Summer finally drew herself back, giving her pathetic wife a chance to suck in a heaving, hacking breath.

"G-god, are you trying to—" she coughed a couple more times— "kill me?"

Raven looked up at her, meeting her eyes, but her red gaze was weak compared to Summer's cutting steel. "Maybe I am," Summer slowly admitted, lifting her hand to disdainfully observe her wedding band. "Maybe I'm getting tired of you. Maybe you're not enough for me. Maybe you should fight back and prove otherwise."

Raven bucked up with her shoulders, but Summer kept them locked between her powerful thighs. Talons landed on Summer's lower back as if that'd threaten her, as if she was scared of getting violently unzipped from tailbone to nape, but she didn't even let her Aura rise to the threat. Raven tried to growl, but the rumble in her throat was like a weak little puppy's. "I— I'd get you," the Faunus claimed, her voice thick and wet. "I'd get you first."

Summer laughed low and rough. "It's so cute that you think that."

A claw pushed against Summer's back, but it was only an empty threat. Rae would never hurt her. Rae wouldn't even break the skin. Not anymore.

Summer bent down, pushing against the talon, but the cowardly woman backed her claws away. She pushed Raven's chin up with the heel of her palm, stretching her neck out as her tongue trailed up from the dip of her meeting collarbones, leaving a hot and wet trail of saliva as it pressed searchingly on the flesh and cartilage beneath. She tasted the salt and the fear on her wife's skin, ceasing only when she found the bump at the throat's center. Summer pressed up harder with her palm, making Raven whimper as her neck was strained and her skin pulled taut over the front, but all her little noises were sucked into a gasp when Summer flanked her larynx with the threat of guillotining teeth.

"S-Sum— wait—"

"Wait?" Summer repeated against her throat. "You want me to wait?"

Raven drew in a sharp, panicked breath, her eyes widening at the thirst and need in Summer's silver gaze. "I— I—"

Summer pressed her teeth against the origin of her wife's voice, making the woman freeze, stricken. She looked so scared. "Come on, Rae," she goaded, biting harder and feeling Raven's whimper against her canines. "Come on, warrior girl. When did you go so soft?"

Raven stuttered, the words slicing into her heart so deeply that she felt it in her sinuses and the corners of her eyes. She wasn't weak— she'd never been weak— just because she stopped trying to kill her wife? Just because she stopped fighting her? She stopped hurting her? That— that was what you were supposed to do, right? When you had kids, you— you've gotta be good around them, you can't be— be hurting and fighting your wife— she was trying to be better— that— that wasn't weak— she was trying— she— she was a warrior, she was a fighter, she'd fought her whole life— she was getting older— she couldn't fight like that— she didn't— she didn't want—

Summer bit her like a wolf with a fawn, and Raven actually had to let her Aura rise against her own wife. Summer met her eyes with a cold glare.

"Come on," Summer begged, sitting up straight atop Raven's naked chest. Her voice was like murder in her throat, her eyes harder and sharper than the blade of her scythe. "We don't have to play nice for the kids anymore."

Raven watched her wife raise her hands, catching the glint of her wedding band as it reflected their warm, bright bedroom lights. She could see every detail— every mark, every fine dark hair on the backs of her sunkissed hands and arms, the places where the lack of hair highlighted rough and angry clawmarks, all the scars on her knuckles, her fucked up nailbeds from all the times they'd been split through or cut off and re-attached— and each feature met her gaze like good, hot booze meeting her tongue. She had round, wrinkled divots running up her right bicep and shoulder, the marks climbing with the muzzle recoil of the gun that'd caused them. Her left arm had a huge scar all around the bicep from the time an Imp had been clawing at her face, keeping her eyes off the sickle-clawed Beowolf that'd shorn right through the limb. Raven had sat with her for so long, holding the limb there, watching her Aura slowly spark across both sides of the rent flesh until it fused her arm together— wrongly, of course, but they'd been able to re-amputate and correct that at the hospital later. She had more marks over her stomach, marks over her calves and shins with the telltale jagged lines of Grimm claws and teeth, though shorter and more organized ones climbed up both thighs like dense ladders— Raven had asked, but Summer had never answered.

