Being Yang's girlfriend - she can't stop saying the word, holding it over in her mouth like an expensive wine, discerning the taste of it - isn't much different than what they were doing before, only now it's real for other people, instead of just them. Yang's publicist - a woman named Glynda in her late thirties with an alarming ability to spin a narrative like she's controlling a tornado - accepts the information with only a dry jab, "I'll hire some interns to stalk your Twitter fanbase," and hangs up.
They still keep themselves scarce and secretive, the way magicians protect their tricks; they go out in groups, to high-class bars and private restaurants, their names always under wraps in reservations - that falls to Weiss, whose relationship with Ruby seems to have repaired itself amicably. No awkward silences present themselves during quiet moments, and Weiss's eyes start to linger less. Still, she sticks around, and Blake's unable to pinpoint the sense of obligation.
Until she catches Weiss's mouth tilting at its edges, a laugh slipping out like a mistake she can't cover fast enough. Until she notices the way Yang throws an arm around her shoulders and she doesn't shrug it off, adapting to the tactility. Until she notices Weiss starting to plan, inviting them out, inviting herself over.
The confession tumbles out during a dinner at Toscana, an upscale Italian restaurant in Brentwood. It'd been Weiss's turn to pick the location, and it only makes sense for her guard to drop with the power, glass of red wine in her hand. "I've never really had a family," she says off the tail end of a wildly skewed childhood anecdote of Ruby's - Yang had chimed in every two minutes with what she claimed was the actual truth. "I think I'm inclined to believe Yang's version of events, but it sounds lovely, regardless."
"Sure you have," Yang says, mild surprise evident; Blake thinks of kicking her underneath the table, thinks of hinting tact, darling, but in the moment following she realizes there's no need. "You have us, don't you?"
All the background noise jumps to stereo, surround sound; the clinking of knives, uncorking bottles, laughter and chatter. Weiss doesn't catch her breath the way most people do when they're taken aback - her reactions are muted, carefully constructed motions nearly indistinguishable from her regular movement. It isn't acting, like what Yang does. It's survival.
"I thought this was just for show," she says, but she sounds like crumbling stone.
"Weiss," Yang says, and her ego flares but her sincerity does, too, and Blake's not sure how that became a winning combination. "I'm, like, extremely important, and I have very little free time. If I didn't want to spend it with you, I wouldn't be."
In a strange, roundabout way, it's exactly what Weiss needs to hear - people with no obligation to her, choosing her anyway. Blake adds, "I could fire you if I wanted to. I haven't yet. There's a reason for that."
Ruby says, "I just think you're like, one of the coolest people I've ever met."
When Weiss smiles, it's so stunningly soft that the world around them pauses for a glance, and Blake can't help but wonder if she's what trauma looks like when it finally begins to heal.
--
Sun's the one who sends her the text; their studio time is finally booked for the beginning of July, and they've got a few kinks to work through in the meantime. They meet up at Neptune's house in Santa Monica to rehearse, late enough in the morning to bypass rush hour, and spend the day in his converted studio, tearing through pages and pages of notes. They're still a month out, and Blake's not worried, though sometimes it feels wrong of her not to be. It's unnatural, being free.
It's also an illusion.
Yang's spring break is coming to an end - she's slowly picking up promotions; her assistant is over more often than not, but she's sweet to Blake, tries not to interfere with their time alone; and Out of Fire has been given the green light for further casting. She's finished the book, but now she's started it again, littering the pages with tiny sticky notes, her shorthand messy and legible to only her. "That'll change," she says cutely, promises she'll teach Blake to read it.
During an afternoon they're not together is when the first signs of stress marks reach them, pressure on splintering wood. She's in her own apartment, fine-tuning a song she's almost perfected titled Alone Together, when her phone rings.
The ringtone is immediately recognizable, and she swipes up to answer, puts it on speaker. "Hey, babe," she says, still wrapped up in a chord. "How'd it go?"
"Great," Yang says, enthusiasm immediately refreshing; she forgets how easy it is to settle into the melancholic quiet when she's on her own. "A lot of new faces - they're looking for unknown talent. Plus, the director let slip that I get to wear pants for like, ninety-nine percent of the film."
"Oh, life-changing."
"You're telling me." But something else gnaws at her tongue. "Actually, so, I kind of need to talk to you about something else."
It's a sentence that sends her straight into a bomb shelter, high-siren alerts screeching against her skull and red covering her eyes. She stops strumming. "What?"
"Oh, no, no--" Yang's apology hits just quick enough to stop a complete spiral. "No, it's not - I mean, it's not a huge deal, but just something you should be aware of. Something we both should be."
The rhythm of her breathing evens out, lulls away from the frantic, staccato pace it'd adapted in those previous seconds. "Okay," Blake says, shakes her head in a short jerk to clear it.
"So, as it turns out, me encasing your guitar pick in gold and proceeding to wear it like, constantly, isn't the most inconspicuous thing in the world." Yang sounds decently ashamed of herself, and Blake's heart is cliff-diving. "It's not like the media's reporting on it or anything, but a group of our fans have definitely figured it out, and now they're like, obsessed with the theory." A car door slams, the buckle of a seatbelt. "So I just wanted you to - to be aware. That it's out there, though it's not actually going anywhere."
The nonchalance isn't faked; Yang genuinely isn't concerned by it. And why should she be, Blake thinks detachedly, when she's been dealing with her life and all its intricacies underneath a magnifying glass for years now? Nothing's touched her. Nothing's even come close.
But that doesn't mean it never will.
She doesn't realize the tilt she's taken before it's too late - doesn't realize she's hyperventilating, doesn't realize she's seeing bruises on her wrists that aren't there - you'll pay for what you've done, comes death's own threat, you and whoever you even think about loving next - Yang's voice calls out again, from confused to anxious to panicked, and then she's shifting the phone away from her ear and saying something to the driver that Blake vaguely recognizes as her own address.
"Blake," she's saying, over and over again. "Blake. Talk to me."
Blake can't say a word.
--
She doesn't remember the knock at the door, and she doesn't remember opening it - clarity only starts to come to her when she's staring down the pathways of Yang's eyes, when she's finding gardens and cathedrals, sunsets through rain clouds. Palms cup her cheeks, pressure insistent but gentle.
"Blake," Yang says, sighing soft and heartbroken.
"Yeah," Blake responds, the world floating its pieces back together around her. She sounds so far away and empty, and that starts to scare her more than the visions of Adam bulldozing across her brain, tearing down bookshelves and shattering glass. She curls her fingers around Yang's wrist. "Yeah."
"Baby." Yang's relief is evident; she sweeps Blake up into her arms, one hand cradling the back of her head. "What happened?"
"I don't know," Blake says truthfully, shocked to find herself blank and shivering. "I just - I - I knew people would talk, that they'd know, but - the second it became true, all I could think about was him knowing it, too."
"He can't touch you anymore, Blake," Yang murmurs into her ear, and it's a sentence she's heard before. Oh, this is all so wrong - this is a burden, this is a drawbridge - this is something she should handle herself, or hand off to a therapist (that's the obvious answer, that's the hardest - hearing she isn't doing as well as she pretends she is. I'm okay, she'd told Yang once, and she won't be made a liar). "He can't get through me, okay? Nothing can. Nothing."
"He's so powerful," is all Blake can say, attempting to express him like the fear of a boogeyman, a demon in desperate search of possession. Yang pulls back, her hands settling on Blake's shoulders as if a weight to stop her from spiriting herself away. "In the industry - everyone knows him. He took over for Sienna, you know. He's - he heads White Fang now. The entire label."
Maybe it's the unexpectedness of the action that makes it sting like a slap: Yang actually laughs at her, really laughs, and for a moment she's so stunned at the dismissiveness of it that she only stands there, words scurrying back into the cavern of her throat.
"What part of this is funny to you?" she finally snaps, fingernails digging into her palm, fighting the angry welt of betrayal.
Though the humor doesn't entirely fade from her voice, Yang senses the shift in tone well enough to distance herself from it, and her laughter stops. She says, "Blake," and her smirk draws close and dangerous, eyebrows raising arrogantly. "I'm sure Adam's a powerful guy in your industry"--the contemptuousness inhabits every curve of her expression, gushes from her throat like an outpouring of blood from a wound--"but he'll never be more powerful than me."
Oh. Blake releases a breath at the explanation, tension shifting from her shoulders to her stomach, discouraging her instinct of flight. Oh. Yang's not laughing at her, she's laughing at the idea of it Adam himself - of a top music executive's clout being at all compared to hers. She's one of the most famous actresses in the world. Of course there's no comparison.
"Oh," Blake says.
Yang reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind Blake's ear, mindlessly continues her habits, traces the vein and follows the curve of her cheekbone. "Sometimes it's cute that you forget I'm like, a big deal," she says, rolling her eyes harmlessly. "But others, it'd really save us the trouble."
It's always about blood - she spends far too much time thinking about where her own pools. Now in her cheeks, in her neck, in her chest. "It's not that," she says, not embarrassed but hot and uncomfortable inside of herself. Sometimes it's like her skin doesn't belong to her. "It's not just that, I guess. It's - it's hard to explain."
Silence stretches onwards for a moment, and then Yang says gently, "I'm sorry." In her eyes, Blake only gathers up remorse, a river rushing of it. "I'm sorry if you felt like I was - making light of the situation," she contextualizes, and she slips her hands down, lets them loop loose around Blake's waist. "I wasn't...wasn't thinking about it any other way. It just seems crazy to me, you know? Like, to me, he's nothing. But I get that - that to you, he still has a huge impact on your life, and I shouldn't have laughed. I should've just - I should've seen your side of it more clearly. I know better. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Blake forgives instantly, understanding her perspective and wanting nothing more than to fall into her arms, wanting the chill of her spine to warm, wanting to forget. She does just that, buries her face in the crook of Yang's neck, her arms winding around her shoulders; Yang responds automatically, rubs Blake's back in a smooth, comforting motion. "It's just - he's still here, to me," she says. "He's still out there, and it's not as if - like, we aren't hard people to find, and we - we can't keep this a secret forever."
"I get that," Yang murmurs. "I get why you'd still be afraid of him."
"Yeah." Blake allows her eyelids to flutter shut, gives herself over to the invulnerability she always feels when Yang is with her. "It's you, too, you know."
"Hm?"
"I'm afraid for you, too."
It isn't a comment she expects; she blinks, knick appearing between her eyebrows. "Me? Why?"
"Because he's dangerous," Blake confesses quietly. She doesn't know how to translate her fear of broken doors, loud footsteps, the taste of copper. "Because he'd do anything to hurt me. And the easiest way to do that is through you."
The vivid blue of his eyes surfaces to mind the way glaciers tower, penetrating and foreboding, but she can't find even a hint of that fear in Yang's lilac. "I'm the highest paid actress in Hollywood," she says, so tall she's never coming down. "Baby, nothing touches me if I don't want it to. You're the only one who gets that honor."
