"Bla - ACK!" Yang managed to choke on her own spit before she could finish the word. She hacked unattractively for about a minute while Weiss slapped her back.
"Pull yourself together," Weiss hissed through her teeth.
Blake looked mildly concerned. "Are you okay?" she asked, walking towards them to close the gap.
"Ye-ah," Yang croaked out. She cleared her throat a few times and ran her hands through her hair nervously, hoping that her face wasn't as red as it felt. "Uh, how'd you get here?" she asked quietly, looking directly into Blake's eyes.
"Your sister." Blake gestured with her head and Yang turned to see Ruby standing in the building behind them. Ruby gave Yang a double thumbs-up and a huge smile, which Yang couldn't help but reciprocate.
She turned back to Blake, and opened her mouth to speak. But nothing came out. Blake was finally right there - right in front of her! And it was like all of the things she had wanted to say to her over the past several days had got caught in the back of her throat and piled up against each other, trapped behind some huge gate. The only thing she could do was stare mutely at her face, visually tracing over her features with all the care in the world. It was almost stupid how much she had missed looking at her.
"I'll leave you two alone. You can stay here as long as you need," Weiss said. Yang had almost forgotten she was still standing there.
Blake acknowledged her statement with a grateful nod while Yang breathed out a shaky "thanks."
"...Do you want to sit by the pond?" Blake asked once Weiss had gone back inside. Yang nodded. She hadn't taken her eyes off of Blake the whole time, which she figured was kinda creepy. But she was beyond caring about that right now.
They wandered back over to the pond area and settled down on a bench in the shade. The sun was shining, but it wasn't excessively hot either, which Yang knew Blake would appreciate. A butterfly flittered past them like it was a Disney movie or something. Blake was taking deep, slow breaths as they walked, and Yang could tell that she was psyching herself up to start a Conversation.
"I..." Blake nervously gripped her hands together in her lap. "Yang, I am so sorry." Her voice and her hands were both shaking. "I need you to know that everything I did was to try to protect you, to make things easier for you. But I screwed everything up. I know that, and I-I understa-" She had to stop to take another long breath. "I understand if you'd rather I leave you alone."
Yang was still staring at her intently. She could see visible tears on Blake's eyelashes, although they hadn't fallen quite yet.
"Blakey." She kept her voice as low and gentle as possible. "Why on earth would I want you to leave me alone? You're my best friend." Yang reached over to brush away Blake's unshed tears.
"But..." Blake looked shocked that Yang was willing to make physical contact. "You- aren't you mad at me?"
Yang pulled back her hand and gave Blake a pained smile. "I was angry. Angry because I have no idea what's going on or why. And because instead of looping me in you decided to cut me out for days." Yang couldn't stop some of the emotion from coming into her voice, which was also starting to shake.
Blake winced at the words. "Yang..."
"No, it's okay." Yang took a couple deep breaths of her own. "I'm not angry now. This is my fault too, for pushing you to talk when you weren't ready. And I'm sorry for that."
"You didn't do anything wrong!" Blake broke in. A wave of emotion washed over her face and she reached out desperately to grab Yang's hand and squeeze it tightly. "It's all my fault. Please, don't blame yourself."
Yang looked down at their joined hands, suddenly flustered by the contact. "I, uh...I pushed past your boundaries, Blake. And I disregarded your feelings because I thought I knew better. That wasn't okay." She paused and took another slow breath, then looked back up at Blake. "Look, it doesn't matter whose fault anything was, okay? What matters is that you're here, and that you stay here. I don't need you to explain anything until you're ready. Just...promise me that you won't vanish like that again? I can't really...I can't handle that."
"I..." Blake stared at her speechlessly for a moment. Her eyes were shining with more tears.
"I- I promise." She said finally, gingerly rubbing her thumb over Yang's knuckles. "But...if you don't mind, I think that I would like to talk now. About, um..."
"About Adam?" Yang guessed. If Blake's expression was any indication, she had guessed right.
"Yes." Blake moved closer to Yang and exhaled slowly. "He's my ex-boyfriend. My..." Blake trailed off while Yang remained silent, waiting for her to gather up the nerve to continue.
"My emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend." The way Blake shuddered when she said the word "abusive" made Yang think that this was the first time she had labeled things so explicitly.
Yang nodded and held Blake's hand tighter.
"He never hit me, or even directly threatened to. It's probably why I stayed with him so long... I kept telling myself that it wasn't real abuse, it was just me being overly-sensitive." Blake shook her head and stared down at her feet. "But now that I'm away from him, I can see things clearly."
