The next two weeks pass in a blur.
During the day, an army of carpenters are brought in to start building the stage.
Blake works tirelessly with the dancers on the different roles they'll all play. She
works with a quiet yet kind composer on the music, a choreographer for the
grand opening.
All the while skirting Yang's periphery.
All the while trying to keep her wailing heart from announcing its suffering.
It is torture in it's purest form. A dagger in her chest that she has to learn how
to breathe around. She half expects to find bloody footprints behind her, as
run-off from the wound - but every time she checks, the floor is clean, and she's
left to be haunted by what could have been.
Because really, that's all this is.
All this ever was.
Something only Blake could see, apparently.
Either Yang doesn't feel the pull, or wants nothing to do with it. Here, there are
no cosmic forces at play. No revolutionary way of love to discover. There are no
dreams that grace reality with impossible ideas, no fate or destiny to change the
way things like this end. The poet and courtesan. One heart broken, and
another already out the door. Love has never been written in the stars for Blake,
and she's a fool to have believed otherwise.
Now, she has to tend to her wounds and find some way to exist in the same
space as Yang for the next few months.
To exist in the same place as Satine, really.
She hasn't seen Yang in days, if she's being honest. It's been Satine every day
since.
That glowing, painted smile. Swaying right where she needs to be; a façade of
beauty and glamour. There's no cracks in the visage - the part Satine plays is
perfectly calculated. Perfectly in place whenever Blake risks a glance. She keeps
up the charade around her fellow dancers; doesn't let it falter when the Duke
comes and goes throughout the weeks.
She knows when Blake stares at her, and it doesn't bother her a wink.
Or at least, that's what she portrays. Seemingly focused on winning the Duke's
favor, instead. They'll leave for picnics on the outskirts of Paris, and plan for
dinners within Blake's earshot.
But it's the strangest thing. The Duke, despite everything falling into place and
going his way, starts to grow more and more irritated by the day. Blake doesn't
understand it. Doesn't want to understand it, really.
Her broken heart is starting to spout theories. Conspiracies that whisper in the
back of her head, grasping small moments that she's noticed between Satine
and the Duke.
The way she leans away from his touch. Wiggling out of the possessive grip on
her wrist with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. She dances circles around
him, flirting with his jealousy by barely giving him what he really wants. Blake's
even heard her reschedule their dinners at least three times.
Each excuse growing more off-the-wall than the last.
She's not sure what's happening.
And it makes her want to ask - if she could just gather her courage and talk to
Yang.
But it's already the first week of October, and the days are growing colder.
Ilia hasn't spoken more than three sentences to her in two weeks. She's always
out with the Fang, checking in only for the intel Blake could have gathered -
which the intel turns more into an inventory of the Duke's things.
Duke Schnee is a braggart in his quietest of days, and he likes to flaunt the
assets he has for show. Three horse stables, two estates, three children and a
partridge in a pear tree.
Blake rattles it all off lifelessly - but she still hasn't mentioned Satine.
She can't do it. She can't get Yang involved in something like this. Not when
she's taking care of Ruby. Not while she's working her plans into the dirt to
grow something resembling a future.
And with every lack-luster update Blake gives, Ilia grows frustrated.
The Ilia from that summer feels infinitely farther away. She's really changed
since the riot in August. Since she became a full member of the White Fang.
Blake fears that one day she'll blink and Ilia won't be the same. As in, she'll
start to see Adam in her face.
It's midday, now, and Ilia's home for once. Blake's sitting at her desk, the next
act for the show halfway written and set on the loose tabletop beside her. As
always, she's thinking about Yang. Wondering what she does with her time off.
Wondering if she and Ruby are at the Gardens again.
Blake's bordering delirious, perhaps. She hasn't been sleeping well. The walls
are too thin to keep out the creeping cold at night, and doesn't help that she
can't sleep without dreaming about Yang.
Often it's the same dream:
Music notes dance on her ceiling. The Moulin Rouge is five times the size of the
Eiffel Tower. It floods her singular window, where the courtesan comes crawling
through. Accompanied by trumpets and alive as she's ever been. The glow
coming off the Moulin Rouge turns her golden skin red.