She succeeds with that remark, at the very least; Blake's lips twitch at corner, and her walls slam their edges back together, her ceiling stitching up its corners. There are no voracious black holes swallowing up the sun; it isn't his eyes she's seeing, it's the color of the sky. Everything is exactly where she'd left it. And he's still gone.
"Even if people on Twitter know," Yang murmurs soothingly, "I really don't think they run in the same circles."
And, at last, a laugh.
--
Early June marks Yang's first talk show promoting her film If the Sun Ever Sets in Florence - it'd been almost a solo production, the true story of a woman in an abusive relationship who flees from her fiance while on a trip to Italy, proceeds to follow only one set of rules: stay lost. She's reckless in the aftermath - nothing could be worse, Yang's character says in the trailer, not even death - and so the film itself becomes a cultural, societal unraveling: why are we so afraid for her to travel alone? Walking down streets she doesn't know, feeling freer than she's ever felt? Why is that something that we, as an audience, are so terrified of?
"That's a good question," the host says, impressed by her articulation. "Because it's not a thriller, right? It's not dark."
"Not in that way," Yang agrees, her hands neatly folded in her lap. She isn't wearing her necklace. "She's not attacked in some lonely alley, not stalked, not raped - the only enemy, per say, is the ghost of the man she's run from, his influence. It's a rediscovery of self. But that's the contradiction: how something so personally beautiful turns into something frightening from the perspective of people who know what the world thinks of a free woman."
"Wow," the host says again. Blake finds herself agreeing: wow. "And that's something that takes a lot of care to portray, doesn't it? How'd you go about preparing for a role like that?"
If Blake were anyone else in the world, she probably wouldn't have noticed the miniscule twitch of her smile, how her eyes turn suddenly sharp like knives. The host doesn't, because he isn't as good an actor, and his expression doesn't waver. But Blake does. She curls her knees up to her chest, arms wrapping around them as she watches, hooked on every word.
Yang on-screen says, "I take domestic abuse extremely seriously. I read the book, you know, I spoke extensively with the author - but in the end, it's not...difficult to understand how it must feel to be your own person after years of being treated like an object." She adjusts her body in her chair, crossing her legs, and it's enough of a distraction to hide the way her jaw tightens. "All I hope is that I've done justice to women who've experienced this, who are experiencing it now. It's an issue that should be talked about more. It's pervasive in our society, and I - we can't allow it to continue. We can't applaud people being brave enough to leave their abusers without dismantling the culture that allows them to flourish in the first place."
The audience applauds her, empathetic and enamored with the speech; the host nods along, obviously touched. Blake's own chest is in flux, aching at its previous capacity for pain, the amount of blood that used to pool, broken and out of place. Astounded at her own resiliency, at her bones smooth and unbroken, at the endurance of her voice - at everything he'd tried to take from her and failed.
When she'd left, she'd been so close to nothing she might as well have been shadow. And now she feels herself present in her body, feels her pulse and pronounces herself alive.
Fuck you, she thinks, and she presses pause just as the screen darkens for a commercial.
Yang's standing behind her in the entryway of the living room, reflected in the glare, watching Blake's reaction. Waiting for it.
For a moment, neither of them speak; what's left to say, Blake thinks, looking at her outline in the white-black static frame. There's the telltale shift of Yang's shoulders, the dropping of her arms, and then she says, "I'm sorry."
Blake whips around, elbow against the back of the couch and her knees against the cushions. Shame sits in the corners of Yang's face, and no, no, that's the opposite of what should be there. "Sorry?" she repeats, bewildered. "What are you - sorry for what?"
"I was too personal," she says, and doesn't make a move to come any closer. "I know you could - I knew you'd be able to tell. Even as I said it. Nobody else will know, but I knew you would, and I just - I owe you more than that." She inhales a precarious breath, turns into a confession. "I didn't want you to feel like...like a prop I was using, to validate my own performance." She sounds positively disgusted with herself at the thought. "I wasn't...I wasn't acting. It's about more than that, now. The movie. It means more."
"Yang." Blake stops her rambling, her voice raw, a foam-tipped wave on the verge of breaking. God, she loves the woman standing in front of her so much it's become impossible to contain - floodlands, that's what she becomes. "Your - what you said was...was fucking perfect, okay? You - you don't need to apologize." Yang visibly relaxes, tight lines turning into curves, fingers hanging loose. A breath, and then: "What you do need to do is come over here."
The wooden floor creaks underneath every footfall - the cushions dip beneath her weight - and then she's gathering Blake up in her arms, pulling her close to her chest and sighing into her mouth. You're not a burden, she remembers, and for the first time finds herself believing it.
"You're more than what happened to you," Yang murmurs, limbs tangled together and sharing breath. "I want you to know that I know that."
"I do know that," Blake says, lets the darkness of the room curl up around them like an animal, shifts the mood from serious to sensual. She's tired of being haunted by someone who isn't incorporeal enough to do so, still living and breathing and undeserving of all of it. "I don't think you'd do half the shit you do to me in bed if you thought I was breakable."
There's an abandoned church in the architecture of her smile, in the stained glass of her eyes - Blake can hear the organs, can see the devil behind grandeur. Their noses brush, their lips graze, and Yang says, "Babe, I think you've proved you're anything but."
--
That night, Blake opens her notebook to a fresh page. Maybe she's feeling bold; maybe it's the first step to moving on. Maybe she's learning she's allowed to heal where other people can see her.
you never wanted me to be on top
she doesn't, either, but at least she's good at it
--
"Damn, Blake," Ilia mutters under her breath, scouring the lyrics on the following Monday - it's the first day of Yang's chemistry readings, and it's always easiest for Blake to work when Yang's not around to distract her from it. She's standing by the keys as the rest of them devour her notes. "This is - damn."
"You're blushing," Blake says, entirely shameless. She's the one singing about it - all Ilia has to do is drum. It's really not that bad, in her opinion; they're just not used to this side of her. She can't blame them.
"I am not," Ilia snaps back, just as Sun jerks the notebook out of her hands. She swipes for it back, half-hearted, freckles disappearing against her darkening cheeks. "It's just - I mean, it's--"
"Hot," Sun says, eyes widening over every word like he's trying to photosynthesize them. "Holy shit. You're gonna sing this? About Yang? In front of people?"
"That's the plan," she answers cheerfully. "Neptune, check out the bass line."
"Oh, now that's hot," he says, immediately fingering the notes as Sun holds it out for him to read. "Yeah. That's sexy. Can I fuck with it?"
"Of course. See?" Blake says. "Neptune's on board."
"It's not that I'm not on board," Ilia says, finally managing to snatch the notebook back. "It's just that - I mean, Jesus, this line alone - 'some people find God on their knees, I find her in between mine'--"
Neptune bumps her shoulder, stretching out a hand to point at a following lyric; his bass headstock smacks Sun in the neck, who yelps and winces. Maybe she should've made copies. "Yeah, but look at the rest of it - 'nothing scares her in the dark, not even me'?" He pauses, tilts his head to the side like he'll see the truth if he's viewing it from a slightly different angle, and his expression slowly solidifies into understanding. "Oh."
"What?" Sun asks.
"It's not about sex," he says. "Blake's in love with her."
All pairs of eyes shoot over to him. Ilia says, "Uh, what?"
"It's not sexual, it's romantic," he explains patiently, as if she isn't standing right there with the ability to confirm it. "C'mon. She's talking about herself metaphorically. Her baggage. She's saying nothing scares Yang off."
"I'd be happy to answer any and all of your questions, should you decide to aim them at me," Blake says, sanguine and sarcastic simultaneously. She's too strangely at peace to find the situation anything other than amusing. "Yes, I'm in love with her."
"See? Told you," Neptune says, and turns into stone upon comprehension, the gaze of Medusa herself striking him still. "Wait."
Even though they're in his studio, Santa Monica air always carries that hint of salt, as if the ocean's politely lingering just outside the front door and waiting to be let in. She tastes it now, the color blue, and she's changing that connotation to freedom, to beauty. The closer it gets to summer, the more Yang starts talking about the beach; the sun, the sand, the sea - her dad lives in Malibu; they've been trying to find a time to meet for weeks now.
They're still staring, even through her daydream, and then Sun glances between the other two oddly. "What're you both so freaked out about? Obviously Blake's in love with her."
"Well, yeah," Ilia says. "But I didn't expect her to like - give it up so easily."
"I'm learning," Blake says. She trails her fingers softly across the keyboard, presses down on a G. "To be more honest."
A hand descends over her head, tousels her hair, musses her bangs over her eyes - she whacks at it blindly, from happiness to harrumph. Sun pulls his arm back and says, "It's nice."
"Nice?"
"Knowing how you feel, for once," he clarifies, but he isn't an actor; his smile only curls at a single corner, almost unbearably earnest despite the amount of it he's trying to hide. It's hard for her to fight old habits, to hold his gaze without looking away, but--
Well, she's decided she's done running.
--
Blake drives straight to Yang and Ruby's at the end of the day, waits for Yang to come home and collapse unceremoniously into her arms.
"How was it?" Blake asks, laughing into her neck. "Did sparks fly?"
"The casting director thought so, but honestly?" Yang says. "Nobody else is you."
--
Emmy nominations drop, which normally aren't Yang's category, but she'd guest-starred on a top-rated HBO miniseries back in February to critical acclaim - which is now making itself tangibly present in the form of her own nomination. Somehow, she doesn't see it coming; she stares blankly at her name as if she's concerned of its presence on a list, before blowing into a smile and laughing into the curve of Blake's mouth.
"I'm proud of you," Blake says, kissing across her face. "I watched it when it aired. I never told you that."
Yang can't stop giggling. "Did you actually like the show?"
"No," Blake admits shamelessly. "I hated it. I only watched it for you."
"Was it worth it?"
"It was worth it."
--
The premiere for Yang's movie arrives faster than Blake's able to keep track of, and it's the first she's actually attending (with company goes unsaid). Pyrrha'd been invited, and with her normally comes Jaune - Nora and Ren - Ruby, of course, and Weiss - her dad--
"I can't believe I'm meeting your dad at your movie premiere," Blake comments, and Coco laughs from where she's unzipping the garment bag in Yang's large powder room. "Talk about pressure."
"Are you kidding?" Yang says, helping style her own hair; she's not really a fan of other people touching it unless it's necessary. Velvet's half an exception - Yang allows it, but still complains. She's currently working on an elegant braid, which will wrap around the back of her head and weave into some kind of fancy bun. "It's the perfect time - he'll be overwhelmed with pride at both my success and the fact that I've finally 'stopped procrastinating a love life', as he so charmingly puts it."
