Just Tell Me To Stay

Summary: Yang and Blake have been in love with each other since the moment they met, but neither could ever reveal their feelings. But now that they're entering their senior year and all the talk is on colleges and plans for the future, their friends aren't sure they can just sit by and watch as they lose each other for good. High School AU. Bumblby, WhiteRose, Arkos

Author's Note: Hello! Got some feedback wondering if the last chapter was the last one. While it does end on a pretty happy note, I've actually got a lot more planned for this story so I hope everyone is in for the long haul. While the last chapter would wrap up what I would call the first story arc, this is the start of much more, hope you all like it!


Chapter 8: Unexpected Interrogations

"So, how was dinner?"

Yang blinks in confusion and glances at the clock hanging on the living room wall.

8:30 AM

"What the hell are you guys doing here?"

"I'm really sorry Yang," Pyrrha says, the smile on the redhead's face telling a different story, "it was her idea."

Weiss gives a nonchalant shrug and walks in past her, followed closely by Pyrrha.

"Why couldn't you guys bother Blake with this?"

"Because," Weiss replies, walking straight to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, "unlike you, Blake's parents are home."

Yang shuts the door quickly, having had enough of the cold morning air hitting her bare legs, her typical tank top and compression shorts doing basically nothing to keep her warm.

When she turns around, she comes face to face with Pyrrha hanging her coat up in the closet but giving her a sly look all the same.

"What?"

"Oh nothing, we were just hoping that we'd find Blake here too."

Yang's eyes nearly roll out of her head. It's way too early for this.

She lets out a frustrated groan. "For the last time it wasn't a date."

"You're an idiot if you really believe that." Weiss calls from the kitchen.

Pyrrha gives her another smile and takes her arm, dragging her over to the dining table and sitting them both down.

"Come on you've got to give us the details."

…..

"And after we finished eating we went to our cars and went home."

"That's it?" Weiss asks, sharing a look with Pyrrha.

"What did you guys expect?" Yang replies incredulously, "her sleeping upstairs when you got here?"

Pyrrha gives her a sheepish look. "Well… it might have been one of the reasons we dropped by so early."

"You guys are ridiculous. It wasn't even a date it was just…"

"Just," Weiss interrupts, "an expensive dinner which you paid for, got all dressed up, and spent the whole night flirting with each other."

Yang lets out a huff. "It still wasn't… wait, flirting?"

Weiss's eye roll is so exaggerated that Pyrrha breaks into a fit of giggles that has Yang reaching over for another mug of coffee in the hopes that it'll alleviate her building headache.

"Yes Yang," Weiss continues, "flirting. Especially that bit where she leaned forward to let you ogle her chest."

Almost instantly she can feel the blood rushing to her cheeks and instinctively moves to cover her face when she freezes to slowly look back up at the heiress sitting across from her.

"Weiss… how do you know about that?"

She feels Pyrrha stiffen in the seat next to her as Weiss's icy blue eyes go wide as saucers.

"I… you… what I meant was..." Weiss stammers.

"You didn't."

"It was Weiss's idea!" Pyrrha exclaims.

Yang doesn't really hear much of the incoherent excuses that follow, too busy burying her head in her hands from the sheer embarrassment. A whole host of memories of the previous night come rushing back and sets her cheeks on fire.

"Look Yang." Weiss says, "none of that is important, what's important is what you thought of the dinner."

She looks up at the heiress, hoping to god that at least some of the redness has faded from her face.

"What do you mean?"

"She means," Pyrrha answers, "how did it feel? Getting all dressed up, going to dinner… with Blake…"

The blonde lets out a sigh. At this point it's basically a reflex to just go straight into denial about everything, saying 'it wasn't a date' or that they were just hanging out as friends but honestly, maintaining the lie day in and day out is too exhausting. So she slumps back in the chair and lets her true feelings surface for the first time in ages.

"Honestly?" she whispers, "It was… really really great."

She doesn't miss the hopeful look shared between Pyrrha and Weiss but she's kind of afraid that if she doesn't get it out now she'll never be able to.

"I mean I know me and Blake have hung out a thousand times before," Yang continues, "but like, it just felt different somehow you know?"

"How so?" Weiss asks.

"Well I mean… I don't really know if it was the dress or the restaurant or what, but last night it was like…"

"Like what Yang?" Pyrrha prods gently.

"Like there was actually something more. Like there was actually a possibility that she could have feelings for me? I don't know, it's stupid."

She goes to put her head in her hands again when Weiss stops her with a gentle touch on the wrist. "It's not stupid."

"Well," Yang continues, "I mean it's just kind of second nature for me to be a little flirty, usually Blake kind of just gets annoyed and clams up but last night she was different, more… forward and bold. At first I thought I was making it up, reading too much into things."