She slinks across the sticky floorboards. Crawls into Blake's bed, where her
hands set the sheets aflame. The sun burns like a great big eye behind her, and
her hair melts into an endless stream of gold off her shoulders. She touches
Blake, lips turning her skin to charcoal, hands leaving black impressions in her
brown skin. The heat is immense - but Blake always wakes before the pain sets
in.
She doesn't know what to make of it, but she writes it down anyway. Fingers
tapping in a drone over the keys of her typewriter like a metronome.
"You're thinking too much again," Ilia says flatly from her bed, snapping her
from her thoughts.
Blake shoots her a glare, "You're one to talk." A mean laugh pulls from her lips.
"Oh, my apologies. I misspoke. Talking requires conversation, and we haven't
had one in weeks."
Ilia shifts uncomfortably, rolling her eyes. "I've been busy ."
"Busy doing what?"
The combination of exhaustion and heartbreak is a volatile one.
Blake pushes herself to her feet, fighting against the exhaustion in her bones.
Ignoring the weight of the heavy bags under her eyes. She locks Ilia in a stare,
determined to talk. "What are you planning? What am I doing at the Moulin
Rouge for you and Sienna?"
Ilia groans exasperatedly to the ceiling, and the sound scrapes gouges into
Blake's nerves.
Tension wound up for weeks spills out in a shout, "Don't fucking do that to me! I
have every right to know what this intel does and who it endangers!"
"Who it endangers? Since when do you know anyone at the Moulin Rouge that
you care about?!" Ilia asks incredulously.
Blake stops short, the obvious answer sinking low in her stomach. There are
other faces mixed in there too. Nora, Pyrrha, Ruby. Even Zidler, because the
way he cares for his dancers is borderline fatherly. Twisted by ambition, but
fatherly as an aftertaste. Yang smiles at him genuinely, so there's something of
a heart in there at least.
"They're good people, Ilia," Blake says gravely. "What are you planning to do
with them?"
Incredulous, Ilia asks, "What is with you?"
A scowl. "What do you mean?"
"You've been acting weird for the past few weeks! You're paranoid, you're
gloomy. I'm not blind Blake, I've seen you like this before." Ilia gets up and
steps toward her, her face twisted into an unrecognizable sneer. "You've fallen
for someone again."
Blake's hand snaps out to grab the back of her chair, her knees suddenly weak.
Her chest feels like Ilia took a sledgehammer to it, carelessly breaking the cask
she's steadily built over two weeks. Letting all her messy, rotting feelings spill
out through the cracks.
"No," she says, feeling childish in her answer, "I don't know what you're talking
about."
Ilia takes another step, and there is cruelty in the way she blinks. In the way
her eyes turn the same shade of blue that Adam's used to be. "Is it another
Adam? A handsome prince to sweep you off your feet, just to dump you into the
Seine when he's done with you?"
Blake's jaw clenches so hard she feels it pop in her cheek. Her knuckles pale
against the back of her chair.
Ilia is wrong. Blake wasn't swept off her feet. She'd tried to be the prince, this
time. She tried to sweep Yang off her feet with kindness and poetry, and look
what it got her.
It's nothing like Adam, but maybe it's all the worse because of it. Because she
doesn't have a name to hide her hurt behind, except her own.
She doesn't notice her own tears dripping off the hook of her jaw. She just
wants to hurl her pain back at Ilia. To lash out in that gut-wrenching reflex of a
cornered animal.
So she grinds the words between her molars and spits them at Ilia's feet.
"No. She's prettier than a prince."
And Ilia's skin washes out to match the peeling paint of the walls. Her eyes turn
light gray and lifeless.
She croaks, "Sh...she?"
"I guess I really took to the bohemian mentality," Hissed, her words are like
whips coming off her tongue.
She needs to calm down.
But she can't.
The flash of that exact shade of eye haunted her for months after Adam died. To
see it again, outside her dreams and planted firmly in reality?
She's long left her reason behind.