Coco snorts, straightens out the dress; it's a vibrant scarlet, beadwork around the waist with a trilled, flowing skirt, sharp cut between her breasts - it has sleeves that loop and fall around her upper arms, straps separated slightly further up the shoulder to keep it in place. "You're wearing Rodarte tonight," she says, down to business. "Your heels are Louis Vuitton."
"Yeah, yeah." Yang pins her braid into place, Velvet's precise fingers securing it with a better angle. "I got it. I love talking fashion with the media."
"You know what I'm wearing?" Blake says, note too serious to be legitimate. Her brand of dry humor's apparent from its first syllable to Yang. "Target."
"You are not," Coco says, mortified as she rounds on Blake and nearly drops the dress; it takes her a second to place Yang's laughter underneath her disgust, and then her expression dives into displeasure. "Oh, so she's a comedian and a musician."
"Yang managed the full package, apparently," Velvet says, half-smiling through her concentration.
"Well, except that she's like, a blanket hog," Yang dismisses, allows Velvet to position her head for a better angle. "I'm probably gonna have to dump her."
"You're the one who kicks the blankets off in the first place."
"It's hot."
"No, it isn't. You just have the internal body temperature of like, a fucking yeti or something--"
Coco sneaks a look into the mirror, catches Velvet's eye, finds her mouth fighting a smile; they're harboring the same fear: any sincerity they reveal might be too heavy, might send Yang into composure rather than carelessness.
"Baby, I love it when you call me a cryptid," Yang says, and that's a losing battle. Velvet chuckles, shaking her head, still weaving long strands of blonde hair meticulously through her fingers.
Yang pauses, and for a moment Coco's afraid that's all they'll get, the moment closing - but she only smiles brighter, white light reflecting rings around her irises, and oh, of course: acting for a living is one thing, but having to live like you're acting is another. They're her friends. She's probably tired of hiding.
"What are you really wearing?" Coco asks, because soon Scarlet'll be there to do her make-up and there's a little too much giggling for a steady hand.
"Armani," Blake says, and wanders into the closet to find it. Nobody comments on that detail. "I've been...I used to get dragged to a lot of high-profile parties. So I'm prepared."
"Let's see," Coco says, hanging Yang's dress on its rack. She sweeps right past the revelation - she's read Blake's Wikipedia, knows the scenes she'd been born into.
It takes her a minute, but it's not exactly her fault - Yang's closet is huge, and despite its organization, it's still overwhelming to sort through, simple to lose an item in. Coco spies her entire section of patterned flannel shirts and scowls.
Until she spots the long, glittering black dress held in Blake's hands.
Oh, that's a girl who knows her angles, her curves, all her lines and edges. She nods approvingly, able to envision it on her perfectly. "That'll do," she says, and Blake grins like she hears the concealed intensity behind the endorsement.
--
Most people arrive to red-carpet premieres on foot - that's a detail Blake never would've guessed, but it's obvious the second it's pointed out.
They're the lucky few who get to arrive by car; riding with the star has its perks. Yang's publicist is already there, and she's surprisingly nice, though very curt as she gives Yang the rundown of what to expect. Tai's coming from Malibu, and he'd rather take his own car and park than deal with the circus of the carpet. He's been down it enough times, Yang says; everyone invited walks the red carpet. But the way I do it is a little different.
And all Blake has to do is wait ten, twenty minutes to realize what she means.
Once they're past security, Glynda immediately shepherds Yang to the photo pit while they hang back in the crowd, unnoticed amidst the absolute chaos from the photographers - they're screaming Yang's name, over the shoulder, to the left, hand on the hip - but Yang's got it down to a science, an art; she poses for ten to fifteen seconds, moves down line. She's stunning in her dress, her elegant bun, her dark eyeliner and smokey eyeshadow, her red lips - Blake's breathless at the sight of her, at war with too many of her own emotions - pride, hunger, venerance - even Weiss seems impressed with Yang's poise, her prominence.
After that, she's lead to the start of the press line where she gives various interviews, pretending to be charmed by the interviewers who comment on her appearance, more forgiving of the ones who ask her more personal questions, and warm to the ones who congratulate her.
And then there are fans. Hundreds of fans.
Blake's exhausted watching it - all they've done is linger in the background, gossiping about some of the people passing by; Ruby seems to have endless anecdotes from various red carpet events - but Yang works it in stride, and then they're finally, finally inside.
"I think they invented red carpets for you," Blake murmurs to her the second there's no microphone to pick it up.
"I need a drink," she says in response, and Blake takes the risk, brushes her fingers against Yang's wrist. It seems like enough of a reminder. Yang softens, mollified and real. "You look amazing. They should've been taking your picture."
"You can take my picture later."
She's rewarded with a dark, sultry kind of smirk; Blake's not sure what she's just agreed to. "Deal," Yang says, and oh, yes, she's everything that red represents.
--
Tai's already there - he meets them in the lobby, kisses his daughter on the cheek in congratulations, hugs his other one enthusiastically - and then he turns on Blake, blue eyes like skies instead of whirlpools, something that lifts rather than drowns. There was a time she'd see those eyes and collapse under the weight of them. Too many people associate red with anger, with hatred, with violence - it's wrong, it's all wrong. Blue, she thinks. The mask of cruelty.
But he's like his daughter, breathes new life into a world she's grown numb to; he pulls her into an embrace, repeating her name in a breathless tone of delight. I've heard so much about you, he says, bright the way the cloudless universe is supposed to feel. You've gotta make it down to Malibu one of these days - we'll go for brunch, head to the beach--
"I love her," Blake interrupts, because sometimes she's caught between who she used to be and who she is, and love is the only thing to place herself. "I just - I think it's important that you know that."
He's taken aback by the abrupt confession; the crowd moves steadily around them, the pulsing of blood. Yang's been wrapped up by the director, but even the back of her head is enough to wow, the smooth skin of her back, muscles beneath.
And he relaxes into a smile. It isn't as overpowering, closed-lipped and softer; he says, "Yeah," and pats her on the shoulder. "I can tell. But as long as she knows, that's enough."
"She knows." Blake burns against her bones, simmering inside of herself. "She definitely knows."
--
She sits on the opposite side of Ruby, a seat away from Yang, and she's kind of glad she does.
Powerful isn't even the right word to describe it - Yang had checked with her multiple times, asking if she thought she'd be able to handle the depiction, letting her know the extent of what was shown on screen - but there are parts she still isn't prepared for, smaller, quieter moments of peace that remind her too much of the first breath after rain, of looking down at her own skin and finding it unbroken. There's a scene in which Yang's character stands on a cliffside overlooking the ocean and breathes - her eyelashes flutter in the wind; her lips part, pink and chapped; her hair's stringy and whipping her face in the air - she's so close to the edge, for a moment there's a collective inhale from the audience, like they're afraid she's going to jump - but that's the truth of it, that's what it feels like: suddenly having so much freedom you wonder where it ends. If it ever does.
Ruby is openly crying by the end - so is Tai - and even Weiss is dabbing at her eyes, trying not to ruin her eyeliner. Half the audience is a wreck. It's unbelievably moving - the cinematography alone, Weiss keeps murmuring, half-choked and pretending to rise above it - and Blake - Blake--
She isn't crying, but she finds Yang's eyes when the lights raise and there aren't any words to do it justice, only concepts: tree roots upending pavement, daring to be contained; the sound of seagulls, miles away from water; makeshift memorials, crosses stuck into dirt beside highways. Something of a death, she thinks. Something of a beginning.
Half of Yang's mouth twists up, unbearably and openly tender. She understands. She must.
--
Fame, Blake starts to realize, becomes addicting. The power of it. The significance.
They attend the after-party at the director's house in Beverly Hills, and everyone wants whatever part of Yang they're able to latch onto - her ear, her arm, her smile - but the only person Yang has eyes for is her. That's the addicting part.
Maybe it's because it's a smaller space and the crowd's looser, more casual. Maybe it's because she's had five cocktails and hardly anything to eat to soak up the alcohol. Maybe it's because Yang is unbelievably talented and an otherworldly kind of gorgeous, the kind that other people beg at temples to worship. Maybe it's because Blake's the only one who actually gets to beg her for it and be rewarded.
They're in the middle of the garden, too close together under the excuse of space. Blake's dress is glittering underneath the fairy lights, strung around the perimeter and beautifully illuminating the dark cherry wood of the fence; the stone fountain bubbles to their left, surrounded by hydrangeas. Yang's drunk, too, and it's dangerous again, like Nora's birthday, like every time they're out of control and their eyes lock, lips curving around their glasses.
Yang begins to slip.
Why wouldn't she - she's coming off the high of a seemingly successful premiere, being showered with compliments by every guest she brushes shoulders with. She's the center of attention, and her ego loves it, though not as much as she loves being the center of Blake's attention.
She wraps her fingers around Blake's wrist, starts to cup her cheek as she bends to whisper into her ear, starts to let her lips linger a little too precariously. Her eyes are long gone - she's staring at Blake's mouth and smiling, darting occasionally back to her pupils. She's overflowing, harboring too much to internalize; Blake can see the debate falling short, can see the influence taking over. And she doesn't stop it at all.
The music's loud, covers them like a roof, like a suggestion - it's all about sex and putting your mouth places you only dream about - and Yang caves in, lips winding themselves wicked, stare letting itself become smoke. She drops Blake's name as if by divine intervention - she can't help herself, she's the most important person in the city and she always wants what she already has - darkly arrogant, saccharine.
"What?" Blake says, struck into her.
"I think," Yang murmurs, leaning closer with a hand on her arm, "I'm going to kiss you."
There are about a thousand reasons she shouldn't - Blake should say no, not here, should take her hand and drag her into corners, should lead her on with a sly shake of her head and a promise of later - but she can't do any of it. She's drunk and Yang's - Yang's--
She's heard, you know, that astronauts who return to Earth have such altered perspectives on the universe that they can scarcely think of anything but going back. The curve of the world, the shimmering ethereality of the horizon, the infinite blackness stretching out around them in every direction - it changes you. Consumes you. And suddenly it's the only thing that matters.
That's Yang. Everything.
And so she whispers, "God, please."
Yang tucks her hand against Blake's jaw, fingers spreading through her hair, and all Blake can think before Yang's lips are on hers is that space - in all its boundlessness, its grandeur - has nothing on the way Yang works her tongue.
--
"Oh, Jesus Christ," Weiss says. "They're so fucking stupid. Yang makes one fucking movie and thinks she's invincible--"
Ruby snorts, laugh breaking over it; she can't take Weiss's side when it's wrong. People are looking, but they're looking away; they know she isn't something of theirs to consume.
"Try fifty movies," Ruby points out. "If anyone's invincible, it's her."
Glynda steps up beside them, stone-faced and stoic. "Vodka tonic," she tells the bartender shortly, and drains it in what Weiss swears is a single minute.
