Full disclaimer. This story - the idea, the plotline, even some of the writing style - is borrowed from another wonderful fanfic called "the risk of absence". I read it years ago and always thought that the core idea could just as easily be applied to Blake and Yang. This was a writing exercise to get me back into the swing of things and mimic a different writing style, but it's based off the other story and much of the credit should go there.
Blake isn't a ghost – it's not that she haunts Yang. That wouldn't quite be the right word for it. She's still around; hasn't left and left Yang behind. But everywhere Yang goes, Blake is there, too.
She's getting dressed and Blake's cardigan is draped on the desk chair, goes to make coffee and has to dig past Blake's collection of tea in the cupboard, heads to class and finds Blake's handwriting in the books she'd borrowed for an English assignment. She pulls on a jacket and it smells like Blake, like old books and Earl Grey tea. They share the one closet, and they borrow clothes more than they wear their own.
But it isn't stifling, not at first. It's comforting, having Blake's presence always around. Ruby laughs when she shows up wearing Blake's beanie instead of her own; Weiss smirks when she empties her pockets and finds one of Blake's spare ribbons.
It's nice, having the ghost of Blake in everything she does.
Well, until Raven returns.
The details aren't really important. Summer had died, Raven had left, and Yang was haunted by the ghosts of both. With time, that had faded, but some things are impossible to let go of entirely.
Of course, she'd tried to find Raven when she was young. That hadn't turned out. Qrow had handed her a photo for her troubles, and Yang slowly let the search go after that. By the time she met Blake and Weiss, Raven was nothing but a flicker in an old photograph. She still wondered, sure – but she wasn't chasing after ghosts anymore.
It was Raven who, in the end, found her instead.
By chance, really. A quick moment, like the flash of a streetlight through the window of a car ride. Ethereal, in a sense.
Mother and daughter, in the same place at the same time – Raven, who sat at the end of the bar Yang was working at. She was there with Qrow ('on business,' he'd later tell her).
The details aren't really important. Qrow sees Yang first, can't turn her away fast enough. Raven sees her, recognizes her, and says nothing at all.
Then she's gone, before Yang can remember how to breathe, how to move. Qrow only has an empty stare for her.
Junior sends her home early.
It's when she's back in her apartment that the panic sets in. She's standing in the living room and Blake's sweater is on the couch arm, the desk light left on from hours before. There's an empty mug on the table, and a bookmark sticking out of a novel left beside Yang's game controller.
Six hours ago, it was comforting. Now, it strikes Yang just how much Blake is tied into her life. There's a piece of Blake everywhere – the bedroom, the kitchen, the living room. Her toothbrush is in the bathroom, her rainboots are by the door. The fear isn't that she's suddenly here, isn't that she's been creeping into Yang's life steadily and has fittingly become a second shadow.
It's that she could leave.
Some part of her – the rational, the logical – cries in protest, but her heart won't hear it. It picks apart the thought, plasters it onto every thought, makes herself realize the weight in the words.
Makes herself understand how much she stands to lose if Blake leaves.
In another life, Yang might not be so terrified of the thought. Maybe in another world she tells herself that people don't leave without reasons. People don't run in the night like ghosts.
But in this life, Raven left by choice.
Sure, she's never let herself chase the ghost of her mother again, but it still haunts her; keeps her from letting people get too close, holds them at bay so that when they leave it won't hurt as much. Ruby's always been the exception to it, but thinking on it now, she can track the slow collapse of that rule.
First with Weiss and Blake, at university – then Pyrrha and Nora, at the gym, and the trickle of shared friends between them. But of them all, Blake had gotten the deepest, had worked her way past the walls and closed the distance, had somehow done it without Yang ever realizing. Not that it would have mattered, really; Blake always had a way of making her let her guard down, spill the cards she always played close to her chest.
Blake's by far the deepest, second only to Ruby, and of the two Yang knows only one of them would run.
And suddenly the thought of that, the potential of the loss – how much she would have to piece back together, all the things that would be torn away, the walls she'd have to rebuild – seems inevitable, by destiny or by design.
She thinks of Blake, thinks of the story in their first year, how Blake had fled from home and Adam and everything behind her. Thinks of choice and consequence, how she knows what Blake's favourite spatula in their kitchen is. Thinks of her heart, of something removed versus something torn away.
