The last thing Ruby had left was her final presentation on the water filtration system she had made for countries where clean water was hard to come by that would also be easily accessible. So the main trick would be not falling asleep while standing up but she had this covered. After doing a final run through for Zwei, Ruby changed out of her presentation outfit (it was important to practice in what she had to wear the following day so that she was aware of her movement abilities and wouldn’t feel uncomfortable when giving the actual presentation) and into her pajamas before heading up to the roof to decompress. It had been a very stressful….well, okay she’d been more or less running on constant stress and tension since the Grimm attack and just did her normal thing of trying to ignore it to focus on moving forward while taking time now and again on the roof at night to stare at the stars and moon.
Only to hear Yang’s ‘damn it’ and wiping at her eyes. And she had no idea what to do or really say because her sister hadn’t really been around all that much since Blake had needed to take the time and space for herself so she could properly heal and get more comfortable in her skin so she could be a better friend and not always so tense. And then she’d been busy with school and trying to find Ilia. So she went and sat next to her sister.
“Yang, are you okay?”
If asked, Yang would admit that she knew all that. It was why she’d removed Blake’s number from her contacts so she didn’t accidentally dial and why she wasn’t angry with her (angry at Blake’s ex, angry at the situation, angry at a world where ‘i love you’ could somehow make things worse, yes. But not at Blake). It didn’t make the hurt any less real, though. Just made her feel really guilty for feeling that way. So she did what her sister usually did and just internalized and buried everything. Except Yang had always had her emotions on her sleeve so she didn’t really know how.
“Yeah, Rubes, I’m okay. Or I was okay. Getting there.” She let her hand flop onto the shingles, “I don’t know. Dreams kind of… messed me up a little. Blake came back, which is kind of a first in my life. Before I could really process that I had to run off and confront Raven over the relic.”
“Oh.” Well, she had been right. She had always believed that Blake would end up coming back to them in the Dreams, that she had just needed time to work through things. So that was good to know and that maybe it would be within her own dreams to come...whenever they came back. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.” Which was fine with her. There was enough going on right now that she was fine not dealing with whatever was thrown at her next in the Dreams.
“That sounds like a lot to deal with though, so I get not being totally okay right now because of that.”
Yang just nodded, closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath. “I’ll … probably share the deets online later anyway. Just kind of...letting everything settle first.”
Her throat bobbed and her jaw clenched, and she forced herself to relax. She’d rather focus on Ruby anyway. “Did your thing go well?”
“Can I do anything to help? I mean I know you said you would post all the details but just…” She shrugged. She felt like she couldn’t do much because there were just things that didn’t make sense and since she saw all the sides of things and nothing she could say or do would make it better. “I don’t know. If I can do something.”
She had left in the Dreams because she had felt that she needed to do something, to find answers and believing that Yang didn’t want her around. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want to help her sister. Especially since it was clear that she was still upset.
“Yeah, it did.”
Mostly. She was all healed up now thanks to her Aura. They had rescued more people than they expected. But….super secret organization and things she wasn’t allowed to talk about.
“Just keep.. Being you.” Yang sat up and shook her head, “And talk to me. When you need to. Maybe even when you don’t think you need to because god knows sometimes you need to and you don’t realize it.” What she needed was to feel like she was, well, needed. She was the mom-friend, and no one would let her be the mom-friend, it drove her nuts.
She could have been talking about herself just then, too, but she knew Ruby well enough to know how easily she just buried everything. “And good. I’m glad.”
“I wouldn’t know how to be anyone but me.” Because really, who would she be if she tried to be someone else? It was why she had her own worries early on about people expecting her to be like she was in the Dreams. She was just...her and she wasn’t all the same. She did have to blink at the comment though, how was she supposed to know she might need to talk about something if she didn’t realize it?
“I think you should take your own advice. But that’s just me.”
The comment about being glad that her thing went well was met with a nod.
“Yeah. Me too.” Because it had been dangerous and if it hadn’t gone well in the majority of it… people would still be used and hurt to be weapons.