--
Once they're home, locked away in Yang's bedroom with Ruby on the other side of the house, Yang follows through with her promise - she trains her phone on the arch of Blake's spine, her black dress glittering in the light. The fabric pooling around her hips, her arms free. Slithering to the floor. Skin, and skin, and skin, sand dunes under moonlight.
These are pictures Yang doesn't delete.
--
They're incredibly lucky photographic evidence doesn't leak, though the story itself does.
Fortunately it's through Twitter sources, and mostly uncredible for actual journalists - 'friend of a friend'-type nonsense that only tabloids have the lack of respect to publish for views - but it's definitely out there, misplaced puzzle pieces that their fans have no problems stringing together like some collaborative work of modern art.
Hannah @ciaolong · 1h
YALL my friend's brother worked on Yang Xiao Long's new movie and said he saw her making out with a girl at the afterparty...my friend showed him a pic of Blake and he said it was her….I'm fuckign
ma'am this is a mcdonalds @redlikeroses · 1h
Replying to @ciaolong
no way omfg are u fucking with us
Hannah @ciaolong · 1h
Replying to @redlikeroses
NO dude I'm serious! I mean nobody took pictures or anything because it was like a closed event but it sounded legit to me, my friend was like yeah he mentioned it casually, like he said he was gonna say hello to her but she was busy with her girlfriend
ma'am this is a mcdonalds @redlikeroses · 1h
Replying to @ciaolong
SHUT UP OMFG HER GIRLFRINED
kylee @belladonna_blake · 1h
Replying to @redlikeroses @ciaolong
NO….I WANT TO BELIEVE
"Apparently Ruby's fans have a name for us," Yang says, reading the tweets over Blake's shoulder, still wrapped around her in bed. It's a distraction, purposefully constructed. "Not just you and me, but like, the four of us."
"Which is?" Blake asks, trying to quell a fear she isn't sure is even there. She's fighting habits - so, people know, but they're still in control. It isn't appearing in People; TMZ don't have the proof they need. Yang's right: if anything, Page Six is going to run some bullshit clickbait calling them 'gal pals' and leave it there. Total lack of imagination.
"Team R.W.B.Y.," Yang says, rolling her eyes; her cheek presses against Blake's bare shoulder. "They think it's funny that our initials together sound like her name."
"Of course they do."
"People are gonna combine our names, you know," she continues, arm curling around Blake's ribcage, mouth dropping to her ear. She's still laying on her side, but her smile threatens the rest of her face. "We're gonna have something horrible like Yake--"
She rolls into the sheets as she turns over, burying her snicker into the skin of Yang's collarbone. "Bang," she says, and she's met with a beating heart and a laugh.
"At least that's accurate." Lips press against the curve of her skull. "Are you okay?"
Blake blinks her eyes open to gold; sun winds its way through Yang's hair the way children braid around dandelion stems, delicate but binding. It's hard to be afraid when there's so much light in the room. "Yeah," she says, amazed to find it true. There's no storming conflict; no discomfort. She isn't a thing, and she won't hide herself away like one. "It's - I don't know. It's inevitable, I guess, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Yang's never been one to pull a punch, sugarcoat the truth until it's rotting. She's still gentle in spite of it. "It's inevitable, but it's still ours."
Ours - that's a word with a spark, a word shaped like a house with an open door - Blake's used to mine, hands that grip so tightly they leave marks, crime scenes. Ours is a promise, a proposal, a forever. She's learning how to live with that.
"Then that's what matters," Blake says, thinks of hollowing out her chest and putting her heart somewhere it can live forever. Thinks of tying it to Yang's, thinks of rebuilding its chambers into rooms, habitable and welcoming. Thinks of immortality.
It's hard, she's realizing, to be so grounded when her own past is further and further away by the day, by the minute, by the second. It's hard to feel vulnerable when she's allowed to say no. It's hard for her to remember.
A smile - Yang traces the blue veins in the crook of her arm with her fingers, like they're the fine bristles of a paintbrush and she's creating. It doesn't matter what. Something with a life of its own.
Maybe that isn't such a bad thing.
--
Nebula is the name of the woman they end up casting as Yang's love interest and counterpart. She's a little bit of a fresher face - with Yang attached, they're allowed to take the risk - but she's a lesbian like Yang, passionate about the project, headstrong and stubborn. Physically, Yang gets it - they look good together, and she'd played off of Yang well in the audition, delivered her lines in a way that challenged Yang's character, rather than acquiesced to her as a lot of the others had done.
But she's also extroverted, and purposefully unsubtle.
She allows her gaze to slip, lets her mouth curl crooked. Yang recognizes the signs early, when she rests a hand on Yang's shoulder as if it were a natural habit, to touch. So Yang'll build the borders - if the film's successful, they'll be seeing each other for another few years, and Yang isn't one to let her life imitate her art.
"I like you," Yang says abruptly during a break in the table read. "I think you have good instincts. So I'm going to be honest with you."
"Okay," Nebula says cautiously, capping her water bottle.
"I have a girlfriend." Yang smiles over the word, can't even be bothered to curse herself for its glaring authenticity. "And I'm like, obsessed with her. I'd hate for there to be any miscommunication between us."
The information's not as surprising to her as it is to everyone else: Yang's notoriously alone to the public, even if she hasn't actually been in private. Nebula cocks her head, examines her top to bottom, lingers on the necklace.
And then she grins. "Musician, huh?" she pegs, eyes twinkling. "So the rumors are true?"
"Yeah," Yang says, mirroring her mouth, more lighthearted now that they've crossed that hurdle. "As they usually are in Hollywood."
--
She finds Blake where she always is these days - out in the garden, drinking in the sky and the sun with her guitar resting in her lap, notebook open at her side. Her hair's up in a ponytail, skin warm from the heat; her tank top hangs loose around her body, black lace of her bra visible against her ribs.
"Hey." Yang drops to the grass beside her, doesn't stop, lies back and exhales heavily. Somehow, the cloudless blue sky never gets boring, and its boundlessness doesn't overwhelm. It's hard to find discontent in a perfect day - and that's every day.
Blake smiles, stops mid-strum. "Hey. How was the read?"
"Good," Yang says, licks her lips; they're a little chapped. She spends a lot of time kissing Blake without enough lip balm. "I told Nebula you were my girlfriend. She was kind of - testing the waters, I think. Like you know how girls do that thing where they pretend they're touchy when they're interested in you, so it's like, easy to play off--"
"Yeah." Blake's already laughing. "I'm familiar with the move."
"--Right, yeah. So I figured it was better to shut that down early." Yang hears the breeze before it hits her, high in the trees before sinking down, rustles the bushes, the flowers, the grass; it ghosts the smile unfolding across her face. "She was cool about it, though. She wasn't actually into me."
"Well, it's not like I could blame her if she was."
"D'you think it's gonna be weird for you?" Yang asks, tucking her hands behind her head. She's oddly comfortable outside in the sun, laying on the ground; there's a girl with her music and the weather's nice. Maybe that isn't so hard to understand. "Like, when you have to see me kissing another girl."
Blake cocks her head, both arms resting across her guitar. Her ponytail swings behind her, following the curve of her neck. "Probably not," she says, sounding mildly amused at the prospect. "You've kissed people in movies before. Besides, I know you don't want to be kissing her."
Well, yes - it's part of the job, but kissing anyone who isn't Blake certainly lacks any kind of appeal. Yang's previous smile quickly tugs itself into a grimace, and Blake laughs again at her expression. "I don't," she says, lets her sigh out. "I mean, it's not like I was a fan of it before - it's weird, you know? It's so technical. There's nothing sexy about it. Sometimes you get notes about tongue usage."
"Yeah, I get that," Blake says, even though she definitely doesn't. She's trying desperately to keep a straight face, sympathize - she's cracking at the corners, laughter still sitting in the lines of her mouth - and she gives it up the minute she knows she's caught, Yang's lips curling at an edge and her eyes slanting accusatorily. "You're such an incredible actress," she says instead, and oh, flattery will get her far. "I'm probably going to forget it's you."
"That's the goal," Yang says with a cheeky grin, letting it slide. "I want you to be proud of me."
"I'm always proud of you." She utters it softly, matter-of-fact, setting her guitar to the side. Sometimes that's the familiar mood - not one, but two - love is always waiting around corners.
It's a crime that Yang isn't kissing her. She sits up, supports herself on a hand, and leans in, catches Blake's tiny gasp with her mouth - her necklace dangles between them, resting above Blake's heart. She forgets about the grass, about the sun; it all becomes an embrace, the world wrapping its arms around them.
She pulls away, brushes Blake's bangs away from her forehead; she can't contain the pressure of her own adoration - it's a hose, it's a wrecking ball; it spills, it crumbles - but Blake catches it in her cupped hands, in the golden pools of her irises; Blake catches it, just as she always has, and Yang finally understands how something can be both immense and weightless at the same time.
She shifts onto her back again, limbs strewn across the grass; this is one of those moments where she's positive she's lived her life right - every mistake, every stumble, every fall - she's here. Her smile peaks at a corner. "Play me a song," she says.
Blake reaches for her guitar. "Okay."
--
Their first week in the studio goes more smoothly than anyone expects - especially Fox and Sage, their producer and engineer respectively; they'd been the driving force behind the critical acclaim of their first album, and knew how to give critiques productively and collaboratively - Fox, blind, liked to say he had more qualifications than anybody with his heightened hearing. The label had taken a big risk with their band after White Fang, but the two men had never been anything less than optimistic and excited to work. To Blake, it'd looked a lot like the first glimpse of hope in a long, long time.
"You're more prepared than the first time, that's for sure," Sage says during one of their tracking sessions. "Fox doesn't have nearly as many notes."
"I was inspired," Blake says.
"You weren't inspired the first time?"
"It's different," she says. "I was barely me the first time."
He doesn't respond to that, but after she lays down the vocals for Alone Together, she catches his eye and knows he understands.
--
The closer Blake gets to finishing her own songs, the more music she puts on around the house. The more time she spends in the studio, the closer her veins rise to the surface underneath her skin, the faster her heart finds its rhythm. She spends a lot of time on her feet, often swaying absent-mindedly, tapping her fingers against whatever surface is in front of her, mouthing lyrics whose melodies only she can hear.
"I'm thinking of leaning into it," she says one Saturday afternoon with her head in Yang's lap, fingers using the veins of Yang's wrist like chords, keys, gently darting back and forth. "You. Acknowledging it."
The hum Yang settles into is both one of curiosity and confirmation, subtle enough not to startle. "How so?"
"You love Instagram," Blake says. "You can post pictures of us, if you want to."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she affirms. Los Angeles, these days, appears larger than it ever has, all its nooks and alleyways and boulevards stretching into mountains, its sky and stars no longer a dome but a highway. She's farther from her past than she's ever been, and more herself than she's ever felt. "We're part of your life."
