Blake felt intense pressure across her entire body, like she was being crushed. Right before it became too much, it disappeared, and she reappeared in her dorm room. She watched herself and Yang lying on the bed together. Yang was stroking her hair, whispering something in her ear. The other her laughed and kissed Yang.
"You love to imagine this, don't you?" Blake turned and saw Raven standing beside her. "But this is never how it was. Why don't you stop lying to yourself?"
Blake blinked, and the scene shifted. She was lying on her bed, alone, reading a book. It was the final book in the Depths of Haven series and judging from how quickly she was tearing through it this was the first time she'd read it. This was sometime last year, then. She watched herself read for a few minutes before the door opened and Yang popped in. "Hey kitten, I was thinking of going to see a movie tonight. Want to come? We can go get dinner in Vale first."
She briefly looked at Yang before returning to her book, and Blake remembered exactly what she was thinking. The movie might be fun, but she was almost to the climatic reunion between the two lovers. They had been building up to it for the last two books, and Blake could barely contain herself from skipping through the pages until she found it. She couldn't possibly stop reading for the entire night. Yang could surely find someone else to go with her.
"Why don't you get Ruby to go with you instead?" She replied. "You guys have the exact same taste in movies."
"Yeah, of course, I'm sure she'll love it. We'll go together next time." Yang said before turning and walking out the door.
"That's the reality you don't want to face. You never dated, you were never in love." As Raven talked, the scenes shifted. There wasn't any sound, but Blake recognized all of them as conversations with Yang. Her partner would walk into a room with a hopeful smile on her face, walk out of it with her eyes slightly downcast. "Yang tried over, and over, and over again, but you always shut her down." At the time, Blake never considered that Yang was asking her out. Now, watching this, it became obvious. How could she have missed it before?
"Because you were scared. Noticing it would have been acknowledging your feelings for her, but you were too cowardly to do it. Like with all your problems, you ran away from it." Raven said. The room around them seemed to be getting smaller after every word. "It's too bad. If you had just run away before the mission, my daughter would still be alive. But you couldn't even do that right, could you? You had to stay, so she had to die to protect you."
Raven slashed her hand, and the floor beneath Blake disappeared into another red portal. As Blake fell through it, she felt that same pressure squeezing down on her, and her vision went black. When it returned, she was back in her hospital room. Ruby and Weiss were standing there, and their features were twisted into fury. "How dare you show yourself, after you killed her!" Ruby screamed. She raised Crescent Rose and stalked towards Blake. Blake, acting on instinct, drew Gambol Shroud and slashed it at Ruby. She didn't make any move to dodge it; it connected with her, and Ruby dispersed into shadows. As soon as she disappeared, Weiss started advancing menacingly towards her.
"You killed your teammate." Blake slashed at her, and she also turned into shadows.
"You killed your partner." Ruby said from behind her. Blake turned and slashed at her again. Again, it sailed right through her now misty form.
"You killed your friend." Weiss said. Another slash made her disappear.
"You killed your family." Ruby said. Blake couldn't take it anymore; she dropped Gambol Shroud and collapsed onto the floor. Ruby and Weiss started circling around her.
"You killed my sister."
"You killed my friend."
"You murdered the love of your life."
"I trusted you."
"We trusted you."
"You betrayed us."
"You betrayed her."
"How could you?"
"How dare you!?"
"It was all your fault."
"It was all your fault."
They weren't wrong. "It was all my fault." She whispered back. She blinked, and suddenly she was standing on the edge of Beacon Tower, inches away from falling to her death. She was right about to take a step forward when arms grabbed her and pulled her backwards. Someone knocked her over and pinned her to the ground, and when she looked up she saw Yang sitting on top of her.
"Get off me!" Blake yelled.
"No! I won't let you die like this! You can't leave me, Blake. I need you."
She started struggling to get up. She knew she couldn't live with this anymore. "I can't. I don't know what's real anymore."
"I'm real. I'm here, and I will never, ever leave your side."
"What do you want from me?!" She screamed back.