Pyrrha leans in to her side and wraps a comforting arm around her shoulder. "You aren't, I promise Yang, I mean did you see her face when you first walked into the room?"

"Uh… yeah I guess I caught a part of it. Why?"

Weiss lets out a scoff. "She was practically drooling. Not to mention the way she stared at you whenever she thought you weren't looking. Honestly I don't know how you didn't notice."

With that, Yang's head is back in her hands. "What, were you guys sitting at like the next table?"

"Not exactly," Weiss answers, "well we would've been closer but Ruby insisted on…"

"Wait," Yang cuts in, "Ruby? You guys took my baby sister last night?"

"We're sorry Yang," Pyrrha says sincerely, "she heard from Nora and really wanted to come so…"

"And besides," Weiss continues, "your sister is not a baby anymore, I mean she…"

"Stop!" Yang shouts, slamming her head on the table and abruptly certain that her face has never been so red in her life. "Oh my god, she saw me in that ridiculously skimpy dress."

"She also saw you staring at Blake's chest all night." Weiss points out, earning her a slap on the arm from Pyrrha that Yang only barely hears over the sound of her pounding her head into the table a few more times.

"Don't listen to her Yang." Pyrrha says. "If it helps, there's a chance Blake didn't notice."

"She'd have to be blind to not notice." Weiss interrupts. "But honestly Yang, I don't think she really cared. I mean like I said, even we could see how blatant she was about letting you look down her dress."

"Well… maybe that was just an accident."

Pyrrha and Weiss share a skeptical look before the redhead answers, "Yang. No one leans forward that much by accident."

Once again she finds herself at a loss, unable to follow her typical instinct to simply deny everything. It's not like all the years of Pyrrha trying to convince her of Blake's feelings had fallen on deaf ears, she just never could get herself to believe that any of it was true. But now with how amazing dinner had been and everything that Pyrrha and Weiss are telling her she feels this rush of emotions that threatens to overwhelm her.

But just as hope starts to spring in the back of her mind she's hit once again with the stinging memory of Winter rejecting her. At the time she had been more certain than anything that the older girl had feelings for her and with the way that had turned out she was terrified to jump to the same conclusion again.

…..

It's just around 10 AM when Yang offers to make some food for them. Pyrrha's definitely tempted to say yes, Yang's cooking was something you never skip out on if you can help it, but she declines all the same.

"I'm... actually going to get some lunch later."

Yang and Weiss share a look that is honestly a little disconcerting.

"Lunch?" Weiss says, "alone?"

"Um… not… exactly." Pyrrha says slowly, sensing that she may have already been found out.

"Oh my god." Yang says, not bothering to hide the thousand watt grin on her face, "Jaune?"

Pyrrha looks sheepishly between the two of them, debating whether or not to tell the truth but judging by the looks she's getting, decides that it would probably be a waste of time to even try to deceive them.

"Well…"

Before she can get another word out Yang lets out a delighted shriek and slams into her, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. If she couldn't feel the blonde's arms wrap around her she'd probably be wondering why Yang had just tackled her.

"Congratulations!" Yang screams.

"Yang! Yang let me go!" Pyrrha laughs, "it's not a date!"

She feels the blonde freeze up against her.

"What?" Weiss says, "what do you mean?"

"I mean we're just going to a cafe to study!"

Yang releases her and flops dramatically to the ground.

"Is this the first time you two have spent time outside of school, just the two of you?" Weiss asks, pulling Pyrrha to her feet.

All she can manage in response is a small nod.

"Well that's not too bad," Weiss admits, "it's progress at least. Did you finally take my advice?"

"Advice?" Yang says, "what advice?"

"I did," Pyrrha answers, "you were right. I can't just keep waiting for Jaune to make a move. I've got to… take the initiative."

"So what's the plan?" Yang asks, sitting up on the ground, "gonna work in some extra arm touching or find a tight corner for the two of you to sit in?"

"No. I'm not nearly brave enough for that." She replies, face growing warmer by the second, "I'm going to take it slow."

"Ahhh ok." Yang says, "so doing the exact thing you guys usually do, just in a different, marginally more romantic place. I like it."

"Really?" Pyrrha says, "I thought you guys were going to torment me for being such a wuss."

"No this feels… right." Weiss responds, "you two have a certain dynamic and this seems like a good way to move your relationship along without… upsetting things."

"Exactly." Yang agrees. "And I know you made us agree not to get too involved, just… promise you'll let us know if you need any help moving to the next steps or… anything, ok? We're here for you."

She can feel tears welling up behind her eyes and wonders to herself what she'd done to deserve such wonderful friends.

And just to hammer the point home and fully drive her over the edge, Yang hops up off the ground while Weiss runs up from behind to pull all three of them into a big group hug.

…..