"You are," Yang agrees, too softly to encompass we and altered to fit Blake alone. "I'll start slow."
That's a comment that brings an unexpected smile pulling at the corner of Blake's mouth - "Slow?"
"Yeah." Yang taps at her screen, and a second later Blake's own phone lights up with a notification.
yangxiaolong liked your photo.
She gives away her laughter; Yang's earned it. "Starting slow, huh?" Blake says. "We've never been very good at that."
"I'm giving myself five minutes before I give in to the impulse."
The pool water laps at its edges; Yang's fountain bubbles. There are birds chirping with them like they're giggling along. She's a musician, but she's never heard so many pleasant noises, so much natural lightness to the earth around her.
That's what happens when glass stops shattering, when wood stops splintering. It leaves room for everything else.
--
Five minutes turns out to be an overstatement - she makes it three before Blake gets tagged in a photo along with Weiss and Ruby, from a night out at the Chateau Marmont's cocktail bar. Conversation clearly has their attention; Blake's got an eyebrow like an archway, and Ruby's hooked on whatever dramatic hand gesture Weiss is using for emphasis.
yangxiaolong go out paint the town red
blakebelladonna not the color I'd choose
Another laugh. "And what color would you choose? Purple?"
Blake lifts a hand, catches a curl of hair Yang's waving in the breeze.
"Gold," she says. "I'd paint it all gold."
She thinks it's funny that the sun still tries to be a big deal.
--
sierra @gayyang · 15m
YANGS INSTAGRAM
gemma @gambol_shroud · 14m
Replying to @gayyang
FIRST OFFICIAL SIGHTING
sierra @gayyang · 13m
Replying to @gambol_shroud
im crying its like weve spotted an alien
gemma @gambol_shroud · 11m
Replying to @gayyang
x-files theme plays*
Jax @ SDCC @iliaaamitola · 10m
Replying to @gambol_shroud @gayyang
YOU'RE BOTH SO STUPID DID YOU SEE BLAKE'S COMMENT
sierra @gayyang · 8m
Replying to @iliaaamitola @gambol_shroud
NO SHE COMMENTED…………………...
gemma @gambol_shroud · 7m
Replying to @gayyang @iliaaamitola
yo its possible that im experiencing a serious medical issue. i think its called death. NOT THE COLOR? ID CHOOSE? HELLO? HELLO? ??????FLIRTING??? HELLO
Jax @ SDCC @iliaaamitola · 5m
Replying to @gambol_shroud @gayyang
I KNOW DUMBASSES
sierra @gayyang · 3m
Replying to @iliaaamitola @gambol_shroud
blake. baby. honey. tahts gay. youre gay
gemma @gambol_shroud · 2m
Replying to @gayyang @iliaaamitola
its gay bro
sierra @gayyang · 1m
Replying to @gambol_shroud @iliaaamitola
bout to be real gay hours up in here. real yang and blake are gay hours
gemma @gambol_shroud · now
Replying to @gayyng @iliaaamitola
please dont insult us like this its literally always yang and blake are gay hours
--
"Wait 'till you see the blogs," Yang says after.
"The blogs," Blake repeats vaguely, a distant monster at a faraway castle she'll save for later to reckon with.
--
They don't really have free time anymore, but incredibly, it's less of a problem and more of an annoyance.
It doesn't complicate their relationship, doesn't leave them bitter and wanting and empty; it's all temporary, all leading to bigger and brighter things. When Yang's home, she's got her script out and her highlighters messily strewn across the table; green goes to words she remembers from the book, pink to a dynamic she needs a tone for, blue smothering lines she can't quite get right. Her nights on set can run late - background, she keeps joking, is getting paid some wild overtime.
Blake remembers the apologies like liquid encasing her brain the first time her own studio session runs over - remembers her dread, the dawning anxiety nipping at her heels and latching, teeth gnawing their way up her calves, her thighs, her spine - remembers how it all vanished at the sound of Yang's voice telling her to take her time, a sponge soaking blood. Not leaving her spotless. But clean.
They forget the cage they're in, start seeing it as a freedom. Yang's Instagram fills up. Blake taps the heart and comments - not always, but enough. They don't interact anywhere else, but sometimes they'll like each other's tweets. She starts seeing the infiltration of her notifications page; icons of their candids, handles of their names combined.
They get careless, that's the problem. They get reckless and wild and bold. It's coming up on six months. With Out of Fire in production, Yang's days are often long and grueling and exhilarating; Menagerie's album is almost complete, aside from a few tweaks Fox wants to make to a couple tracks, working with the mixer and masterer. She spends a lot of time with Sun and Neptune and Ilia, eating In-N-Out double-doubles and listening to their own songs.
"It sounds like you," Sun says after a full album play-through, toothy grin uncontainable, and Blake turns her face to hide tears that never fall.
--
"Reset!" the A.D. calls for the eighth time that scene. Neither of them complain, stepping back to their markers; extras shift all around them, a human wave. Their director's notoriously perfectionist, but fortunately not the thirty-takes-and-up sort; she tends to nail her vision in much less.
"Is there a note?" Nebula calls, adjusting her sleeve, shifting her weight between feet after. She's hardly so impatient; Yang gives her an odd look, a slanting brow.
"No," the A.D. replies from the tent. "It's excellent. Great work so far, ladies."
"Great."
"Hot date?" Yang asks, and gets slapped with an eye-roll.
"Please," she scoffs. Her makeup artist comes over, brush in hand, fixing a sheen on her cheek. It's not a deterrent. "I'm not stupid enough to try and schedule something on a weeknight."
"Fair."
"What about you?" Nebula returns the question, doesn't bother hiding her teasing grin. "Missing your girl?"
"Absolutely," Yang says, smiling over the admission without embarrassment. She knows how to exist without Blake next to her, but it's nothing compared to when she is. "She's in the studio, though. Her album's almost done."
"Damn." The reluctant admiration blows Nebula's air of casualty, and she embraces it as such. "I know people probably tell her she hit it big, but damn, Yang - I hope you know you're the lucky one."
Yang smirks; she likes Nebula more and more by the day despite their somewhat rocky start. It all goes with the territory. Friendship, though, is quickly looking to be easily attainable. "Oh, I'm definitely aware."
"She's way cooler than you."
"She can play like six instruments," Yang points out. She watches the A.D. gesture to the screen, mime something to the director, who has her hand tucked against her chin. "She writes the music and the lyrics for all her songs. Of course she's cooler than me."
Someone's adjusting lights; for a moment Yang's illuminated by them, unnatural and sharp, but the kindness of her is there, too - she can't act all the time. Sometimes love breaks away from her, becomes visible. Nebula won't draw more attention to it than necessary. "And she's hot," she says instead, pretending like she can't see what's there.
An appreciative smile, a glinting hint of teeth. "And she's hot," Yang agrees, and they're struck by a laughing fit so hard that action has to be delayed for several minutes.
--
"I hope you're happy with yourselves," is what Weiss offers up in lieu of a greeting as they sit down for brunch on a Saturday morning; they'd been papped mercilessly walking in, but it's a famous spot and wasn't entirely unexpected. Somewhat unfortunate, though, that they'd arrived together - they're blowing cover fast. "Everyone's talking about you."
"They usually are," Yang replies, nonchalantly flipping over her menu as she scans for cocktails; Blake settles next to her, rests her purse in the nook of the booth. "We're doing boozy brunch, right?"
"I wouldn't be here if we weren't," Weiss says. It's somehow not as snobbish as it should be, or maybe they're just too familiar with her façades. "I'm thinking mimosas."
"Sounds good." She shifts back to food, lingering on omelettes; Blake's pressing her lips together as she contemplates waffle toppings. "Were they tipped off, or something?"
"No," Weiss says, and doesn't get the chance to explain further; their waiter approaches, sensing a lull. He's perfectly composed and polite, used to the sightings, and keeps any flicker of recognition hidden - he's probably an aspiring actor, Yang thinks. They always are.
They pause on food - "We're waiting for one more," Weiss says - but their drinks are out in record time, as though the staff had been eavesdropping prior and already had their glasses ready.
Blake runs her hands through her hair; sunlight drifts across the table as it streams through the windows, catches in the black and reflects. It's almost mesmerizing, how it glides thickly through her fingers and falls in casual waves - but then, to Yang, everything about her is a beacon, a lighthouse. Blake smiles and it calls Yang's name.
"I'm sitting right here," Weiss says, jerks Yang out of her trance. Her glass is tucked in hand, already half-empty. "Jesus Christ."
Bemusement is what she reads in Blake's eyes - she shrugs her shoulders in response, offers a smile lopsidedly. "You're pretty," she says. "It's distracting."
"Oh, I see," Blake says, and turns back to Weiss with an apology so fake it should be made of silicone and have a serial number. "I'm sorry for my overwhelming beauty. I hadn't realized the diversion I was causing by existing."
The corner of Weiss's mouth quirks - she isn't immune to humor, and she's more inclined to give into it when it's coming from Blake, anyway; she was there for a time when Blake barely spoke, let alone laughed. Hearing her make a joke with such ease - it's simple, but it's a sign of progress that once seemed unobtainable. "I suppose I can forgive you."
"Your benevolence honors us," Blake says, and it's one of those moments Yang remembers how long the two of them have been friends, how it technically predates their relationship because Weiss was the introduction of it - she says technically because they've come to terms with their history, how the root of it lies somewhere in another world, another time - and it's a window there, a glimpse into the before. Weiss smiles a certain way when she's around Blake, when Blake's happy. That's a story in itself.
"How's the album coming?" Weiss changes the subject. "Sun's been giving me daily reports, despite the fact that I haven't asked for them."
"Almost done," Blake says, lifting her glass to her lips. "And then there's the title."
"Still having trouble?" Yang asks, and rubs a hand between her shoulder blades without thinking twice. Blake, to her credit, doesn't seem to notice, either. Weiss's eyes follow the movement like a finger lining a trail on a map.
"Nothing's felt right," Blake says, parts her lips as if to continue the statement before falling short; it's a strange pause, an awkward lull. The point of Weiss's eyebrow could slice skin with its expectation, but Blake doesn't offer it up, only smiles serenely like there's a secret she's come into sudden possession of. Yang recognizes it; she's willing to bet Weiss does, too.
Neither of them say a word. Ruby picks exactly that time to rush in, hair mussed and cheeks flushed, excuses slipping from her lips and the answers hiding in Blake's.
--
The pictures come out - strolling into the restaurant together, matching sunglasses, Yang's necklace and Blake's calloused fingers - they aren't touching in any of them, but it's still there, glaring in its near-vulgarity, the space between them more conspicuous than if they'd left none at all.