"It's simple. I want you to wake up."
Blake was sobbing, now. "I don't know what you mean."
Blake heard a woman crying from beside her, and she looked to see another Yang. This one wasn't a Yang she had ever seen before. Her beloved hair was tousled and greasy, there were massive bags under her eyes, and her skin was incredibly pale. The woman spoke, but the words didn't come from her mouth. They came from the room all around her. "Blake, you have to wake up. Please, please wake up."
Blake felt horrible pain ripple through her entire body. She screamed, closed her eyes, and waited for the pain burning through her to end her life.
/
Suddenly the pain faded, and Blake opened her eyes. She looked around and realized she was laying on a bed in the center of her dorm room. Before she could figure out what was happening, the air was pushed from her lungs as a blonde form practically threw herself onto her.
"Blake! You're awake!" She heard Yang cry.
The immediate surge of pleasure she felt from embracing her partner quickly changed into confusion. "Why wouldn't I be awake? And how are you here? I watched you die."
Yang gave a choking laugh and pulled away. "Is that what you were seeing? That's horrible." Before Blake could respond, the door opened. She saw a glimpse of red before the air was again crushed from her as Ruby hugged her and a trail of petals fluttered to the ground.
"Blake-you're-awake-we-were-so-worried-you-wouldn't-get-up-and-we-couldn't-do-anything-and-I-thought-you-might-never-wake-up-and-it-was-horrible-but-now-you're-fine-and-everything-is-okay!" She said in a single breath. Even after all these years, Blake was still amazed how much she could cram into a single sentence. Ruby kept hugging her tight, crying into her shoulder, and Blake was right about to get worried about asphyxiation when Yang grabbed her sister and lifted her off the bed.
"That's enough, Rubes. We don't want her to pass out again. Go grab Weiss, she'll want to be here as soon as possible." Ruby nodded, her eyes shining with happiness beneath the tears, and sped off in a cloud of petals.
Blake took a deep breath to calm herself. A lot was happening, and she was still incredibly confused, but she couldn't help but smile. The pure relief coming off the two sisters was contagious. "What happened, Yang? I saw the Death Stalker break your neck."
"What happened was that Death Stalker tail knocked you out when it hit you. When I saw it, I didn't know if you were still alive. So I sort of, um," Yang shrugged her shoulders, "exploded and punched a hole straight through its head. We thought you were just unconscious, but when we got back here you still wouldn't wake up. The doctors found some mutated Death Stalker venom in your system. It must have stung you when it hit you." Yang's explanation was interrupted by someone sprinting through the door. Blake only managed to get a flash of white before a third woman was crushing her.
"I missed you so much." Weiss said between sobs. Blake, surprised by her normally aloof teammate's affection, only hugged her back.
"Anyway, they said the venom was keeping you in a coma, and they weren't sure if you would ever wake up again." Yang continued. Blake thought about it. Could the whole thing have a nightmare? It would certainly make sense of what she had been feeling. And this was real. She knew that on a basic, fundamental level. Now that she was outside it, the haze she had been under was obvious.
"I didn't think I would ever get out either."
"Yang spent the entire time sitting here talking to you. The doctors said it might help." Weiss added.
Yang looked down in embarrassment and shrugged. "It was all I could do. Who knows if it did anything." Blake reached up and pulled Yang down into a kiss. Waves of pleasure crashed through her as it continued. Yang's soft skin glowed warm wherever she touched it, and Blake reveled in the smell of smoke coming off her and the hint of cinnamon spreading from her lips. She pulled back and stared straight into Yang's now smoldering eyes
"It did. You saved me." Blake pulled Yang back down again, and nothing else in the world mattered to them.
And that's it. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a happy ending. As some people have already guessed, this was heavily inspired by Futurama's "The Sting". An excellent story with a very appropriate name.
If anyone is curious, you can see when Yang's true words come through the story. Whenever she calls her Blake, that paragraph is real. Everything with a nickname or no address is from Blake's imagination. Thank you so much for reading and special thanks to everyone who gave me feedback or suggestions.