“I can’t talk about some of it without telling you things that Blake told me in confidence." Which probably was at least a hint of it, but Yang wasn’t going to break her word.
She managed a genuine smile though, and put her hand over Ruby’s, and decided to go with something that was dear to her heart, “I used to have this really stupid dream. Little d, not a big D. From before you started to Dream. When it was just me from Remnant.”
“I think I know more than you might think but I also get that.” And it wasn’t exactly like they could find a way to trade notes because what if one said something the other hadn’t been told? That would be awkward. Though she did tilt her head to the side, “I mean, she said something about how that was all of it about things so I think it’s okay to talk to me so you can talk it out.” Ruby might not understand the whole...relationship/love thing, but she understood Blake and they had talked about a lot of things.
Or Yang could mention a dream she’d had when it had just been her dreaming of Remant.
“Oh?”
“She got hurt, hurt so bad in and in such a way that something that was supposed to be good hurts her too. Became a poison.”
Yang rubbed her other hand across her knee, “And now I can’t even see or talk to my friend because my presence makes it worse. And it’s not her fault, I’d never say it was, and it’s not my fault, but it’s like this goblin in my brain sometimes, making me think it is. That my feelings were wrong, that I’m not allowed to have them.”
Which wasn’t anyone’s fault either, and she knew that too. But brain gremlins were a bitch.
“And it plays into that thing I just mentioned. I thought about a little house, just the four of us. Movie nights with popcorn, Weiss decorating with her doilies. Blake reading on the couch, her feet in my lap, you tinkering with your machines and bickering with Weiss. Maybe a whole workshop in a shed out back for all of us. Jaune is there sometimes.”
A family.
She picked a leaf up off of the roof and tossed it, “Just a stupid, stupid idea.”
Even though Yang was talking in vague terms, Ruby was able to put it together. She’d known about the confession since it happened even if that sort of thing went over her head. She knew about the ex and Adam and how Blake now saw certain things. So it wasn’t hard at all for her to know what that first part was about.
But it was clear Yang needed to talk and so Ruby let her do so instead of interjecting. Especially since she’d been worrying about this particular thing happening for months now and knowing all she could do was wait and see how things were repaired. Because they would be repaired even if right now it seemed daunting.
“It’s not fair to either of you. But just because your presence makes it worse right now doesn’t mean it always will. She just needs to find her own footing and herself and sometimes you can only do that by yourself, especially if you’ve only had other people tell you how you should be. I don’t think feelings work like that and the good thing is that you know that it’s no one’s fault even if your brain tries to tell you otherwise.”
As for the Dream?
“Just because it probably won’t happen doesn’t make it a stupid idea. Sometimes things are just going to be different and that’s okay. Just because we don’t live together doesn’t mean that we can’t do those things once things even out.”
Admittedly she’d said similar when she’d gotten Yang’s drunken texts, but it was still true.
"Do you really think it'll be okay, someday?" Yang looked at her sister, rubbing her palm with her thumb. A part of her still wanted that little house with her sister and her friends. And a part of her would never stop loving Blake, but she’d just get over that. She hoped.
She looked away, "I'm sorry I'm like this. It's just... I love dad, right? But he zoned out on us and it was just you and me for a long time. And Uncle Qrow occasionally. But then I dreamed about these girls and how close we got. And it was the family I wanted. So it has to be okay. I want to believe it will be."
Talking about it did help. It actually helped a lot, and Ruby seemed so confident that Yang could latch onto that.
“Yep! I really do think it’ll be okay someday. I mean, if she didn’t care about us or didn’t want to be part of the group, she could have just left. Instead she’s just making sure she can be her best self and comfortable with herself to be a good friend and team member but right now that just means she needs to do things to help and prove it to herself because she never had that ability before. So we just need to respect that and know that she’ll come back when she’s ready.”
