05/01/2000…
Blake was tired. Tired was maybe not quite the right word to use, but rather she was fucking exhausted in general. She couldn't help it honestly, about two or three times a week Weiss would wake her up with a text message or a call to want to talk too, well anyone. Blake knew that Ruby and Jaune have both been kept up for half a night before and they honestly in her opinion didn't function nearly as well without sleep as Blake did.
Living with years worth of nightmares would do that to you…
As Blake wandered the early morning halls of the school, having arrived too early for her own good, almost a full ninety minutes early. She noticed someone she didn't also expect to see wandering around the school.
Sun Wukong was stalking the halls alone. Blake wouldn't pretend she was exactly one of his biggest fans these days, she felt that he had quite a bit to answer for, but she felt it was an oddity to see him almost sneaking through the school strange enough to warrant an investigation.
With that idea in mind, she started to discreetly follow Sun as he made his own way throughout the school. Making it a point to never take the most direct path through to where ever his destination was. Sun walked for a few moments checking classroom windows as if it was out of instinct before he found a quiet spot in a barely traveled corner of the school and pulled a seat and pulled out what looked like a cold breakfast wrap and started eating.
Blake cleared her throat as he was finishing up with his breakfast, causing Sun to glance over at her. She watched as his face shifted from one of guarded contentment to a deep distrust full scowl as he spoke up "Uh.. can I help you?"
"You look like you need someone to talk to," Blake stated, finding herself puzzled by the fact she was actually wanting to talk to him.
"I don't have the time, sorry," Sun said in a cool tone.
"Classes don't start for an hour and fifteen minutes, what do you really have to do right now?" Blake asked as she tilted her head puzzled.
"Well, I'm actually very busy not talking to you," Sun said with a growing agitated strain to his words.
Blake saw that she clearly was not going to make any headway with the now isolated teen at the moment and backed down saying "I'm sorry if you need anyone to tal-"
"I'll talk to the wall if I get that desperate" Sun interrupted.
Blake nodded and walked away fighting back feelings of frustration at the situation.
Later on in the day, Blake, now on her third soda of the day was still struggling to keep her eyes open as she sat with Jaune and Ren at lunch, Jaune was quietly reading and rubbing his own tired eyes while Ren looked entirely to chipper for his own good.
"You know if you want I can see if I can get you some of that red bull stuff I've been seeing in the gas station near my place," Ren said.
"Nah I heard that shit gives you cancer, or could cause heart attacks" Blake replied.
[If that was true they wouldn't sell it in stores] Jaune signed as he yawned. [Why are you so tired? I know I'm losing sleep because I'm trying to get my grades back up. But what is your excuse?]
"Weiss was IMing me till about three in the morning," Blake said
"Oh yeah she was talking to me a few nights back, I'm not sleeping with her though so I didn't feel any real obligation to stay up with her though," Ren replied.
[She hit me up shortly afterward, I was pulling a late nighter working on some math homework] Jaune signed. [Don't tell Ruby I did that by the way, she's trying to get me to stop doing that.]
"Our lips are sealed," Blake said as Ren made a zipper motion across his lips.
Jaune chuckled as he took a sip of his own bottle of Surge.
"How can you drink that crap Jaune?" Blake asked
[I figure the caffeine will wake me up or the taste will.] Jaune signed back.
Ren chucked at Jaune "Yeah, that's very you alright, always with the brute force method."
"I can't believe they sell that at school, that crap can't be healthy," Blake said with a soft giggle.
[It's not any worse than your soda Blake] Jaune signed.
Blake chuckled and thought for a second before her face turned serious for a moment
"Welp, I guess we're done talking about soda's, what's up Blake?" Ren asked.
"Have either of you two talked to Sun Wukong lately?" Blake asked.
Ren shook his head no "Honestly the whole 'Part of the gang that tried to murder my friends' thing was a bit of a hang-up for me."
Jaune signed out [Uh, I kinda kept him from getting his ass beat by Cardin and his jock douchebag friends last week, otherwise no.]
Blake sighed and said, "I… I don't think it's a good idea for him to be on his own like this, I know he's occasionally crashing on Neptune's couch, but he doesn't have anyone anymore…"
Jaune was about to sign something before Ren chimed in. "I don't know, Jaune was almost killed by his best friend, and Weiss lost a sister to the same guy."
"Neptune and Yang were almost killed by Scarlett as well I know, But Neptune is accepting of Sun, maybe… maybe we can give the guy a chance." Blake said.
"Look, I'm okay with it if everyone else is, but we should ask Jaune what he thinks," Ren said.
[Actually, I was looking for a chance to bring up the idea myself. Ruby suggested Blake wouldn't be okay with the idea.] Jaune signed.
"Your girlfriend is an idiot, granted so are you." Blake quipped "So you both kinda balance each other out."
[Look it's her turn with the brain cell this week, what Can I say?] Jaune signed with a chuckle.
Ren and Blake both chuckled out with Jaune before Ren chimed in "Oh hey, we never did pick up our game, I know we need another player since Penny moved, did you think Ruby would want to join us?"