She never wore armor like Raven did. She said it was to stay fast, but Raven knew it was because she preferred being decorated. Summer was the greatest Huntress in the world, but she didn't need magazines and online articles sucking her off like Goodwitch did. She took Grimm-given medals instead. How'd Raven know she was the greatest Huntress in the world?

Because her face was perfect. Clean. Unmarked. Untouched. Her beautiful, cherubic face was the one thing she'd never let anyone or anything touch. Which meant everything else was allowed.

Raven was nothing by comparison. When she looked at her body in the mirror, she didn't see any scars— none from battle, at least— her elbows were dotted with small, faint reminders of ancient track marks; her stomach still had faded, wrinkly stretch marks from both her pregnancies. When she showered with Summer, she saw what she was supposed to be. Raven's wife was built and cut like a starving weapon: thick at her corded legs, hard at her washboard middle, sinewy at her defined chest, her arms like gnarled boughs, her back like the maw of an industrial crusher— she was everything Raven's people had tried to make of her.

How had she not softened with the years? Summer looked hungrier than ever— even with her deadpan face, Raven could see the voracious gaze— and the edge of her eyes devoured her. It bit her harder than Summer on her voice box. It consumed her rapaciously. It left her empty and gnawing.

Ruby was gone. Ruby was elsewhere. Ruby was carrying her name, her genes, her warrior blood. The only one left to tarnish that legacy was Raven.

Ruby would not carry a dirtied flag. She would not let her child bear a weak name. She would not suffer the genes of a fledgeling mother. She would not be shamed by the blood of a coward. Ruby deserved better.

Raven grunted and thrashed, taking Summer by surprise just long enough to get one arm out of her straddling legs. She shot up with an open palm, smacking Summer in the throat with a hollow, forceful sound that left her recoiling. Raven wrenched her other arm free and pushed her wife back, launching herself up and atop the woman, hands wrapping around her sun-kissed neck. Summer melted, sinking back like all her decades-old knots had finally been massaged away. Her lips broke out into a relieved, volcanic smile that Raven had forgotten.

"It's been— three months—" Summer squeaked out, her voice cut thin against her wife's hands. "Did you— not— realize?"

Raven growled. Summer pushed against her arms and her chest— a paltry exertion of her worship-worthy muscles, but Raven strained to sustain her position like a Dragon was bearing down on her. Seeming to respect that she was really trying her best (or maybe just pitying her pathetic wife), Summer eventually relented, graciously allowing her wife to choke the everloving shit out of her. Raven rolled her hips back, catching Summer's—

Raven froze, something twanging in the back of her skull.

One of her bonds thrashed. Her bond with Ruby— she was in trouble.

Summer whined, squirming in Raven's hands. "Ra-aaaae!"

"She's— Ruby's in—"

Summer lunged upwards and grabbed her wife by the back of her hair, folding the woman's arms as she wrenched her down into a lip-bloodying kiss. "She's fine," Summer said into Raven's mouth, her split bottom lip spreading its iron tang on the Faunus' tongue. The taste— the taste of her blood and the taste of her words— was strong and warm, a promise that flooded Raven like an intoxicating red miasma. "Probably a mission. She's got Yang. And a Hunter."

Yes, she… she did… just like all the other times… and she always ended up okay… even the one time she didn't… she'd be… okay…

Summer's cold steel eyes sucked her into a sinkhole. Her face was always so dead, her expressions only ever microscopic— at least around Raven— so she'd gotten used to working like an oracle, staring deep into mercury pools and searching for signs of prophecy. Summer's hands, rough and slow and hot, ran over her. Raven was stuck under her fingers, her calloused palms, as Summer's touch ran over her flesh like jagged feathers, stroking nerves that hadn't been touched like that in so long. Summer was by no means chaste or prudish— she'd been relentlessly using Raven to wring herself out for the past two months, Doing It at least four or five times a week (at most three or four times in a day)— but they'd always been rough. Even toning it down after Ruby, they'd still been relatively rough, but it'd always been Summer on top. It's been Summer on top since… god, since forever. Even that time before graduation when they all…

But she'd been fucking her like she hated her since Ruby left. No, not like she hated her, she'd been fucking her hatefully, painfully, everywhere in the house until Raven had to tap out. Like she wanted to prove all the dirty words, all the humiliation, like she wanted Raven to know inside and out that everything she bit into her ear or licked against her flesh was true.