Raven left her behind. Summer never returned. And Yang will be damned if she lets herself be abandoned again.
She packs up in the middle of the night and runs. She's not even sure of why – she knows it's not the best decision, but she tells herself she needs space.
She throws her clothes into a bag, grabs her keys, moves out the door. She passes the chalkboard wall on her way by, thinks about leaving a message. She should, so Blake doesn't worry, but she throws her bag over her shoulder and locks the door and doesn't leave a message at all.
Taiyang doesn't seem surprised when she shows up at one in the morning, but he doesn't say anything, just welcomes her in and puts on the coffee machine.
The first of the texts come in at three. A few at first, then more as the silence on Yang's end stretches further between them. Taiyang gives her phone a glance when it rings, but Yang doesn't answer it.
She doesn't put it on silent, either.
Ruby calls first. That one she picks up, and the faint disappointment in Ruby's tone instead of worry makes her realize that she's told none of them about Raven.
She can't bring herself to, either, only listens as Ruby tells her how worried Blake is.
"I'm fine," Yang explains, and it sounds like a lie even to herself, "I'll just be gone a few days, that's all."
"Then call her," Ruby insists, "tell her."
She doesn't know what to say, and Ruby hangs up.
She gets a text from her sister a few hours later, just a photo of Blake and Yang at Junior's bar. It's just them smiling, arms around each other in mid laughter, but Blake's wearing Yang's jacket and Yang looks like her mother.
Yang stops checking her phone, after that.
Two days later, Taiyang hands her the home phone, the look on his face offering no argument. She takes it, duly, and isn't met with the voice she's expecting.
"Hey, firecracker."
"Qrow?"
"Duh. Who else would I be, the Queen of Atlas?"
She laughs, but it's dull, and he doesn't try for another joke after that.
"Figured you'd be there," Qrow says, and his voice is grave, "Winter's phone has been lit up by her sister all day, asking if she's seen you at all."
"It's not like I'm hard to find."
"Yeah, but it's not like you run all that regularly, either."
There's a silence that follows, brimming with words unsaid, neither of them really sure how to start.
"Yang," Qrow says after a moment, "you should tell them."
A spark of anger, faint and momentary. She doesn't say anything. He doesn't say sorry, or try and give an explanation, an excuse.
"You can't run from this one, firecracker," he says, somber – and sober, she realizes.
"I'm not trying to," she says, and Qrow's silence calls her on her lie enough as is.
Weiss shows up the next evening. Yang's out on the porch, staring to the stars, wondering if Blake's gone yet, packed all up her stuff in anger and left. She's trying to decide if it hurts more or less than the alternative, when a car door slams and Yang realizes Weiss is standing in the drive.
For once, the heiress doesn't say anything, but the plain confusion and anger that shines in her eyes is enough for Yang to sigh and beckon her in.
She makes Weiss coffee, the same way Taiyang had – though he's wisely disappeared somewhere deep in the house, far from the conversation about to happen. Weiss is still silent, leaned up against the wall with her arms crossed and her brows furrowed.
They sit at the small table, neither of them touching the coffee. Yang isn't even sure if Weiss knows what she's waiting for her to say. But she gives it to her her anyways, having sat on the words alone for days now.
"Raven's back."
There's a flash of realization in Weiss's eyes, and Yang tries to look away before she can see the understanding and the pity replace it.
"You met—?"
"No," Yang interrupts, shaking her head. "She was just with Qrow, she didn't say anything to me."
She's not sure whether or not it's better or worse to mention that Raven recognized her and left, but Weiss talks before she can decide.
"Why are you here, Yang?"
She doesn't say anything to that, just sits and wonders if she should be mad at Qrow for letting Winter tell Weiss where she was. She doesn't know how to give an excuse to Weiss, who will certainly call her out on it.
"What do you want to go back to?"
"I don't know."
It's not a question Yang's expecting, and the answer she has is quick and honest, ragged around the edges like it's been torn from some deep part of her chest. Weiss just watches her carefully, something softened in her gaze.
"Do you really think running will solve any of this?"
"No," Yang says, and hates the way her voice trembles, the way it's hoarse like she's on the edge of tears, "but I don't think staying will, either."
Weiss doesn't have an answer for that, just looks sadly at her coffee and drains it.
