You blinked the nascent tears out of your eyes as you took a deep, shuddering breath—your first real breath in days. For several long minutes you stood in the empty classroom as the world came back into focus. You did care about more than just your hunt for the White Fang. That lifeline had turned into a noose. You couldn't let it control you. You mustn't.
She was right.
Yang was right.
You cared about your team and they cared about you: they weren't nameless placeholders you could keep at arm's length or behind a wall. Not anymore. You knew that your single-minded hunt for the White Fang had worried them—hurt them—but you'd turned a blind eye. They deserved better than that.
Instead of returning to the library, you made your way to the dorms. A vague sense of unease prickled down your spine: what if your team confronted you again? What if they were angry? What if, what if, what if—? But you grit your teeth and opened the door. The mild alarm at seeing all three teammates in the room began to dissipate when they did nothing more than quietly greet you and then returned to their tasks.
Grateful for the reprieve, you quickly got ready for bed. Despite the exhaustion weighing down your limbs, however, your mind was still churning. You simply sat, half-slumped, under the covers and tried to calm down. Was this what it felt like after being pulled out of the river? Having spent so long drowning in madness, even the desperately needed rescue made your head spin, and your thoughts were in a million pieces, scattered like flotsam. You took a deep breath and began to pull yourself together from the wreckage.
You had initially run when your faunus heritage came out, and you had resigned yourself to losing everything once again. But eventually you realized that you had resigned yourself to truly losing everything: Beacon was your home and your team was your family. That paradigm shift was staggering, and you weren't sure you would have had the will to run had you been fully cognizant of what was at stake.
But your team surprised you.
The sisters had barely blinked, though you suspected they itched to pet your ears. Even Weiss overcame her lifelong prejudices in a matter of hours. It still beggared your belief that they wanted you back and had accepted your past so easily. It hadn't gone smoothly, per se, but the fact that you were shouted at for barely a handful of minutes and then promptly forgiven was shocking.
It was jarring to realize that you felt safest and most loved amongst a group of humans, yet the vast majority of your life was defined by humans as the other: the oppressor, the tormenter, the enemy. The White Fang had been your family once, but by the time you left it all behind they had become the enemy of everything they had once stood for, everything you still stood for.
Everyone had wanted something from you before. Your role was as a part of a larger whole, but you, as an individual, were nearly meaningless. You were little more than a cog in the machinery that would advance faunus rights. And he—you felt your gorge rise and tasted bile—he merely wanted you as an object he could control and dominate.
But Ruby, Weiss, and Yang cared for you, not just for your skills nor just as a quarter of a team. This was a mutuality of exchange that was simply different from everything you had known before. There was an easygoing give-and-take that you'd never known could exist, and watching Ruby and Yang interact as siblings gave you a world of insight into what family could be like, should be like.
When had these nameless placeholders become the most real family you've ever had? Once again you found yourself searching for a tipping point before realizing that it didn't matter. The when and how were secondary to the simple fact that they were.
They were your heart, hearth, and home.
Ruby: the soul of the team and the mediator who kept it from falling apart. She wore her innocence and idealism like armor, and you saw a great deal of your younger, more innocent self in her. Despite what you knew about the senseless cruelty of the real world, you found yourself hoping that she would never lose that bright optimism, never go down the paths you had.
Weiss: tactician, taskmaster, but not as cold as her name and usual demeanor suggested. Perhaps your conflicting backgrounds and personalities made it harder to get along without friction, but both of you had made important strides towards setting aside the differences that your heritage and her upbringing had caused. That willingness to change also earned mutual respect, even when clashes were inevitable.
Yang: the beating heart of the team, the visceral analogue to the ethereal soul. An irrepressible comedian, bright flame, and anchor. Yang's story of her childhood cast her buoyant personality in a new light. You'd suspected—and now knew—that Yang's brash and boundless spirit did not grow from an idyllic life; it had grown in spite of fathomless tragedy. Perhaps even to spite it.
At times you marveled at how the two of you got along so well, but you usually pushed the thought away as if thinking about it too hard might shatter the delicate illusion.
Yang had declared you were a lost cause within moments of meeting. The offhand statement was devoid of judgment: it was a blunt statement of facts as she saw them. As painful as the declaration was, it assured you that she would be reliably forthright. Sometimes you regretted giving her cause to make that call, but at that moment all you really wanted was to be left alone: you were overwhelmed and surrounded by strangers in a foreign place. At that moment, it was simply true.
At times you wondered if she even remembered that declaration, but your curiosity shriveled at the possibility that she still believed it, even if her actions suggested the opposite.
At initiation, you knew that circumstances would limit your partner choices to students who landed nearby. Yang's location was painfully—quite literally, with your faunus hearing—easy to pinpoint, and you were close enough to follow the crashing and explosions as she descended to the forest floor. You hadn't much chance to observe most of the other students, so she was a known quantity. Though you weren't precisely eager to partner up with someone with a personality so antipodal to your own, you'd seen enough of her blunt honesty and caring nature that you didn't entirely mind working with her. And, perhaps, the differences would make it easy to keep her at arm's length.