And Ilia doesn't know just how much cruelty lived in those eyes.
She never did know the whole truth of it. Though she never asked either. Blake
isn't about to tell her now. It's too late. Those demons are wholly Blake's.
"Wh...who?" Ilia asks, her body swaying in place like she took a hard punch.
Blake hesitates, the anger fluctuating. She doesn't want to give it away. The
secret she's been harboring; the love that still hasn't had time to decay from
her. She's worried about this game Sienna has in mind. She may not be on
speaking terms with Yang, but that's no reason to put her in danger.
And the Ilia she knew before - that laughing, free spirit who introduced her to
Paris; to the Moulin Rouge - died somewhere when Blake looked away. While
she was falling for Satine, Ilia stripped away.
And something new took her place.
It feels like murder, the way her heart cries for her best friend. Mourning the
loss with Ilia still in the room. She decidedly settles for a half truth.
"...She's a performer." There's a lump in throat that she speaks around. Caution
choking the sound.
But even that was too much information to give. Ilia is always smarter than
she's given credit for, and Blake is remiss to realise she too fell into that blind
ignorance.
Iris rimmed in red, Ilia growls, "It's Satine, isn't it?"
Blake's heart recoils at the name. She bites back an instinctive no, her name is
Yang .
Ilia barks out a humorless laugh. "Gods. Of course. Of course you'd fall for her."
"What the fuck do you mean?" Blake snaps, panicking. She wants to keep Yang
away from Ilia for a reason. Powerful friends and jealous best friends don't bring
happiness and joy to the world. "Speak plainly."
"I knew something was strange from the moment you met her! You've never
looked at anyone like that before."
"I - she's -"
"Is that where all your time goes? Why you have none of it for me anymore?"
Blake bristles, bewildered and thoroughly whiplashed by the direction this
turned. "No? I've been working . I go to the Rouge, I come home, and I write
until I collapse. You're the one who's always gone. You've refused to speak to
me for weeks!"
"I have not!" Ilia snaps.
If Blake wasn't so confused as well as furious, she would've missed the quick
dart of Ilia's eyes. The left tilt they take before looking back at Blake, Ilia's
shoulders stiff as if her spine is made of iron.
Incredulous, Blake shifts forward, abandoning her typewriter and gesturing
sharply to her friend. "Gods, who gave you that pedestal you stand so proudly
on? Aren't you a little too close to the sun? You think you can manipulate me
into thinking you're right," Blake barks a dark laugh. She isn't smiling. "Adam is
dead and he still outclasses you by leagues."
Pain blooms across Ilia's face, like Blake's gone and ripped off an infected scab
carelessly. Her skin oscillates between gray and charcoal dusted, but her
freckles and eyes burn a bright red. Blake recognizes the indignant shades
easily enough.
Ilia turns around without another word, but Blake chases her all the way to the
door.
"No! We're going to talk about this Ilia, you don't get to run away!"
Ilia doesn't even spare her a glance, slamming the door shut in Blake's face.
She stands there, heaving smoke from her lungs. Fire burning hot, angry coals
in her chest.
"Who the fuck does she think she is?" She spits, whipping around and running a
hand through her hair stressfully.
She kicks a loose set of trousers across the room with a growl, marching back
to her desk and sitting down heavily enough to make the wood wail. Tempted to
join in, Blake leans forward and places her head in her hands with a groan.
She spends a while in that position. Long enough for her neck to start aching,
and for the room to plunge into autumn darkness. The night settles over her
like a blanket. Cold dusting the streets outside makes everything quieter. She's
the smallest she's ever been.
Laughter flutters up to her open window, the Moulin Rouge reviving for the
evening, but she can't hear the foot traffic below her window. She can't hear the
hooves of horses clipping on cobblestone, though the carriages they drag behind
cut through the powder and grind it beneath with a faint crunch .
She hears one carriage pass, and then, closer, a creak.
Her head snaps up and she twists in her seat.
Ice solidifies over her spine. The entire world stops spinning beneath Blake's
feet.
"Am I dreaming?" She asks in disbelief.