When she finally goes back two days later, a week since leaving, her phone is silent and no one shows up to ask her to come home. Taiyang hands her a cup of coffee and she drives home, taking the backroads. She realizes, halfway there, that she hadn't turned off the desk lamp.
She can see the light through the window when she pulls up, and the weight that settles in her chest is something cemented, rooted deep. She tells herself that this form of loss, intentional and broken, is easier to bear than the alternative, and hauls herself up the stairs.
Blake is sitting on the couch when she walks in, reading the book she'd left on the table by the light of the desk lamp.
It shakes something in Yang, whatever foundation she was standing on, and her hands tremble as she unties her scarf, turns away to the chalkboard.
Late shift tonight. See you in the morning is still written there, in the same handwriting that lines her English books.
Yang swallows, tries to find words amongst the confusion, the tension in Blake's silence.
"You're still here?"
She doesn't mean to turn back around, but she does in time to see Blake's reaction to her words – the flash of surprise, the flit of anger, the way confused hurt settles into her expression. She doesn't know how to say what she really means, can't ask why haven't you left because that's what people are supposed to do, and she doesn't know why Blake didn't.
"I'm still here?" Blake repeats, her voice strangely hollow, "What?"
She stands, lets the blanket and book fall to the floor, steps closer. Yang steps back in reaction, some mimic of a dance they used to do together, and the hurt runs deeper on Blake's face.
"You left without saying anything," Blake continues, and slowly the anger overtakes the confusion in her tone, "no one knew where you had gone, and when Weiss figured it out she wouldn't tell me, only said you needed time and no one would say what from."
Yang just stares back as Blake waits almost brokenly for some kind of answer. She doesn't know how to feel, and Qrow's words of 'you can't run from this, firecracker' keep echoing in her head.
"What do you want me to say?" she says at last, her voice flat and Blake flinches from it, anger giving way to hurt.
"I–" Blake stares back, so confused, and that's a similarity in them both, "I want to know why you just up and left. People don't do that, Yang. Not without a reason."
"You did."
There's something about Blake's words that strike hot and deep, lightning to the quick, and the words are out before she can really think them through. It's what matters at the core, it's the only reason she can give and it can't explain anything on its own.
Blake's face falls, and it's clear this isn't helping. She meant for things to be better this way, to be easier, and it's only making things worse.
There's a weight in her chest , and a lightness in her head, and her thoughts flicker by too fast for her to settle on one. She's not sure why Ruby or Weiss didn't tell Blake why she'd left, not sure why Blake hadn't done what she'd expected, isn't sure anymore that this hurts any less than letting Blake be the one to pull the roots from her heart instead.
And Blake is only looking back, broken and hurt and needing an answer Yang can't give, and all of a sudden it's clear that this isn't the calculated cost she'd expected – it isn't a pre-emptive separation; it's an amputation, messy and ragged and painful and she doesn't know how to make anything better.
So she leaves.
She turns and grabs her bag and is out the door before Blake can stop her. She's back on her bike and alone in the parking lot and the desk lamp is still on, and she's not sure where to go. Qrow and Winter are out, she can't stand the patient silence of Taiyang, and Ruby and Weiss would make her go back.
The only thing she knows for sure is that when she returns, Blake will be gone – there's no way she'd stay, not with those parting words, not with a blame given without any kind of reprieve.
Something like grief settles deep in her chest, and she pulls out of the parking lot before she can think of trying to take back her words.
She ends up in front of Pyrrha's door, trying to decide if she's brave enough to knock or not.
"Yang."
It's a familiar voice, and she isn't surprised when she turns to find Pyrrha and Jaune coming up the hallway behind her, but the look on their faces suggest concern. She's tempted to ask if it's just a coincidence they were out, or if someone told them she was here, but Pyrrha speaks before she can.
"I didn't know you were back," and cocks her head, observing Yang critically, "you should go home."
Yang knows then, that Pyrrha knows – Weiss had to have told somebody – and she shrugs. Considers calling Nora, or Coco, or anyone whose place she can stay at so she doesn't have to go home to an empty apartment, doesn't have to face the fallout she's created.
Pyrrha seems to have guessed at that already, though.