"At first it was only a few isolated incidents. Something would happen and things wouldn't go his way, and he would just...change. He would become vicious and cruel." Her voice was audibly shaking now. "Anybody who disagreed with him was a target for his fury. And if I disagreed with him then I was betraying him and our relationship." Blake sighed and picked up a leaf that was sitting on the bench, twirling it slowly between the fingers of her free hand.
"But he would go back to normal just as quickly. He always pretended nothing had happened - it made me think that maybe I had imagined everything. Or maybe I wanted to think that I had imagined it."
"And there were other signs, too. Like, he wouldn't let me talk to any male friends unless he was there. And eventually, he even started driving a wedge between me and my parents. I started calling them less and less because of how upset it would make him."
"That bastard." Yang's voice came out as a low grumble. Even just hearing about that guy was making her blood boil. Blake glanced up at her, as if coming out of a trance.
"Yeah..." She looked back down, still twirling her leaf thoughtfully.
Yang nudged Blake's shoulder with her own. "Hey, I didn't mean to break your train of thought. You can keep going if you want."
Blake shrugged. "There's not much more to tell. I broke up with him a little while before I met you." Her eyes darted from their hands up to Yang's face and back again.
"You - you remember how I was in that car crash?"
Yang frowned. "Yeah, I remember."
"I was still dating him at that time. And... by that point he had started to treat me like one of his enemies. Yelling at me anytime he thought I was "betraying" him, punching holes in the walls..."
Yang felt her body tense as her anger flared again. A big part of her wanted to find Adam right now a punch a hole in his face so he could see how it felt. Douchebag.
"We were in the car, he was driving." Blake's hands started to shake again but she kept going, completely focused on sharing her story. "He started yelling at me for...something. I don't remember. He threatened to crash the car if I didn't shut up... He-he swerved a couple times to scare me. And then..."
"And then he actually did crash the car?" Yang tried valiantly to keep her voice calm. She was about two seconds away from losing it. She couldn't stop thinking about the last time she had seen Adam - and how she should've strangled him on the spot.
"He hit the curb at high speed and we flipped over. It's a miracle that neither of us got seriously hurt." Blake's voice and hands were both steady now. She didn't look anxious anymore, just tired. "But that was the end of our relationship. That's what it took for me to realize that I couldn't stay with him."
"You did the right thing," Yang said. She leaned over and kissed Blake on the cheek as softly as possible. Blake gasped quietly.
"Oh... I'm sorry, I should've asked before I touched you."
"No, it's okay!" Blake looked into her eyes and smiled apologetically. "Yang, I... I should have told you all of this a long time ago."
"I disagree." Yang responded with an apologetic smile of her own. "You get to decide if and when you tell me stuff, okay? I shouldn't have tried to force you." She leaned back on the bench and stared at the pond for a long moment. The water was rippling slightly, catching the light so that it appeared to be glittering.
"Some of the things I said back in the office... About you not trusting me and stuff? It- it must have sounded like-" Yang throat closed up before she could finish the sentence. Blake shook her head emphatically.
"The words, maybe, were similar to how he would talk. But you are absolutely nothing like him." She forced Yang to make eye contact. "You're nothing like him," she repeated. "I-I used to be so scared to talk honestly around him, because I didn't know what would set him off. And with you... it's the exact opposite."
Yang wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light but she could swear Blake was blushing. She felt a rush of feelings for her, so strong that her knees went weak and she was glad to be sitting down. Yang reached out to brush the side of Blake's face, gently nudging her so that they were face to face. They were only inches apart, and Yang could feel Blake's breath on her lips, sending tingles up and down her spine.
"Can I...?"
Blake didn't respond verbally, instead closing the gap herself. It really did feel like there was an electric current running through Yang's veins when their lips met. She found herself smiling uncontrollably.
"Your teeth are getting in the way," Blake said, pulling back slightly. "Stop smiling." But her own lips were curling up into a smile of their own.
"Is that an order, baby?" Yang asked. She slowly moved her hands down Blake's back to settle around her waist. Blake's blush spread over her cheeks, clearly visible now.
"Obviously." She leaned back in to kiss Yang again, moving with more urgency now. Yang tugged her into her lap out of some desperate desire to be closer. Blake complied enthusiastically, wrapping her arms around Yang's neck tightly. Yang opened her mouth and Blake made a sort of contented humming sound before following suit.
She jerked back suddenly. Yang blinked her eyes open slowly, breathing heavily. "Wh-why'd you stop?"
"We're in public..." Blake's entire face was red. "Someone could see us."
"Oh. Blake, I couldn't care less."
"What?"
"I don't give a shit."
Blake raised both eyebrows. "But... your election?"