And Raven had been cowed every time. She'd let her. She just thought she was getting super into it! She didn't realize it was a real fucking cry for action!

And now, feeling Summer's Grimm-slaying hands drawing all the goosebumps out of her skin… just touching her… her fingers making her burn beneath her skin… it drove the thrashing of her Semblance's bond aside. It drove everything aside. She hadn't been touched this way in years. Not since she woke up in that hospital bed with Summer drooling all her dreams onto her thin, shitty blankets; that night when Summer had cried into her neck; that night when she had kissed her jugular and said she was sorry to say she loved her, she was in love with her, she was in love with her; that night when she'd taken her filthy body so gently, purifying her inside and out, her silver gaze so hot that it burned the ashen craving out of her brain; that night when she'd moaned 'warrior girl' into her ear and shattered her into nothing.

Raven hung above her wife, not kissing her, just breathing in her breaths and letting Summer breathe in hers. She kept her hands on the other woman's throat, not gripping, just holding herself up and letting Summer touch her. She met Summer's gaze, not speaking, just watching and letting herself be watched. She could see the micro-movements as Summer's eyes drifted over her wife's face, watching each of Raven's muscles twitch. That silver gaze visibly cataloged her, noting her expression when the pads of her fingers drifted confidently over Raven's sides, when her nails scraped lightly at the shape of her hips, when her palms touched all her stretch marks like she loved them.

It was like dying. The most incredible dying. The bond of her Semblance kicked, then flickered into nothing. Relieved, Raven finally let her mind slip away from watching it; there was something else to focus on.

She loved her wife. She loved her wife. She loved her wife and she'd loved her for so long, she'd loved her for so long that she'd forgotten how to love her right; she'd loved her for so long that she'd forgotten how to love her right and she had almost ruined everything— the idiot she was— Summer had been begging her to show that she still had hot blood in her veins and she'd gone limp like a fish every time. She could make everything up to her. She had to. She owed her that much. She loved her more than the world, she'd tear everything apart for her, she'd tear her apart for her— she'd forgotten. She'd forgotten what it was like. It was like she was at Beacon again, sneaking every glance, fucking all the boys and girls and wondering how much better Summer must be, not even knowing that Summer wanted nothing more than to answer that question. Raven went flush like a drunk, stupid schoolgirl. How long had it been since she felt like a schoolgirl?

Summer touched her for so long. She touched all of her. Everything. Softly. Her fingers drifted over every inch of Raven, reminding her, the sound of skin slipping on skin sounding so much like a whisper of 'warrior girl'.

She— she was so fucking pretty— it struck Raven like a slap. After… what, twenty years? She'd gotten used to it, to living with a fucking masterpiece, a painting given life and energy and smoldering silver eyes. She'd been staring point-blank into every sunrise, every sunset, staring for so long that time had made her blind to their beauty, and only now could she see all the incredible colors again.

Holy… oh holy fuck, she was gonna cry. Dear sweet god, she was gonna cry all over her pretty wife because she realized how much she meant to her. She needed to work quickly.

Raven dove to close their lips together again, her tongue darting through Summer's lips before the other woman could try it first, sliding hot and desperate against Summer's. Summer grabbed her around the wrists— Raven thought she would wrench them off and take control again— but instead she squeezed and Raven obliged without delay. She tightened her fingers around Summer's neck once more, making the woman arch her back and moan into their kiss— only for Raven to yelp as Summer unexpectedly sucked in her tongue and bit it, her hands slapping and nails biting into Raven's bare hips as she thrust herself—

Raven's moan choked into nothing, and she jerked up so quickly that she nearly left her tongue between her wife's teeth. She panicked. She looked down at Summer apologetically. Her words were as fast and pained as her heart:

"S-Sum, we— we have to go, now," Raven said frantically. "It's— it's the bond, it's Ruby and Yang."

Summer scowled. "They're probably fine—"

"Summer," Raven interrupted, "I have never felt Yang on the bond. We. Need. To. Go."

Summer sighed. The sound hit Raven like a stake in the heart.

"I— I'm sorry, I really want to, I'm sorry," Raven whined. "I-I love you. I'm sorry."