It wasn’t just words for Ruby. She believed it, really and truly believed it. Blake apparently showing up in future dreams was proof of it. They weren’t destined to be those people, they would be different but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t show them possibilities.
As for the dream house and all? Ruby nodded some.
“I get that. I mean, you’re looking at it because you dreamt before the rest of us so you only really knew me both here and there. My perspective is different because more people were here when I started dreaming so I got to know both versions at the same time. But just because we don’t live together in a house doesn’t make us less likely to be a family. Families can live in different places and still be that close. Uncle Qrow doesn’t live with us but he’s obviously family.”
Ruby would fight people who tried to say otherwise, especially given he wasn’t related to her by blood and they seemed to think that made their connection less than family.
Qrow was definitely family. More family to Ruby than Raven would ever be to Yang. She nodded, not entirely willing to let go of that idea of a little house. But they could all be thirty, or fifty, and it didn’t matter. It could be a ‘maybe someday’ kind of thing, in the same way that someone might wish to someday travel the world or go RVing across the country. As for the other thing..
“I get that. I really do. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I never meant for you to think I expected anything. There’s a difference between expectation and wishful thinking.” But Yang shrugged, “I’ll be here waiting, and I’d do the same for you or Weiss. I ‘m just… so scared she’ll never be able to look at me without all of that bad stuff coming crashing back down on her. God, what if I was manipulating her or something and didn’t realize it?”
She exhaled through her nose, “...see? Brain goblin again.”
Ruby bit her lower lip as she tried to put into words what she’d felt before. It wasn’t always easy because she didn’t talk about those things usually, plus it was the past, and she didn’t want Yang to be upset or her brain to start being mean again..or more mean as the case may be.
“I know… but sometimes the two can look or feel the same. I mean, I was always worrying at first that I was letting everyone down or wasn’t what they thought I was when I first started dreaming and kept running into people from Remnant. And it was really stressful because I’m bad at social things already but was comfortable with who I was. But I realized it didn’t matter and so it’s not an issue for me now.”
Shrugging she looked up at the sky then back at her sister.
“I don’t think Blake would really start coming back until she’s able to separate the two things and is more sure of who she is without feeling like she needs to be exactly how she is in the Dreams and feels comfortable in her own skin. But without feeling the pressure because she’s trying to keep the peace and is able to focus just on that, it should be easier for her. You just need to have faith in that for when you get scared about that. She recognized the bad and removed it so she could get to a place where it won’t be bad anymore since she wants to get there and she knows she just needs to really work at it and knows this is what’s best in the long run even if right now it hurts.”
Yang just wished that she wasn't the bad that had to be removed. And she hoped she didn't dream again for a long time. And she knew Ruby was right, Blake would come back. She just didn't know how she was going to fill that hole in her chest in the meantime. She knew she should, for Blake's sake, but it was a topic she couldn't talk to Ruby about. Sometimes Yang thought she should leave this book on asexuality she'd read on Ruby's dresser, but didn't want to upset her like she'd upset Blake for trying to help.
Still, she managed a smile, "It was.. it was a really good group hug at the end. I think you'll like it. The rest of it is going to be complicated and world threatening and Salem is a really scary bitch, but at the end of it it was just us. And we'll get that here, eventually. That's kind of all that matters."
The comment about Salem caused Ruby to tense some. It was just one of those things she never let herself really think about. Tyrion and how he’d been sent by Salem. For her. There was a lot there, just like the silver eyes, that she didn’t want to know the answers to because of what it might mean but that didn’t make her any less worried. But she took a breath and focused on the rest of what Yang was saying.
“I’m looking forward to the hug. But exactly, it’ll happen here eventually and so long as we have each other, it will be okay.”
“I think I’ll take a walk,” Yang decided. She leaned over and gave Ruby a hug. “Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me.”
Blinking some at the sudden decision to take a walk, Ruby nodded and returned the hug.
“Anytime.” Smiling some, Ruby then turned her attention back to the sky. Might as well get some good star gazing in before she attempted to get some sleep before she had to do her presentation the next day.