[I remember her mentioning that she used to play way back in the day…] Jaune thought for a moment. [I could ask her next time I see her.]
"What were you going to roll up since your dark knight died?" Ren asked.
[I was thinking of trying my hand at a Paladin or something.] Jaune signed back
"I look forward to seeing how it turns out," Ren said with a smile…
The next day on May second, Blake walked through the halls of the school looking for Sun, she figured he'd be around the same area she saw him the day before.
She found him sitting alone in the same place as before, wearing the same clothes as he did the day before and nursing a black eye. Blake winced at the sight of him figuring that Cardin's group got a hold of him again. Sun sat there resting his head on his knees staring off into space, ignoring an unpacked breakfast next to him.
"Sun…" Blake softly spoke up.
"Piss off…" Sun only said in reply.
"I don't think you really want that…" Blake said leaning against the wall several feet away from him.
"You don't know a goddamn thing, Blake…" Sun replied, never breaking from his fixed stare into space.
"How many times are you going to take a beating from those clowns?" Blake asked.
Sun didn't answer the question, not breaking his stare into the void.
"You can't keep this up… You need to seek out help…" Blake said softly not leaving her spot or trying to close the gap.
Sun was silent for a few moments before he spoke up "Really? All my friends are dead or are going to end up in prison, my family has kicked me out of my home, and I can occasionally sleep on Nep's couch… Who exactly do I have to turn to?"
Blake was silent for a moment before she said pleadingly "Turn to the school staff, turn Jaune or me, turn to… well anyone honestly."
Sun still focused his stare off into space "Sage tried to murder the principal and Jaune's mother, Adam tried to kill you and killed your girlfriend's sister, and your family knows it. I don't see that working out."
Once Sun was done he started to pull himself up to his feet and tossed his uneaten breakfast into his backpack. "Stop fucking bothering me." He coldly said before he walked past her.
Blake sighed in defeat before she pushed herself off the wall and started to walk off with the intent of losing herself in the depths of the school for a while.
Two am, May third…
Blake was woken up from a fitful sleep by a text message hitting her phone. Blake fumbled for her phone to look at it. With a deep groaning yawn, she flipped the phone open and started to through her blurred eyes and not quite functioning brain read the message she had received, it was on the third attempt to read through she saw the words "IM" and "Weiss"
Blake just dragged herself out of her warm bed with an annoyed groan. "Dammit Weiss, what the hell are you even doing awake still? It's a freaking school day…"
Blake sat down and flipped open the laptop she was given by Weiss's father and waited for it to log her on to the internet so she could see what Weiss wanted.
BLACKCAT42: Jesus Christ Weiss go the fuck to sleep.
LIGHTANGEL1983: I'm sorry I was having a hard time getting my eyes to stay closed.
BLACKCAT42: I'm sorry if I come off as slightly bitchy here, but I was dead asleep when you texted me just now, You've been staying up way too late lately.
LIGHTANGEL1983: I know, I'm sorry!
BLACKCAT42: Well I'm up now, what did you need?
Blake watched as IM window was almost silent for a second as Blake unapologetically yawned several times before Weiss finally replied
LIGHTANGEL1983: I guess I didn't need anything…
Blake groaned in her seat and laid her head down on her desk in sheer exhaustion
BLACKCAT42: How in the hell are even awake, you've been pulling late nights like this for days, I can't even keep my eyes open right now.
LIGHTANGEL1983: I was doing some late-night classwork and I got bored.
BLACKCAT42: Weiss, you need to get some sleep… I swear to god Jaune at least has the excuse that he's still catching up from missing two weeks of classes.
LIGHTANGEL1983: Alright I'm sorry, go back to bed… Love you…
BLACKCAT42: I love you too, but please get some sleep okay?
Blake watched as Weiss went offline, she had no real way of knowing if her girlfriend was actually going to go to sleep or not. Blake knew what her plans were going to be. She was going to go to bed, close her eyes, try to sleep more, and have a serious "come to Jesus" talk with her girlfriend in the morning.
As she laid in bed and struggled to sleep she reflected on the violent changes in her life in the last three months. The whole world feels flipped and she wasn't sure she could fix things on her own if she could at all.
"I can't do this alone, maybe I need to bring in Ms. Fall to help…" Blake muttered to herself. "Hell Jaune probably could give me some insight into this as well… Yeah, I'll talk to Jaune about it," she said to herself through a yawn as sleep finally reclaimed her.
So this chapter was a bit on the short side, but I do have a reason for it. I have been under the weather as, at first I thought it was due to some kind of repression wave that was hitting me, but then I woke up yesterday feeling light headed and struggling to breathe. It was concerning enough that my wife had me go get tested for Covid since a teledoc said I had several symptoms of it.
I managed to power through though this chapter and I'm waiting for the test results to come back while I try to take it easy. I don't know if I have Covid, but I'll find out in a week either way. But I'm going to put this on hold if it gets worse.
Anywho Dragonlord. I agree about the idea of second chances, and i'm working towards that goal with this Arc, hopefully it ends up working out, we'll see how it goes.
As for everyone else, I hope everyone is doing okay, and i'll talk to all of you next time, and as always, thanks again for reading.