"I was going to tell you this, but I made a decision over the past couple days." Yang smiled and kissed Blake's neck. "I'm gonna come out for real, in the next few days probably."
"WHAT? Are you sure?" Blake pulled back further so she could stare incredulously into Yang's eyes.
"I'm done hiding who I am," Yang replied.
"You...don't have to do this for me, you know." Blake still looked hesitant, and maybe a little guilty.
Yang smiled again. "I'm not. Well, maybe a little bit. But I'm mostly doing this for me."
"...Shouldn't you wait until after the election?" Her eyebrows were furrowed now. Yang shook her head in response.
"I don't want to be elected based on a lie, it would feel way too shitty. And crazily enough, Qrow actually agreed with me!" Yang's grin got even wider. "If I lose the election over this, well, that'll suck too. But I'm prepared for it."
Blake just kinda stared at her for a second. Then she leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on Yang's forehead, brushing thick locks of blonde hair to the side. "How are you so...strong?"
"Ah, so the trick to successful muscle building is moving weights with control instead of-"
"Yang!" Blake pretended to be exasperated, but she was very clearly laughing behind her hand.
"Hey, don't hide your smile- it's your best quality!" Yang tugged her hand down and held it tightly in both of her own. "And for the record, I think you're the strongest person I've ever met."
They smiled at each other, reveling in the feeling of being together again, and wondering why they had ever been apart in the first place. Yang's world seemed to shrink down, until the only thing that mattered was Blake, sitting in her lap looking at her, and only her.
"So, just to be clear..." Blake's eyes were shining in the sunlight. "It's okay if I do this?" She pressed forward again, pushing Yang down so she was lying flat on the bench.
Yang's heart kicked into a high gear that she didn't even know existed. "Uh...uh-huh," she managed, proud of herself for expressing a sort-of coherent response.
"Good." Blake's eyes were shining in a different sort of way as she leaned down to kiss Yang deeply. Yang's hands were moving way before her brain could catch up, drifting under Blake's shirt to rub her back. Blake shivered at the feeling of Yang's fingertips on her bare skin, a reaction that somehow got Yang even more...excited.
While her brain was preoccupied with whatever Blake's tongue was doing, her hands made the executive decision that there were entirely too many clothes involved. She pulled up on Blake's shirt, causing a gasp of protest.
"Are you t-trying to take off my shirt?" Blake breathed, her face still hovering right above Yang's.
"Yeah, is that okay?"
"I was thinking that maybe... we shouldn't have sex on a bench in the middle of the Schnee Company courtyard?"
Yang's brain finally caught up. "Ah...yes." She could feel her entire face turning red.
Blake stood up, grabbing Yang's hand to pull her up after her. She smiled slyly. "So we can go somewhere else?"
"Sounds good to me." Yang stepped closer and kissed Blake again. "Hey Blake?"
"Mm-hm?" Blake asked.
"I...uh...you're hot." Yang wondered if it was possible for her face to set itself on fire. That was NOT what she had been trying to say. How did "I love you" get so mixed up between her brain and her mouth that it turned into "you're hot"?
Luckily Blake seemed to think it was funny. "Okay, Casanova. You're hot too." Blake laughed and tugged Yang's hand lightly to get her moving. They left the way they came, clinging to each other's hands like a lifeline.
Five floors up, Weiss squinted down at them through a pair of binoculars.
"What's happening? What's happening?" Ruby asked for the thousandth time.
"Shhh! I'm focusing," Weiss said.
"On what..."
"They stopped making out on the bench, thank god." Weiss sounded deeply disgruntled. "My employees use those benches you know! I don't want any...fluids."
"Ewwww why would you say that?" Ruby made a face.
Weiss scoffed. "Don't blame me, blame those two!"
Ruby made another face. "Okay, whatever you say. But what's happeniiiiing?"
"They're going to Yang's car. I don't know where they're going but they seem...oh..."
"What? What is it?" Ruby pressed her face to the window, but couldn't even see the car without the binoculars.
"Nothing, they just...went in the back seat." Weiss lowered the binoculars slowly. "On another note, I'm never riding in Yang's car again."
"Noted," Ruby said with a salute. Weiss couldn't stop a soft laugh - she was just too cute. "But why are they in the back seat?"
For a moment, Weiss wasn't sure if she was being serious. But no, Ruby was looking at her with 100% innocent curiosity.
"Can I see?" she continued.
"Absolutely not." Weiss tossed the binoculars aside. "Regardless, we've accomplished our mission now. Let's go home, team." Ruby grinned at the word "team" and saluted again.
AN: Thanks sm for reading! Drop a review if you're feelin it