"Yang," Glynda says in her ear, days before her twenty-fifth birthday. "You can't hide this much longer."
"I know."
"You're barely hiding it now."
"I know," she says, staring at a photo of their retreating backs, heads tilted towards each other and spines curving as if in reflection.
It's theirs, she keeps telling herself. It still belongs to them.
It's not a lie, but it's not exactly the truth, either.
--
Her birthday, miraculously, lands on a Saturday.
Her plans involve sleeping until ten, soaking in morning sunlight with Blake pressed against her side and the relief of finding no other obligation; she imagines skin and skin and skin, a patient heat rolling slowly across their bodies like waves reflecting over asphalt. She imagines teasing, imagines dusting her hand low between Blake's legs and building a river into a flood.
She doesn't get that. It's her birthday. What she gets is much, much better:
Blake's fingers sinking into her cunt, abruptly tearing her from a dream that she'd found nice at the time, though not in comparison to this: her eyelids flutter open, lips pulling apart a gasp, knee crooking automatically as if trying to take more of Blake in, give her room to expand. She's not surprised at how wet she is, at how easily she stretches around Blake's fingers; the unexpectedness of the action alone is enough to cut those corners. No need for foreplay when she wakes up to an almost sinfully beautiful woman wearing the devil on her mouth, hands with a motive.
"Jesus, fuck," Yang breathes out as Blake works another finger into her, has her clenching around three. The fabric of her pillowcase is soft in her tight grip, pulling taut at its corners as she writhes against her sheets.
"Happy birthday," Blake says, her smile feral. "Ruby went out this morning, so..."
She's got one leg hooked over Yang's thigh, wetness evident - she's grinding her hips slightly, and she's clearly been turned on since before she'd woken Yang up, waiting. There's sunlight, there's heat - everything she'd wanted without the patience as a hindrance - sometimes she just wants to fucking cum--
But then she dips a hand between Blake's legs, finds her clit, soaked and messy; Blake hums in her throat, caught in the middle of a moan and an indignancy. Yang opens her mouth against Blake's neck, searches for her pulse and sucks her heart straight from her veins - teeth scraping, purpling skin - feeling Blake growing wetter against her fingers is more of a turn-on than anything else, how she dissolves into a breathy, needy thing, her hips desperate and her clit throbbing; Blake gets to a point where it's all she can think about, won't stop until she gets what she wants, something Yang has no problem extending to the point of incoherent pleading.
Her touch is too light, and Blake's own fingers are losing focus. She knows what Yang's after, and she's in one of her moods, feisty with a desire to fight back. "Stop it," she snarls, short nails digging into Yang's shoulder. "Fuck me or don't touch me at all."
Yang's half-smirk is alight in an instant, arch of her eyebrow in opposition, becoming cool. "Excuse me?" she murmurs, a dark tone that has Blake trembling against her.
They're so far from where they started - now she rolls over, curls her fingers around Blake's knee, parts her thighs, pins her wrists to the mattress with her free hand - now she does what Blake asks without giving her the results - now she rubs her hand the length of Blake's cunt, cum spreading along her palm while Blake squirms viciously, and slowly slides two fingers into her.
She presses the heel of her palm against Blake's clit and whispers dangerously, "Don't tell me what to do." Blake swallows against a cry, high-strung and out of control. "Fuck yourself."
"Yang," she whines, cants her hips despite her restricted movement; she's desperate on an edge, tight around Yang's hand and begging her deeper, faster, harder. "Fuck you--"
"It's my birthday," Yang interrupts, and curls her fingers sharply, forces Blake's spine into a curve and her voice breaking soundlessness. "So I suggest you think about being nicer to me if you want to cum at all."
It's something Blake admits occasionally - once in awhile - no, there's time for honesty, and she admits it often: nothing riles her up quite as fast as Yang on top of her, telling her what do and holding it back until she snaps, cums once, cums again, cums over and over with Yang's tongue lapping at her cunt, swallowing every drop. She loves knowing she'll only get what she wants when Yang decides to give it to her, loves the precariousness of that cliff, of not knowing when she'll fall.
Not knowing. It used to be terrifying. Yang's flipped that on its head, made it into a pleasure so powerful it's worth giving up her own for - maybe it's the safety, the freedom of it. She doesn't have to be in control anymore - doesn't have to cling to it like the reigns of a monster with teeth sharp enough to cut itself loose, doesn't have to press it to her chest like the red metal of a hot iron brand - and maybe that's it, maybe it's trust: Yang would never do anything Blake didn't want her to do. She's aware of all Blake's lines, her stop signs and red lights.
That's sexier to her than giving orders, being obeyed. She doesn't want to be obeyed. She wants to be fucked so well she forgets she's ever felt anything else.
And then Yang withdraws her hand completely, and Blake almost takes it all back.
It's the unnatural gleam to Yang's eye that stops her from complaining, stops her from taking Yang's wrist and sliding down onto her fingers - there's a plan, a proposition, and Blake kind of wants to find out what it is before disregarding it in favor of satisfaction.
Yang digs her nails into Blake's thighs as she backs away, leaves one side sticky and damp, and slips off the bed, reaching for the bottom drawer of her nightstand. Blake watches bemusedly and asks, "What are you doing?"
"I made a purchase," Yang says, pulling out a harness, and Blake gets a pretty good idea of what the rest of her purchase includes.
The dildo itself is purple, ridged, nothing lifelike about it; Yang flashes the darkness of a smirk, her eyes almost red in reflection, and easily finds the yes, God, yes pooling on Blake's tongue, between her legs. The sheets might've survived before this; not now. She's leaning up on her elbows, knees pressed together, and she can feel the way she shivers at the sight of it, can feel the way she drips.
"Oh," she says, but it comes out sounding like ruin me.
That's a message Yang doesn't need words to understand.
--
"Mm," Blake hums as Yang slides deliciously inside of her, adjusting in a way that has Blake biting hard on her lip. "I thought it was your birthday, not mine."
"I think this is just one of those mutually beneficial things," Yang says, both of them dissolving into laughter, and, well, that's part of what love is, isn't it? Someone who can make you laugh and cum in the same breath.
--
Yang's not into events the way Nora is; she's not renting out restaurants or wild trips across state lines, continental divides - at least, not this time, she says with a wry grin - and opts for something that will undoubtedly end up just as noisy, but definitely more private.
It's the beginning of August; the city simmers in dry heat, sunlight strong without being oppressive - it strikes more than it settles, leaves them to the relief of shady parks, air-conditioned rooms, and the ocean, calling. She'd had her assistant book caterers and a bar service months ago; she has a pool, she has a view. The answer's obvious, in her opinion.
People start to arrive around eight - Coco, Velvet, and Scarlet; Ilia, Neptune, and Sun, who stops to ask her if her property is haunted; Nebula and her date, a girl named Dew; Ruby's best friend and producer, Penny, and another friend of hers, Oscar - and they waste no time heading to the bar, leaving their gifts and cards piled on the table near her kitchen doors. She'd invited her personal bodyguard, a large man by the name of Yatsuhashi, as a guest, but his instincts are wound too tight - he ends up at the door, carefully observing everyone who pulls up, walks in. She rolls her eyes, but lets him get on with it - he's at least having a beer while he does so.
"Ugh," Nora says, wearing a loose dress over her bikini and dragging Yang in for a one-armed hug - they'd been having margaritas by the gate, greeting people as they walked in. Casual, that's what Yang'd said - as casual as possible. "I love a good pool party. With booze. Hi, Blake!"
"Hi, Nora, Ren," Blake says warmly, follows their leads - all of Yang's friends are pretty tactile. Maybe it's an extrovert thing. "Nice to see you again."
"Oh, and there's poker," Nora says, catching sight of the table over Blake's shoulder. "Yang, you know us well."
"I'm gonna double the five grand I won last time," Yang jabs back, and, yeah - Blake should've expected this. They're people with money, and they like to use it. She misses whatever Nora says next, but it doesn't matter - Pyrrha's behind her with Jaune, and the minute she steps into the backyard, she's scanning with an intention: there's either someone she's waiting for find, or someone she'll be relieved if she doesn't.
In Pyrrha's case, it seems to be both: she catches sight of someone at the bar and seems happy to see them, but troubled by it; Blake can't turn her head to look without giving herself away. She's got an idea, though, and it's enough.
"I thought this was a pool party," Pyrrha teases, eyeing Yang's attire; she's still the most dressed, a pair of shorts on and a loose tank-top. She takes it as the challenge it is, sweeps her shirt over her head and tosses it on an unoccupied lawn chair; Blake doesn't bother feigning disinterest - she watches appreciatively, stare trained on her defined abs before working its way up, her cleavage, her collarbone, her shoulders.
"I was waiting for you," Yang says, teasing tone miles wide. "It's not a party without you."
But Pyrrha keeps an arm slung gratefully around her shoulders as they walk towards the bar, Jaune trailing behind, and Blake thinks there's truth to it, too.
Pyrrha doesn't look at Weiss sitting beside the firepit. Weiss doesn't look at her, either.
--
Blake's stretched out across a two-person raft they'd ordered off Amazon a week prior, Yang next to her with her hair wet and plastered to her face; they're talking to Coco and Velvet, who have squeezed themselves into the same donut-themed innertube, plastic cups held in their hands and exchanging kisses every so often. Ruby's tossing a ball around in the shallow end with Penny and Oscar, but other than a few close calls, nobody's too rowdy - they know better than to spill alcohol in her pool. Yang had worried about Sun and Neptune; testosterone, she'd said, but instead--
Well, Neptune's sitting on the edge of the jacuzzi, feet solidly on a step, and Sun's next to him, patiently trying to coax him deeper while intermittently taking selfies; he isn't the only one. His attempts don't seem to be working. She keeps her laughter to herself; he'd put on a brave face when she'd invited them, but Jesus, it's like he's on the Titanic as it's sinking.
A subtle snort makes itself known to her; Blake's apparently followed her line of sight. "I feel bad laughing, but it's so pathetic," she sighs, and Yang takes her opportunities.
"No, you should feel bad," she says seriously, one hand going to the smooth, damp skin of Blake's side. "He's your friend. You're a bitch. Time to repent."
Blake processes what she's about to do the split second before she does it; the threat is already present on her mouth, in the slant of her eyes, and then she's sliding off the raft as Yang flips them over into the warm water.
"You bitch," she sputters as she breaches the surface, sweeping her hair away from her face. Yang only laughs, her feet touching the bottom; they're at an incline, and Blake's forced to tread water. She finds Blake's waist, tugs her in, lighter than air, lighter than nothingness. Like she might just float away if Yang doesn't tie her down.
But her smile peeks out in the end; she wraps her arms around Yang's neck, slants their lips together and kisses her, doesn't care who's watching. She'd been introduced to every single one of these people as Yang's girlfriend, and she won't act like she's anything less.