Pitying, Summer's hard expression softened, and she reached up to firmly (but gently) pat her wife on the cheek. "You really think they need it? Like, they'll die otherwise?"

Raven nodded. "I'm sure."

Summer pushed up to kiss her on the cheek (how many years since she'd kissed her on the cheek?). "Fine. Let's go. Where's your—"

Raven reached back behind her pillow, down between mattress and headboard, her arm having to fish past ropes and under-mattress bed ties that they hadn't used in a long time. She eventually pulled out the extremely long, bulky black sheath of her primary weapon. Its rotary dust chamber spun, giddy at the touch of her Aura. Summer blinked.

"We've… been sleeping on that?"

Raven nodded.

"Doesn't it have active dust cores?"

Raven nodded.

"Volatile, active dust cores?"

Slowly, Raven nodded. "Yeah?"

Summer stared at her. After a long moment, she sighed and threw herself off the bed, marching into their closet and coming out faster than Raven thought possible— especially for the amount of straps and leather pouches over her black and dun-red 'combat dress' (which was something Raven still firmly believed to be bullshit). Raven was donning the baggy tobi pants that played well with her legs when Summer knelt to extract a long, long belt of monstrously-sized bullets from beneath the bed. She went back down, took out and promptly mantled her shoulders with a white cloak, then wore her huge ammo belt like a scarf atop the cloth buffer of the cloak.

Her scythe came next. It was a huge, seven-foot-long thing, thick-shafted and thicker-barrelled, its bulky receiver sized specifically for the autocannon rounds festooned around Summer's neck. The blade of it was its own ungodly horror, curved wickedly and shining, at least five feet along the chine and with a reverse talon three feet in length— a huge, bright silver crescent like the moon on a stick. After decades of being her partner, Raven didn't quite understand how she carried it with such ease. She had no idea how the woman swung it. She couldn't begin to fathom how the fuck she handled the recoil.

Raven had once suggested she was overcompensating. Summer had pinned her against a wall for that. She didn't suggest it anymore.

Blushing at her own thoughts (she was almost 40, she couldn't blush anymore!), Raven strapped on her belt and took one of the long black knives from the front, beseeching it with her Semblance to tear a bond-portal into the air instead of her sword— wouldn't want to break something, after all. She and Summer stepped through it without any words shared. Their feet landed on metal floors.

Raven cleared her throat, her chest still feeling like a mess from earlier. "Sorry I'm late, I was… doing something."

She almost jumped as Summer's way-too-fucking-big weapon loudly ground against the floor. "I'm something," she quipped too easily, as if she'd been waiting to jump at the opportunity to embarrass her wife. Raven sighed and absorbed the situation.

Yang was below her, looking way too pale. Her front was burned to shit. The cloth on her back was bloodied to fuck. Raven stepped forward, but her foot bumped into—

Ruby.

Raven fell before her child like a mother who shouldn't have ignored all the warnings and now had her precious daughter before her covered in blood and with a barely-closed chest wound not looking like she was breathing not—

Summer pushed her wife aside and knelt beside Ruby, briefly placing her fingers on the girl's carotid, her face a stoic, dutiful mask as always. She fished into one of the myriad pouches on one of her myriad straps, pulled out a little pill bottle, and shook it. She uncapped it beneath her daughter's nose.

Ruby's nostrils twitched.

There was a split second where Ruby, in the depths of her unconscious slumber, knew what she was smelling. In that split second, she realized that her mother was awakening her with smelling salts. She realized that meant her mom and mum were both present. She realized that meant everything had gone to fuck, because mom was here, and mom hadn't been here for any of the other things. She realized she may be in trouble. She realized she may have to explain things. She realized she may have to explain Weiss.

Unfortunately, the half-conscious stream of thoughts concluded with 'trouble', 'explain', and 'Weiss', which was a combination that nobody could be trusted to correctly decipher while their brain was waking up from being completely out. She vomited the first thing she could think to be in trouble for with Weiss:

"It wasn't bad drugs!" Ruby yelped, her eyes flying open. "I-it— it was just—"

She realized she was a fucking idiot. As usual.

For a woman seeing her mangled daughter return from unconsciousness, Summer could look remarkably disappointed.