A quiet laugh. "Implying that you dream of me often?"
Yang perches herself on the window sill, looking both out of place and right at
home in a violet split skirt and neat shirtwaist. Clothes too thin for the flakes
drifting from the sky, but she seems perfectly comfortable despite the
temperature dropping. Her face is clean of make-up, long hair pinned in a
half-updo, the rest falling loose behind her ears and over her collarbones.
Effortlessly beautiful as always.
Blake's heart aches with it. The things she notices about Yang; all her beauty
and wit; left to fester and rot in her chest because she can't give them the
attention they deserve. Left to be just wishes and dreams.
Blake pulls into herself, crossing her arms over her chest. Sure this will be a
quick visit.
"How did you find my apartment?"
"I see you climb the fire escape every day."
Blake gives a sardonic laugh, in no mood for any games after her conversation
with Ilia. She shifts onto her back foot. "Well, come out with it then. You're here
to tell me I'm fired? It'd be a perfect ending to the day I've had."
Yang slides the rest of the way into Blake's apartment, frowning. "...Has
something happened?"
Blake huffs a laugh onto the floor. Lets it splatter into the scuffed wood like tar.
Her heart sinks down onto its knees and it takes everything in Blake's power to
keep herself standing.
This is truly the final nail in her coffin. For her to have the worst fight she's ever
had with her best friend, then roll straight into this . Whatever reason Yang has
for coming here, Blake's not sure she'll survive hearing it.
She breathes in. Holds it in her lungs. Hoping maybe they'll pop under the
pressure and keep her from having this conversation.
"Why are you here, Yang?" She croaks, averting her burning eyes.
"It can wait," Yang says, and oh , the concern in her voice is too much.
It makes her want to curl up and weep. She wants to steep in that tenor like her
favorite tea. Like it's a balm, or a sweet, warm embrace. Blake's drowning with
the need to give in.
Bitterly, "Why? Aren't I ruining your plans?"
"Actively so, yes," Yang shrugs, "but I would still like to hear about your shitty
day. If you want to talk about it."
Blake slowly sinks back down into her desk chair, watching with a surreal
awareness of every movement Yang makes within her apartment. Her head
swims in her presence, high off just a few words exchanged because they
haven't spoken in what feels like an eternity.
Yang glides across the floor and seats herself on the edge of Blake's unmade
bed.
"Do you want to talk?" Yang asks again, leaning forward and bracing her elbows
on her knees. An altogether different affectation than one she's previously
portrayed. Curious, how she still manages to look fantastic. Maybe Blake just
has love on the brain.
She opens her mouth to tell her to leave, but instead her mouth goes, "I would
take any time with you as a gift."
And her heart dives through her ribs in an attempt to escape.
That wasn't supposed to leave her lips. When she thought poetry was the only
way to compliment Yang, she didn't mean literally every conversation.
A pretty blush flushes across Yang's face, but her eyes are slightly off target.
Blake realises there's only the light from the street to keep her apartment lit.
She rises, crossing over to her nightstand in an attempt to move beyond her
sincerity. Yang follows her path by ear and shadow alone, until a soft pop gives
light to the gas lamp.
Rich gold wreathes the entirety of her space.
Blake suddenly grows conscious of the way everything is falling apart in the
room. The paint is peeling, her obviously broken desk and the papers scattered
over its surface. The walls give off the scent of wet wood and petrichor, and
while it's always comforted Blake with the correlation to a library, not many
people would think the same. Blake sheds the coat she'd wrapped herself in
hours before, eyeing the way her bed is stuffed closest to the open window.
Wondering absently if Yang is cold.
Yang watches her with rapt attention now that she can see, and Blake has no
idea what's going on behind those soft lilac eyes. What could have possibly
changed her mind to stay and talk, as if they've been friends the whole time.
"My friend and I had a fight." She finally says, standing stiff beside the bed.
"...One of our worst."
"About?"
Blake thinks back to the blur of anger and despair that was the conversation
with Ilia, and replies honestly, "A lot of things. None that feel very important
now, though."