Acting's never been her thing, anyway.
--
Oh, some nights, some nights; they'll write novels about this one. Or songs.
Here's the problem with intimacy, with secrecy, with alcohol: they don't mix. They're all the same sort; things that fill and spill and destroy, and combined create storms. Not perfect ones. Not even close.
They're all Yang's friends, all people she trusts; she should've been a little less trusting of herself.
Blake looks too good, that's the first problem; she's in black one-piece with a low back and the chest dipping down her sternum, held together by criss-crossing strings. She keeps one hand wrapped around her cup and the other around Yang's neck, fingers absentmindedly tangling in her hair.
Yang can't let her go. That's the second.
She has Blake pressed against her for hours - has their fingers linked, has Blake stitched to her side, has their mouths meeting outside of cover. They play poker and Blake's setlled in her lap, bottom lip tucked between her teeth as she thinks - expressions slathered across her face, reluctantly placing bill after bill of Yang's money as the stakes raise, finally saying call over the rim of a shot glass - and promptly sighs as she reveals a royal flush.
All pairs of eyes turn to her, some jaws hanging open; it's seconds until the objections start, the disbelief and outrage.
"Is that, like, good?" she asks, feigning stupidity.
"Are you serious?!" Nora nearly screams, breaking eardrums.
"No," Blake replies cooly, smirk wickedly midnight, something of a chant. She reaches for the cash piled in the center of the table. "I'm not an idiot. And I'm not an actor. But apparently I have an incredibly good poker face." She thumbs through the bills, stacking them in front of her with intent, and then she turns and twists in Yang's arms, searching for her mouth.
Someone boos them as they kiss; someone else shuts them up. "It's her birthday," comes Pyrrha's reproachful voice in the midst of the chaos. "Let her make out with her girlfriend."
"Her hustler girlfriend!"
Their lips break apart, and Yang's voice comes crooning into her ear, hands still wound around her waist. "You're too hot for your own good," she murmurs, gleefully dark, and she's drunk, conjoining thoughts: "Now they'll know not to underestimate you."
"And you?" Blake asks. "What would you have done?"
"Against you?" Yang says, and her smile powers the stars. "Baby, like I've ever stood a chance."
She thinks someone takes a picture. She can't bring herself to care.
--
It's nearly four when people finally start to leave, gathering their things and piling into the tinted black cars idling on the street. The sky is rotating around them; the earth is slipping out from underneath their feet. Blake has her by the hand, by the neck, by the heart. She has a bed with their names on it.
"Wait," Blake says, holding her to the living room. "I have something for you."
"For me?" Yang slurs, and buries her face in the crook of Blake's neck. That's one way to stop the world spinning - cut if off at its source. Blake's the root of it, anyway, probably birthed the Big Bang from her blood. "I already got everything I want."
"No, you didn't, you cheesy dumbass," Blake says, but it's achingly fond. She pulls back, reaches for something sitting casually on top of Yang's sound system, steadying her with a palm pressed to her shoulder. And then she straightens up.
The world - oh, Yang was right. Blake hands it to her in the shape of a CD case.
"You wanted a song," Blake says softly, heart spreading out in her chest like mapping boulevards, blood burning oil in old city lights. "Have them all."
The CD case is plain, purple, and scribbled across the front of the CD is until you in Blake's own handwriting. Yang stares at the plastic in her hands, the disc, runs her fingers over the words like she's hallucinating them.
She looks up at Blake, lost and awed. "'Until You'?" she reads, and it's clearly about her, even without context. "That's - that's what you named your album?"
"Nothing's felt right," she says, an echo from a morning in a cafe the week prior with her hair filtering sunlight. "Until you."
"I'm me, right?" Yang asks, just to be perfectly clear. Her head feels like an aquarium. "I mean - you - the 'you' is me, right?"
If affection were tangible - if love could break dams, crack land - Blake's would be a flood, would devastate and ravage. Instead, it hits in the shape of a mouth catching Yang's own, kissing her with the same sort of urgency, fingers curled around the back of her neck.
"Yes," Blake whispers, breaking away. She rests their foreheads together. "Yes, you drunk idiot. It's about you."
Yang turns it over in her hands, still staring dumbly. "Can I listen to it?"
"That's kind of the point."
She lets out a laugh, amused by the bite that comes with Blake's vulnerability. "Are you gonna listen with me or are you gonna run out of the room?"
Blake snatches it out of her hands, turns back to her sound system and powers it on. "You, sit," she commands sternly, as though the album itself is a privilege and she's about to take it all back. "I'm putting it on."
But she's noticeably red as she worms her way against Yang's side, the low opening bass notes trailing after her like they're putting up a fight. Her voice comes in. Yang catches breath she hadn't even realized she'd been losing.
Blake sounds different. As if her first album had been recorded after months without speaking, forcing it raw and uncut, and this time she'd been prepared - this time, she'd told the truth because she'd wanted to, not because it'd eat her alive if she didn't.
"Oh," Yang says, tightening her arm reflexively. "You - you sound like you."
If it were anyone else, they would've laughed, Yang's sure of it - but Blake only tilts her chin down, presses her cheek against Yang's collarbone, knowing exactly what she means. Her heart is beating loud enough to join the percussion. There's so much she's wanted to say and she's saying it all perfectly.
Maybe I'm selfish. Blake's voice fills the room, floods her veins. I wanted it to be me.
"Yeah," Blake whispers again, and in the dim lighting of the room with an echo of herself playing softly, Yang swears she's witnessing a prophecy. "It's you."
--
She always wakes up early when she's hungover. It's normally a curse; today, it's no different.
Actually, it's worse.
She's staring blearily at her phone with her brain pounding against her skull when Glynda calls, and somehow she already knows. The vibrating turns into a tool of hypnotism, takes her back to details: she sees it, the flash of a camera. Sees it all night long, from everyone, selfies and snaps and stories.
And she knows there's no way they made it undetected.
"Hello?" she finally answers, voice hoarse. Blake sleeps soundly on beside her, head turned away and hair like ink.
"Yang," Glynda says, the timbre of a funeral march.
"I know," Yang cuts her off. "How? Who?"
She can almost see Glynda's lips in a line, words fighting for space in her mouth. "Multiple people, actually," she finally answers. "A few Instagram posts. One from Sun Wukong. You're in the background of a selfie together - it wasn't his fault; I doubt he even realized you were in it - and your fans proceeded to dissect every photo from the party for traces of the two of you. There's another of her sitting in your lap."
"Press?"
"Nothing yet. But there will be."
Strangely, all she feels is a sense of relief; maybe it's about time, she numbly thinks. Six months and countless lives. Maybe it was a miracle they'd made it as long as they had, tempting fate like a wild animal. Maybe it's their turn to see what they can become rather than hiding from it.
"But none on purpose?" she asks, messy with a point.
Glynda pauses, gets the implication and the importance of it. "No," she says. "None were on purpose."
"Okay." She breathes in and out through her nose, palms her forehead with her free hand. Blake's spine peaks out from the sheets, creviced and sharp, like every piece of her used to be a weapon and hasn't quite lost its instincts. "Okay."
"I'm assuming you don't want to tackle this officially."
"No," Yang says, and that's one thing she knows for certain: no comment will work wonders for them, give them space and time. "We'll - I'll talk to her."
"Very well," Glynda says, and softens. "Happy birthday, by the way." It's stated at an odd lull in the conversation, but nevertheless sincere. Yang feels her smile pull reluctantly; despite the uncertainty, it'd been a great night.
"Thanks."
It beeps, signals the end. She decides to see the evidence for herself before giving it to Blake; it's all still up, she's sure - seven in the morning, there's no way Sun's awake - and it's actually one of the first posts on her feed, exploding popularity--
She sighs, almost laughs at the same time; it's a photo series, and the ticking bomb is the second one. Her hair's kind of blending into his in the pool behind him and Blake's obviously wrapped around her, both their faces pressed together and tilted towards someone else's antics - might've been Nora, it's hard to tell - while Scarlet takes up the other the other half of the frame, smiling.
That alone could've been ignored, avoided, but the comments capture a larger picture, paint a narrative to follow:
jessx10 is that blake and yang xiao long in the background?
winteryouth omg are they dating
fake0rfr theyre in nora valkyries story too holy shit
bimdao dude you got invited to yang xiao long's birthday party? how?
samthompson_ @winteryouth yeah they are!
She backs out, finds Nora's profile; her story's as chaotic as it always is, and Yang actually misses herself the first time she watches it through, distracted by Jaune's horrible attempt at flip cup. She'd been clearly careful to not capture them early on, but the drunker she gets, the looser her movements become, until finally--
Oh, it's the poker game, of course. She'd been too blown away by Blake's performance to keep quiet about it. She films Pyrrha at the table, who only half-smirks and shrugs as if to say, yeah, she got us, and then Nora swings around to her other side, catching Ren's reaction. And it's that small moment, that in-between, where Blake's on Yang's lap, arms around her neck and twining gold between her fingers. It's sickening - in that single freeze-frame, they're the envy of fairy tales.
She texts Nora first - she'll leave Sun for Blake. u drunk bitch.
But she doesn't expect a response for at least another hour, so she faces the inevitable, spreads her fingers along the blade of Blake's shoulder, follows with her lips. It takes minutes of coaxing for her to stir - head rolling on her neck, elbow raising sharply as her hand darts to rub at her eyes, wincing against the pressure inside of her skull - and then her eyelids blink open, slow and delicate. Her makeup is smudged underneath her eyes, and her mouth is chapped, pink.
Even with the apocalypse dawning, she's still the most important thing in the room, any room, anywhere - those people knowing fade from her mind, fade from existence itself - Blake manages a smile and turns over, sheets pooling around her hips, chest bare. Yang thumbs her cheekbone, her jawline, her bottom lip - and then down, the arch of her neck, her collarbone - Blake sucks in a breath when she ghosts over her nipple, indents of her ribcage--
"Hey." She waits for Blake to meet her eyes. "You know I love you, right?"
Blake smiles, relaxed and unaware; sometimes it's a blessing, not knowing. "Yeah."
"Good." She brushes Blake's hair away from her face, shifting away from the course she'd been heading. "It's out."
"Out?" she repeats, exhaustion evident underneath her confusion. "What's…" and then she's metal, bones like wire and veins hardened to their core. "Oh." The word is too quiet, too full of certainty. "Oh."
She's remembering, too; their friends and their phones, their inability to keep their hands off each other. "Yeah," Yang says, keeps it factual and distant. She'll never forget Blake's panic from months earlier, the hollow sea of her throat, eyes like shipwrecks. "It was an accident. Sun and Nora."
Processing takes time; she watches Blake's jaw clench and release, watches her pupils dart down and focus on Yang's body, intertwined with hers. Watches Blake make up her mind to run, to stay. Watches patiently and waits.