Then you saw her facing down ursai with bright joy at the challenge and not a shred of fear. Even her retribution—wild and strange though it was—against the grimm for damaging her hair evoked dark memories only through sheer contrast: it seemed neither tainted by malice nor twisted by malevolence, and so very different than the life you desperately left. Thus, when you confirmed that she was a capable fighter with a skillset that complimented your own, it was an easy choice to reveal yourself and make eye contact. That moment was portentous, yes, but the entire initiation ordeal was full of such moments that it stood out no more than any other at the time.
You knew, to an extent, what joining Beacon entailed. Partners and teammates imposed a sense of mutually beneficial obligation: an important—but cold and transactional—commitment. But living and facing danger constantly with the same people you needed to trust with your life usually created deeper bonds. You'd expected that as well. What you didn't expect was how easily it came to you. When Yang chose the cute little pony chess piece, you had rolled your eyes and deadpanned your response, but you felt a smile tug at your lips in spite of yourself. Moments like that stopped surprising you, but when you started looking forward to them... now that surprised you.
A lifetime of running, hiding, and meager survival had created instincts that should have found rowdiness alarming, jokes frivolous, and trust nigh unattainable. Yet you took Yang's boisterous nature and flippant attitude in stride, tolerated her teasing and antics, and even—very, very secretly—grew fond of her terrible puns. But most of all, you trusted her. And that surprised you even more.
She, in turn, put up with your brooding and recalcitrance, never seemed to give up on her attempts to draw you out of your shell, and was always delighted if you played along—but never seemed to mind if you rebuffed her either. Nor did she pry too closely when you made it clear that there were things you didn't want to discuss. There were many instances, too, of keen perception and circumspection from the brawler. She'd quickly adapted to both Weiss' and your unease around most physical contact and judiciously kept her bear hugs to Ruby. Not that it took a keen observer to notice a panic attack that first time, but ever afterwards Yang would try to approach you from well within your peripheral vision and minimized any initiation of physical contact. Curiously, you found yourself as the initiator more and more. Perhaps that was the most surprising of all.
There were moments untainted by ghosts of your past life. You dared not say you were happy—that seemed far beyond your reach and more than you deserved—but even mere contentment was so rare that you'd failed to recognize the feeling at first. But as those peaceful moments filled with light and warmth became more frequent, you began to grasp just how long you'd lived in the dark.
A few months into the semester, you noticed that you weren't reading as much as you used to. Sure, you still read a great deal—too much, according to some people—but the usual half-dozen books you checked out weekly to supplement your personal library had dwindled to a mere four. At first you thought it was an increase in the demands of schoolwork, or, when less charitable moods intruded, the bad influence of your less bookish teammates. But you found that it was your lighter reading that took the biggest hit. It was a Friday afternoon when the pieces came together, and you smiled as you walked away from the shelves empty-handed to respond to Yang's text on your Scroll. You didn't need to escape into books so much now that you could find moments of contentment outside of those quiet pages.
It wasn't until Ruby slipped off her headphones and leaned over to bug Weiss that you broke from your ruminations and noticed how quiet the room had been. It was still fairly early in the evening and though all three teammates were in the room, the usual banter, roughhousing, and shouting had been absent. But before you could mourn the change in noise levels, Yang shot them both a death glare and silence immediately returned to the room.
For a moment you cringed, but the ringing in your head was barely noticeable and the gnawing black void was nowhere to be found. Was this tranquility? You smiled at the thoughtfulness of your teammates as you basked in the comfortable feeling of being surrounded by family. You were finally ready to go to sleep.
Looking back at how much you'd changed since you arrived at Beacon, you drowsily noticed that—as vast as those changes were—most of them were built upon a single foundation.
A single person.
Yang...
You woke in the middle of the night with a start, breaths ragged and shallow. You hoped that the rawness in your throat wasn't from screaming in your sleep, and you tried to quiet your breathing to prevent disturbing your teammates any further. You felt Yang stir from the bunk above you, and your heart dropped. Before you could whisper an apology, you heard her climb down and perch on the low shelves at the head of your bed. You could see the concern in her lilac eyes. You tried to assure her that you were fine, hoping that the darkness would hide your sallow face and the sweat that dotted your brow, hoping that she couldn't hear your harsh breaths.
Yang was no fool. She reached out to clasp your hand—the pressure and warmth immediately soothing—but you shook your head when she motioned to pull you into a hug. She backed off at your reaction, but you hastened to squeeze her hand and reassure her that her presence wasn't unwelcome, but a hug was still a little too much.
She simply held your hand for a moment before standing, never letting go, to retrieve a pillow from the upper bunk. Folding it, she used it as a floor cushion as she sat down next to your bed.
When you indicated that you didn't want to talk about the nightmare, Yang didn't pry any further and simply murmured that you should go back to sleep. You tried to release her hand and insist that she go back to sleep, but she squeezed your hand and shook her head. All you could do was thank her as her reassuring presence lulled you into a deep, dreamless rest.
You opened your eyes to late morning sunlight streaming through the windows, one hand still outstretched to the edge of the mattress. As restful as your sleep was, you hoped that Yang hadn't sacrificed her own to stay up holding your hand.
The room was quiet; your teammates were probably setting up for the dance that evening. You smiled to yourself for the first time in a long time and started searching for your teal ribbon. You had an invitation to accept, after all.