Yang's head tilts to the side, her hair falling over her shoulders in thick rivulets.
Blake bites her own lip till it stings, distracting herself from the image.
"It has to be important if it's got you this bothered," Yang hums, "I've only ever
seen you angry around the Duke. Is your roommate like him?"
"No," Blake snorts, shifting to hold herself, "She's nothing like him."
"But she still upset you."
Blake's shoulders slump. She gives into the urge to sit, dropping onto the
adjacent edge of her bed. Facing away from that too kind expression.
"...She did."
The mattress dipped, and Blake stiffened as Yang sat beside her. Not quite
touching, but close enough to share that ever-present heat wafting off her body.
The lingering smell of incense clings to Yang's skin, wrapping Blake in a heady
cloud of it.
Yang murmurs, "Why don't you start from the beginning? I have time."
And Blake risks a glance up at her, ears pinned back against her skull. "But the
Rouge-"
"-can survive a night without me," Yang finishes, meeting Blake's gaze with a
furrow in her brow. Her voice softens. "...I know I haven't been very kind to
you, Blake."
A tingle rips up the back of her skull. Blake's pulse jumps as a light touch
travels over the back of her hand. Heat engulfs it in a gentle grip.
"I'd like to fix that, if that's okay."
Blake looks between their hands and Yang's face, lips pressed into a thin line.
What would this bring? More heartache? More guillotine hope? Is she a fool if
she wants it, anyway?
Relief would be if she could grip the laddered rungs of her ribs and crack the
cage - set all of herself free for Yang to see. All the guts and blood and hatred
she's kept to a keystroke and pen that bleeds.
Would Yang still see her through all that carnage?
Or would she run away like Ilia? Slam the door in Blake's face, call her a deviant
or a fool? It's a gamble. She's been burned once before.
But as Blake slowly starts to nod, her fight-or-flight instinct finally seeps away.
Calmed by that soft grip. Serenaded by the idea that Yang might choose to stay.
"...I'm afraid I don't know where to start," she deflates in a deep sigh, "it feels
like there's never been a beginning. It's just… always been. Ilia - my roommate
- she's been my friend since I came to Paris."
"When was that?"
"Five years ago. I was sixteen." Blake's free hand came up to nervously twist a
piece of black hair by her jaw. "I...moved here with my boyfriend at the time.
We were...swept up in the revolution taking place. We wanted to be a part of it."
She paused, then corrected herself, " I wanted to be a part of it. He
was...angry, most of the time. He didn't like how much...community there was
here. He wanted to keep me away from it. Away from making friends." She
scrapes a harsh laugh off her tongue, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling.
Staunchly avoiding whatever she might see on Yang's face. "I guess to make it
short, Ilia was my only friend in Paris for the next four years. And she's...still
my only friend."
"She's not the only one," Yang said finally, startling Blake into meeting her gaze,
"You have the Moulin Rouge, now. We take care of our own."
It's meant to be a reassuring thing, but all Blake can see is Sienna's sharp,
calculating gaze. Guilt instantly rips through her veins with burning knives. She
looks away quickly, ears falling flat against her head. She pulls her hand from
Yang's, though her heart wails what are you doing so viscerally that the words
brand themselves into her chest like a scarlet letter.
What is she doing?
She rasps hastily, "There's...there's a lot you don't know about me. The things
I've done, I'm...I can't even face my own family."
"That's alright," Yang says quietly. Understanding. She leans forward until her
broad shoulders create a plateau of muscle. A wall of strength that Blake wishes
she could imitate. "There's a lot you don't know about me either. There's a lot
I'd never be able to tell my family, if I had any left."
The weight of those words hit Blake's chest and coated her skin with lead. She
feels like she weighs fifty pounds more just in realisation of everything Yang
could mean. Being a courtesan, being an ornament, an icon. Everything it takes
to become the Satine that everyone knows and loves.
Quietly, Blake asks, "Is it hard for you?"
Yang shifts in her seat, her cupid's bow lips pressing into a simple line.