She won't fight. Blake's had enough fighting to last her the rest of her life.
And, finally, she sighs - similar to Yang's immediate reaction, barest hint of a reluctant laugh underneath. "One for me, one for you," she grumbles into her pillow, readjusting her head with an irritated thump. "Christ. That's what happens when you give a bunch of drunk extroverts social media access."
The rigid cast of her skeleton melts, becomes pliable and molten. Tension drips from her like wax until it's gone entirely. The sun hits the right angle through the curtains, curls up between them. It's just as soft as it's always been, just as beautiful.
For the first time, Yang realizes, nothing's different in the light.
She presses closer. Thinks of living underneath Blake's skin. Says I love you.
"Oh, baby," Blake says in response, "it's seven in the fucking morning. I love you, but I'm so hungover I might die in your arms, and I doubt it'll be as romantic as your movies make it out to be."
"Nobody's ever died in my arms," Yang says, grin unfurling. "You're a fake fan."
"Semantics."
And they're finally growing up.
--
Sundays; they're good for something, lookout points to stare at the oncoming storms of Mondays and plan.
In theory. All they actually manage to do is lounge around in bed for half the day, ignoring the world beyond the windows - Nora texts her back around ten, screaming OHMYGODIMSOSORRY, and Sun sends Blake some incomprehensible string of emojis - but it's far too late and they all know it. TMZ already has an article up. That's kind of the beginning of the end.
Noon finally sees them rise to shower; Blake swears she can smell tequila on Yang's skin like it's seeping out of her, while Yang argues the whiskey on Blake's. But the water has a soothing, healing effect; breathing steam seems to cleanse their lungs, their heads. Blake tilts back under the spray, runs her hands through her hair.
"He's going to know," she states calmly. Her eyelids stay firmly shut. "And I'm trying. Trying to move past that."
"He's not going to touch you," Yang says. "Or me."
"I know." She parts her lips, exhales a sigh. "I'm allowed to have good things in my life. I know that now."
Like a mantra, like a promise; she won't let this become something that forces her steps backwards, right over the ledge she used to hang from. She's already learned those lessons.
They don't bother getting dressed; they dry off, slip right back between the sheets as if locking themselves into a bunker. Explosions, earthquakes - nothing reaches them here. Blake passes time counting freckles, ribs. Yang watches her lashes sink as she blinks slowly, the way you turn pages of a book.
It strikes her, right then, how close Blake was to becoming lost.
"You're brave." She lets it fall gently, lets it flutter, something with wings that builds a nest. Blake's eyes flash to her own, surprise evident. She continues, "I just think - we're always acknowledging what happened to you. But I've never - I don't think I realized how - how brave you had to be. To keep going afterward. To build yourself back up."
Automatically, Blake bites her bottom lip into her mouth, struck and unresponsive; Yang understands. It's not really an easy reply. Her eyes glisten slightly in the light, but her gaze flickers briefly down and then the shine is gone.
She retracts her hand, fingers pulling in like a loose fist, before they spread as wide as they can go and mold to Yang's hip; and then she drags herself as close as she can possibly get, arm curling and hand shifting up to Yang's shoulder, digging in.
Yang cradles her - it's so rare Blake allows herself total vulnerability, allows herself to feel all the places she's been, all the people - and when her breath hits Yang's collarbone, she's surprised it doesn't create craters. "Thank you." Swallows. "I'm - nobody's ever...told me that before."
"You don't have to thank me."
"I know." She moves her head away from underneath Yang's chin. Her lip is red from the pressure. Even now, she doesn't cry. "I - I want to be. I want to be the kind of person you see me as."
"I'm not seeing anything that isn't there," Yang says, intending only to comfort, but Blake's mouth quirks at an edge, a finger slipping to her mouth.
"Shh," Blake says. "I was getting somewhere." Yang keeps her lips pressed together; Blake traces their outline, the silence purposeful. And then she says, "Fuck it," but there's a quiet resolve, a battle both won and lost simultaneously. Sometimes breaking even is enough. "I can't deal with speculation. I don't want to be hounded because I'm movie star Yang Xiao Long's possible summer fling, or whatever the fuck OK! is gonna call me. If it's out, I want it out."
It takes a moment of comprehension, but the seconds passing see the take-over of Yang's smile, how it stems and grows; she says, "Are you saying…?"
"Shockingly," Blake says, "yes."
--
blake belladonna's girlfriend @yangxiaolong · 15m
.@blakebelladonna hello gorgeous
Blake Belladonna @blakebelladonna · 14m
Replying to @yangxiaolong
yang.
blake belladonna's girlfriend @yangxiaolong · 14m
Replying to @blakebelladonna
yes dear
Blake Belladonna @blakebelladonna · 13m
Replying to @yangxiaolong
this is not what I meant. your publicist is dialing your number as we speak
blake belladonna's girlfriend @yangxiaolong · 11m
Replying to @blakebelladonna
well it'll be fun while it lasts
--
Blake's imagined this moment - the fear she'd feel, the direction it'd send her running - and it's so far away from her mind's personal showcase of The Worst That Could Happen. If anything, it's amusing, and oddly touching - most of the girls replying are probably not straight, Yang mentions, and it's an aspect she'd never thought about. Not like suddenly being a role model, but her and Yang existing at all. Alive and together. For some people, she realizes, it looks a lot like hope.
OMG, are every single one of Blake's Twitter notifications, accompanied by some kind of crying emoji or hyperventilating gif. One girl types BLAKE BE NICER TO HER SHE LOVES YOU before she apparently combusts, tweet trailing off into incoherent gibberish. It has thirty-six likes within one minute.
"Yeah, Blake," Yang says from beside her, laughing as she watches Blake scroll. So, this is one way to do it, own your coming-out. "Be nicer to me, you absolute monster."
She grins, lifts a hand to Yang's jaw and draws her in for a quick kiss. Her chest unfolds, giddy and high above it all. Yang's hers. And now everybody knows. "I'm nice to you in real life," she says. "Isn't that what counts?"
"No," Yang says seriously, licking her lips as she pulls away. "My fans are like, rabid. You better watch out."
Blake rolls her eyes, goes back to their Twitter thread. She can't admit the truth. Can't admit she's already loving every second.
--
Blake Belladonna @blakebelladonna · 2m
Replying to @maidenyang, @yangxiaolong
she's sitting next to me. I'll be nice to her in person
blake belladonna's girlfriend @yangxiaolong · 1m
Replying to @blakebelladonna, @maidenyang
thank u to my fans for making this happen…..so much love x
Blake Belladonna @blakebelladonna · 1m
Replying to @yangxiaolong, @maidenyang
okay, I take it back.
blake belladonna's girlfriend @yangxiaolong · now
Replying to @blakebelladonna, @maidenyang
she just said "you're so stupid" out loud but kissed me anyway so who's the real genius here? not her
ivy. @maidenyang · now
Replying to @yangxiaolong, @blakebelladonna
IM AHVIBNG A FUCKIFG STROKE OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!! OYU HAD THAT WHOLE CONVO SISTTING NEXT TO EACH OTHER I LVEOMYOU
--
It feels like getting into bed at the end of a long, long day.
--
Sun opens Yang's Instastory, expecting damage control. Expecting normalcy. Expecting check out my athleisure wear or on a hike in Fryman Canyon.
What he doesn't expect is Blake, taking up the entire frame and half-naked in her bed.
He's in the middle of eating a 7-layer burrito from Taco Bell, and the minute he processes what he's seeing, half of it falls out of his mouth and back onto the paper, causing Neptune to glare at him in disgust.
"Dude," he says, pulling a face. "That's gross."
"Dude," Sun says. "Did you see Yang's story?"
"No. Why?"
"Look," Sun says, because now he actually needs the proof that he isn't hallucinating. Despite the events of the previous night, he hadn't expected them to embrace it.
Blake's wickedly sinful in a black kimono robe tied loosely at the waist, revealing only the barest hint of deep purple lingerie underneath, looking at the camera with a smirk any devil would rise from hell to serve. She's sitting on what he assumes is Yang's bed, cross-legged, her laptop open in front of her - that he recognizes by the Girls Invented Punk Rock Not England sticker on the back - and they're clearly dropping in on a conversation.
"Meet me in the middle," Yang says, like it's just another day without the curtains drawn. "Plain Hawaiian style. I refuse to compromise on anchovies. We've had this debate a million times."
Blake only laughs, crooks her head; she knows she's being filmed, and she's letting it happen. "Oh, that's it," she says. "Alexa, play The Middle by Zedd from Spotify."
"Oh, no," comes Yang's voice again, amused; the opening ticks through the speaker on her bedside table. "You have got to stop doing that - Alexa, stop, no--"
"Alexa only listens to me."
"I bought her!"
The video cuts, skipping forward in time; Blake's following along with the words, now facing Yang, laptop pushed to the side. The music itself is low enough that Blake's voice is what shines through, and it's as stunning as it's always been, attractive and smooth and seductive without effort. Sun's surprised Yang hasn't dropped dead from the sound alone, but then, he remembers, Yang probably hears her sing like this more than anyone.
"Baby, why don't you just meet me in the middle." The camera shakes like Yang's trying not to laugh and failing miserably. "I'm losing my mind just a little--"
"I'm losing my mind," Yang says, on the verge of exasperated and something else, bordering sexual frustration. Well. He can't really blame her, despite the fact that they look like they'd spent the day having incredible sex and not much else.
Blake breaks on a laugh. It's real, too, not something for an audience - Yang's influence and softer things. He remembers a time when she rarely spoke, let alone smiled. He thinks of saying thank you.
It cuts again, the third and final update, and it's Blake holding the phone, trained on Yang leaning against the headboard, hair spiraling messily over her shoulders. She's wearing a red-and-black flannel loosely buttoned, sheet bundled around her waist; if Blake looked like sex on her own, the two of them together look like every sin he's ever been warned about.
"You look so gay," Blake says appreciatively. "But so hot."
"It's because I'm gay," Yang says, holding a slice of pizza covered in pineapples, but the both of them laugh before she's able to lift it to her mouth, and he wonders if this is part of what love is - laughter, getting in the way of everything else.
--
tell yang her instastory is a big hit ;), Sun's text flashes across her screen. also sry again.
Another version of her already has a grave dug in a garden, soil fresh. Another version of her is screaming, her mouth bloody, throat of shattered glass. Another version of her never, ever forgives him.
Yang has Netflix pulled up on her TV, scrolling through the comedy specials. She licks marinara sauce off her thumb and lets out a surprised laugh at a joke in one of the automatic previews. Tomorrow, she'll go back to stars and screens and sets, go back with a guitar pick for a heart and steel strings for a nervous system, leave her phone face-up and answer yes to anyone who asks.
it's okay, Blake replies, and she means it.