Pyrrha and Weiss stay for just a couple hours before Yang has to head to work. The entire drive over she tries to keep her mind clear but no matter what she does she can't stop her thoughts from racing through all the things they had talked about.

The diner is pretty dead by the time she gets there, her shift having just missed the typical lunch rush. So she ends up sitting at her usual spot at the counter, trying to figure out some way to distract herself from her intrusive thoughts.

But somehow the only thing she ends up doing is reaching into her pocket and fishing out the photo of her and Blake by the lake. It's the only real photo she has of Blake, it had been made clear over the years that the girl absolutely despised having her picture taken. But that only makes her treasure this one even more.

"Yang? Yang!" A voice calls out.

She snaps her head up, instinctively moving to hide the picture under her hands even though she knows immediately that there's no way she hadn't been caught staring at it.

"Oh, hey Neo," she says nervously. The pink and brown haired girl was another waitress who had started working at the restaurant a couple months ago and also happened to be in the year below her at Beacon High. Overall she seemed pretty cool, maybe a little quiet initially but after a while the girl had become a lot more comfortable and Yang slowly started to discover that the quirky little girl was actually a lot of fun to be around. Especially at work when there was next to nothing to do on slow days like this.

"Who's the girl?" Neo asks, taking a seat on the stool next to her.

"What? Oh she's just a friend."

The girl spins in her seat to face her, turning her head with a slightly raised eyebrow. "If she's just a friend why are you looking at that picture like it's the last time you'll ever see her?"

Yang doesn't know how to answer that but knows by now that it's hopeless to try maintaining any kind of illusion and pulls the picture back out from where she'd tried to hide it under the napkin dispenser.

"She's very pretty." Neo says, "want to tell me about her?"

"I don't know Neo…"

"Take a look around blondie, the lunch rush is over and there's like two people here. We've got the time if... you're willing to talk to me that is."

Yang lets out a sigh. How is she supposed to argue with something like that? With Neo being so nice, turning her down now would be extremely rude, if not downright hurtful.

"She's… special to me." She admits with a heavy sigh.

"Special? Wait are you…"

"Oh." Yang answers, "yeah I guess I never told you that I'm into girls…"

She's interrupted by a sudden burst of giggles and gives Neo a confused look.

"I'm sorry, I can't keep messing with you," Neo says, "Yang I see that girl come in here like, I don't know, at least twice a week? Everyone here can tell how crazy you are about her."

"What? What do you mean everyone?"

Neo gives her a playful roll of the eyes. "Haven't you ever noticed that there's just always a fresh pot of tea whenever she shows up? Or that when she inevitably orders her typical double decker tuna melt it's somehow ready in like two minutes?"

"Well yeah but…"

"Well… the cooks have kind of been getting into the habit of starting one up the second she walks in the door."

"I… how…"

"We've been getting impatient waiting for one of you to make a move, so..."

Yang can only stare at her in shock. "I don't even know what to say."

Neo responds with a dismissive wave. "Forget about that for now, it's not important. Just tell me what's going on with you two."

"Right…" Yang says, "I don't know, it's just... a few weeks ago she told me that she's going out of state for college."

"Oh."

"Yeah and ever since everything's been different."

"Different how?"

And then Yang tells her everything. From getting sick and Blake taking care of her to all the stuff that happened at dinner. She's not even totally sure why she's being so open with her but Neo spends the whole time listening intently, only occasionally chiming in to ask a question and it honestly feels really good getting all this stuff off her chest.

"Ok," Neo says when she's finally done venting, "honestly Yang I kind of already had my opinions formed going into this and hearing all of that just now only reinforces it."

"What do you mean?"

"She's into you Yang. Your friends are right. There's no way she would be coming in here all the time or agree to go to dinner like that or... anything else if she didn't have feelings for you."

"Yeah but…"

"No buts Yang." Neo interrupts, "If nothing else you at least owe it to yourself to take this chance. That way you'll finally know for sure if she likes you back... or if it's time to move on."

Just then there's a ding at the door which they both know means there's customers.

Neo looks her up and down once before sliding off her stool and grabs a napkin from the dispenser on the counter.

"You clearly need a minute so I'll go take care of this one," Neo says, fishing a pen out of her pocket and scribbling something down, "but if you ever find yourself needing to vent again or anything, just give me a call ok?"

With that, the pink haired girl gives her a smile and walks off towards the front of the restaurant leaving Yang to stare dumbfounded at the phone number written in sparkly purple ink.


Author's Note: Hope you guys liked it, you can probably see that it's setting up a bit for the future. Also just had to add Neo in to the story even though I wasn't super confident in writing around her disability so I kind of had to just make her able to talk. Might explore that aspect of her character in a different story in the future because I really love her character, she's just so sassy and everything it's hard to resist. Anyways, hope you enjoyed it! Fav/Review and things. Thanks for reading!