"...Depends on the day, I guess. Most of the time, I do enjoy it. I love the weird
little family I have with Pyrrha and the others. I love the lights, costumes,
games."
Her hand props out, and Blake eyes her open palm greedily.
"But that's not where the money is. Real money, the kind that's going to keep
Ruby fed and healthy , comes from people like the Duke. It comes from being
used."
Blake almost doesn't want to ask, but something nags at her to bite it. "Have
you, um..."
"Gone to bed with him?" Yang barks a surprisingly sharp laugh. It's a frustrated
one. "No, not yet. And I should have by now, but I've convinced him that we
can't consummate until the show premieres."
Blake's heart skips a beat so suddenly it startles her. It resumes its rhythm
quickly enough, but it's heavier now. Knocking against her sternum like her
body is a door it wants to get beyond. She's not sure why.
Fearful of the way her hands are starting to shake, she fits her palms between
her thighs. She asks hesitantly, "...Why are you waiting?"
A flash of deep violet in the low flames, and Blake is pinned under that solemn
stare.
"...I don't know," Yang says.
But there's a knowing in her eyes. An intelligence that Blake recognizes at once.
She's lying.
So Blake asks again. A whisper, this time. "Why are you waiting, Yang?"
Who are you waiting for?
Yang, to Blake's dismay, stands. She moves away from the bed, wandering to
the chill crawling in through the open window. She's almost ignoring her as she
stares back out at the street. Across the road where the red lights sing.
"...You can see Pierre from here," Yang murmurs absently.
Blake slowly stands as well, conscious and careful of where her words fall.
"...Pierre?"
A smile twitches across Yang's lips. "The elephant. Ruby named it Pierre. All the
dancers call him that now."
Blake swallows, a pit yawning in her stomach. She allows the subject to change,
asking instead, "How is Ruby?"
She expects Yang to pull back into herself as she usually does when it comes to
Ruby, but as the stars start to blink into existence above the horizon, her face
relaxes. She suddenly looks exhausted.
"Not well," Yang sighs, her lower lip disappearing in a hard bite. "...She's been
sick for a while. I need...I need to get her to a doctor. I need the Duke's money.
I need to sleep with him."
She sighs, pushing all of the air out of the room.
"But then you showed up, and things got complicated."
A thousand questions rush to the tip of Blake's tongue, but the only one that
makes it beyond the valley of her lips is, "Are...are you sure it's me?"
Yang laughs, and it's choked off with the echo of a sob. Her expression is the
portrait of torn. "How could it be anyone else? The moment you spoke to me, I
felt like I was finally awake -" her voice cracks, "finally alive."
Blake's heart takes a bow. Stops in its tracks, lays itself to rest right in the
empty cavern of her chest.
Her ears are ringing. A numbness creeping through her limbs. Her lungs feel like
they're filled with lead. Like the knife in her chest became a balloon, and her
body is still trying to find a way to breathe around the obstruction. Every breath
is a chore. Every inhale hurts.
But shouldn't she be happy?
Shouldn't it be a relief; to know that everything she's felt in the past month was
shared with Yang in some strange, cosmic way?
Maybe it's because Blake sees the impossibility laid before them. Before Yang.
Choose one.
Ruby, or Blake.
She aches for the choice. For everything she wants, and everything they could
be away from this place - but she knows if it were her, it's a choice she wouldn't
be able to make.
So she takes her last lungful. Lets the taste of incense sink into her flesh, into
the very core of herself.
"Don't choose, then."
Yang snaps around to stare at her. Blake releases the air, and tastes her own
desperation on the exhale.
She says weakly, "I would never make you choose. Save your sister, Yang."
And sharing this space with her - sharing this moment with Yang. With the city
of Paris sprawled out behind her; with the Eiffel Tower a glinting lighthouse
against a sea of stars. Blake knows she could never leave this city without
leaving herself behind.
So she ends who she used to be, and says:
"I'll still be here. I'll wait."
And Yang stares at her like she's made of stardust. Like Blake took her hand
and helped her touch the sea up on high. Like she helped her touch divinity, for
a moment.