"Go home, Yang," she says again, and steps into the apartment, leaving Yang with the thoughts she's been doing her best to keep at bay.
The apartment is dark when she pulls in. There's no desk lamp left on, and it seals something cold in her heart.
It's dead quiet when she tugs open the door, three in the morning without the usual hum of traffic or city noise. All the lights are off and the chalkboard has been wiped clean, Blake's last message gone. Something awful cements itself in her chest, and it feels like new walls going up in the place of rubble, like a weight heavy and cold.
She doesn't feel like she's saved herself the hurt, made the separation easier; she feels as if she's uprooted some part of herself and forgotten how to grieve for it. There's a numbness, like she's cauterized the wound wrong and destroyed the feeling there.
Yang's so caught up on her thoughts that it takes her a second after flicking the lights on to realize that Blake is asleep on the couch.
She didn't leave.
She's dressed in Yang's pajama pants and some old band tshirt, all of it a size too large, wrapped up in the plaid blanket Weiss had given her for Christmas. There's a mug on the table of what looks like cold tea, and the same book is back beside it, a mark between the pages and Blake's reading glasses resting on top.
Her hair's in a messy bun and her sweater is still on the couch and Yang feels something take root in her chest, spread through her ribs, tangle in her heart.
She didn't leave.
The light's woken Blake, who blinks sleepily at her, coming quickly to full awareness as Yang stands frozen in front of her, her bag slipping off her shoulder and landing on the floor with a soft thud.
Blake stands quickly, blanket falling as she rises and steps towards Yang, who doesn't pull away, can't step back, whose thoughts are stuck on a constant loop.
"Yang?"
"You didn't leave," Yang says, and it's only when Blake frowns and reaches up to wipe her cheek that she realizes she's crying.
"I'm not leaving," Blake says, and Yang pulls in a shaking breath as fingers tangle in her hair.
"You didn't leave," Yang repeats, and it's all she can say, it's the only thing that means you didn't run and I'm sorry and I don't know how to live without you.
Blake only frowns deeper, stares her in the eyes for a moment, then pulls her in close, holds her tight enough Yang can hear the rhythmic th-thump th-thump of her heartbeat.
"I promise," Blake says, and something in Yang hears Raven in the words, "that I'm not going to leave you."
"You can't promise that," Yang begins, but Blake cuts her off before she can spiral, before the fading numbness in her chest can return.
"I promise," she repeats, her hold only growing tighter, "that I will not run again."
Not like Raven goes unsaid, and though there's still fear in her heart there's something else there too, the same sensation of something taking root, something like hope and the realization that Blake's a part of her walls, that she can't protect herself against something that's woven into her heart.
She can't pull her away, and it's terrifying, but she realizes that Blake's probably just as scared. Blake's cardigan is on her desk, and her shampoo is in the shower, and they're both risking losing everything for each other.
"I'm sorry," Yang mumbles into Blake's shoulder, and feels a hand start stroking at her hair, Blake gently pulling her backwards to fall onto the couch.
"I'm sorry," she repeats, and then again and again, until the words are lost in her sobs as Blake shushes her and holds her close.
They talk, in the morning. It's quiet and there's an unfamiliar tension, like neither of them know how to start. It reminds Yang of when they first met and, like then, she starts the conversation.
"Raven came back," she says, half into Blake's lap as they lie curled up in bed. The hand stroking at her hair slows, then starts up again.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Blake asks a moment later, patiently waiting for the real answer as Yang shrugs noncommittally.
"I panicked," she admits, because it's the truth, and smiles a little when she hears Blake huff a small laugh above her.
"I was scared," Yang says after a pause, and it's easier to say, to admit than before. Blake hmms understandingly. For a moment, Yang doesn't think she'll say anything else. But then she does.
"I'm scared too," soft, sounding faraway, "but I think it's worth it."
And Yang thinks of Raven, thinks of Summer, thinks of the cardigan on the chair and the tea in the cupboard and losing her heart by destiny or design.
"Yeah," she agrees, gently, "I think it's worth it, too."
If you enjoyed this, please check out the orginal fanfic it's based off of. I'm getting back into the feel of writing and trying new styles, like this one. For those wondering when my other stories will update, the answer is soon - I'm just trying some new stuff out first, perhaps expect a few one shots first.
the risk of absence: archive of our own works/1041516