"You make things sound so real, sometimes." Yang says finally, "Like it really is
just...that simple."
Blake swallows dryly. "Sometimes it is."
Yang steps further into the room, and the ground seems to shake under her
foot. Or maybe it's just the shudder in Blake's spine.
"You won't get jealous?" Yang asks, as if testing her.
Blake doesn't move from the foot of her bed. "Why would I be jealous? It's
your body."
Yang's lips twitch into a small, sardonic smile. "Everyone gets jealous."
"Then that's my problem. You shouldn't have to deal with it."
Yang slinks closer, the lamp in the corner casting her body in a relief of writhing
shadows. "...It's one mystery after the other with you, isn't it?"
Blake instinctively takes a step back, the base of her spine rattling as she
bumps into her broken desk.
Yang continues, "I never know what pieces fit together. Every second I spend
with you, the more confused I get."
"I- sorry?"
"You should be," Yang stops a metre away, "Mysteries make me impatient ."
Blake's inhale impales itself in the column of her throat. It dies there, hanging
pelt wheezing from her lips as Yang closes the remaining distance between
them.
"But you - the Duke -" Blake whispers, unable to move.
"He isn't here, is he?"
Blake gives a full jolt as Yang's fingers wind into the loose cotton of her long
sleeve shirt. Even through the fabric, she can feel the way her touch burns with
that impossible body heat. It makes her weak at the knees.
"I thought you had to choose..?" Blake chokes out, her body staying stock still.
Afraid that if she moves, she won't be able to stop herself.
Gold lashes flutter in a slow blink, and Yang's other hand slides around the
curve of her waist. The path her palm makes feels like a brand.
She bends down, and whispers like it's a secret, "I have been worried about it.
The choice between you and Ruby."
Eyebrows furrow, and Yang presses their foreheads together with a sweet little
bump. Blake's heart sits behind her teeth. Pulse cracking a steady beat off her
tongue. Pounding deep in her ears.
It takes all of her willpower to put just centimetres of distance between them.
Leaning. Not quite escaping. "That's not a decision you should have to make."
A warm hand slides to the nape of Blake's neck, gently pulling her back into
Yang's orbit. Blake's lungs stop altogether as warm lips touch the crown of her
head.
Yang murmurs, "That's the thing, isn't it? We've only known each other for half
a week, maybe two. It shouldn't matter enough to be a choice at all."
Yang ducks a little to catch Blake's sinking gaze, her eyes bright and lit with
something both familiar and new. "But it is. And for the life of me, I can't
understand why."
Because we're cut from the same swathe of sky. Because I have a fire in my
chest you placed there, and it recognizes your touch. It's going to burn me
inside out. I know you, but god I need to know you again.
Blake replies shakily, "I- if I speak my thoughts I might damn us both. I'm
trying to be good."
It takes the rest of her living will to step even half a metre away, slinking from
Yang's grasp, but the effort ends in vain. Yang chases her with her hands, with
her touch, until Blake's lungs shake with it.
"Please," Yang says, hasty as Blake's never seen her. Her grip tightens, and she
lays a careful, soft kiss to the bridge of Blake's nose. Their eyes meet,
humming, snapping with pent up aching.
"I don't think I could wait for something like this. Like us."
There's a ghostly touch of pliant skin pressed at the corner of Blake's mouth.
She nearly collapses to the floor, her hand dropping to Yang's hip and searching
for anything to anchor herself.
Yang sways close until there's hardly any space left between them. "I don't
know what it is, but I feel like we've already waited too long. Like it hasn't just
been weeks, but lifetimes."
Her grip tightens on Blake's waist. "You told me that the greatest thing I'll ever
learn is just to love, and be loved in return."
Blake wheezes out a gasp, forgetting to breathe through the drum pounding in
her body. "Yang-"
"Let's learn it together."
Blake's head goes fuzzy at the edges.
Yang presses their foreheads together, their noses brushing.
"I'm going to kiss you now."
Blake whimpers a little. Nods. Then nods again for good measure.
All the better because when they kiss - oh.
The stars start to sing.