Yo!

This week on RWBY(J)'s bizarre adventure; Yang and Raven angst!

Start Chapter 15

Patch is…

Well, it's a bit weird for Yang to suddenly be back in her childhood hometown, and have it actually be her childhood hometown.

There's that pizza place that had gone out of business when she'd been fourteen still serving customers just off the main road. The arcade hadn't yet become obsolete by home consoles and scroll games.

Hell, the carwash that had been uncovered as a front for the local mob is still there.

Yang's not really sure if she should report that…

Eh, she can think about that later.

Right now, she's got something more important on her mind.

Namely her mother, who has, ever since they left the Xiao-Long cabins radius some few days ago, yet to truly respond to anything Yang's said.

Of course, she'll give one-word answers, like "yes", she's listening, and "no", she doesn't want to talk about what happened.

Yang tries not to let it bother her. From what she'd seen…

Well, it's clear the problems between Raven and her mother and father had gone a bit deeper than she'd originally suspected.

The two of them are currently staying within a hotel in Patch, the very cheapest they could find for the purpose of staying as long as they can manage. It's shitty in terms of quality, but eh, it's got two beds and clean mattresses, so Yang's choosing to ignore the stains all over the walls.

They don't look like blood, which is really only a mild positive given all the other very gross things they could be instead.

She's very glad she doesn't have a blacklight, to put things another way.

Still, those days pass by slowly, and without either of them getting up to anything. Yang had been on guard about leaving Raven on her own for the first few days, worried her mother might up and disappear the second Yang let her out of her sight, but after a while she's started to relax.

So, she decides she can take a minute just for herself as well. The first order of business is getting her hair cut into something resembling an actual style. Her mother had cut her hair to her neckline, which means that either she's going to be waiting two to three years for her hair to grow back to the length she'd had it at before…

Or she's going to style it as is.

The latter wins out, mostly because she needs to show her face to people within those next few years.

So, the next day, Yang goes and gets her haircut at her old childhood barber. She wonders if the man – Giuseppe, with a handlebar mustache and a unibrow – has started cutting little Yang's hair yet? If he's gone through that very, very disastrous first haircut.

She'd unlocked her semblance that day, and nearly burned the man's shop down.

The memory is a happy one of bygone days, even if they're likely not so bygone in this timeline.

Still, she enters into Giuseppe's, and decides to get her hair cut into a bob. The man fusses with it just as much as she'd always remembered he had, tutting under his breath at all of her split ends, and the horrible condition of her hair.

In her defense, she'd been in a war, and then a magical realm, and then had her hair chopped off. She'd not really gotten time for his recommended daily conditioning.

Still, Giuseppe salvages it as best he can, and by the time Yang's finished with her cut some forty or so minutes later, she's looking back at herself with a mid-length bob cut, and finding that she doesn't hate it nearly as much as she'd been worried she might.

Of course, it's not her first choice of hairstyle, but accounting for the fact that she'd had half her hair taken from her against her will, she looks pretty damned good.

"Thanks, sir." She tells him as she pays for the cut, and then adds a sizable tip. "Y'know, you should quit those things. They're bad for your health."

Giuseppe, smoking a cigar that he doesn't know will lead to him developing lung cancer in seven or eight years, scoffs out under his breath. "Yes, yes, believe me, my wife won't let me hear the end of it."

"Well… maybe take this as a sign to listen to her." Yang can't exactly come out and say the truth, but if she can someone save her childhood barber from an early grave, then… "Just think about it, alright? They have nicotine gum and stuff like that, don't they?"

Giuseppe sighs, but nods his head. "I'll think about it, Miss…?"

"Yang." She tells him, seeing no reason to lie.

"Yang, hm?" Giuseppe grinds his cigarette into the ash tray on his desk. "Huh. More common name than I thought."

She smiles as she makes her way out of the barber shop, hoping that she's inspired some change in the man, but knowing that, realistically, she hasn't.

She'd tried though. And maybe that's enough.

When she arrives back at the hotel, she enters into their shared room to find Raven having just gotten out of the shower. Yang turns her face away, mostly because her mother has no concept of modesty at all, and earns a dry hum from Raven for it.

"You got your hair done?"

"I did."

"It looks…" Raven trails off. "Weird."

"Wow. Thanks mom." Yang tries not to actually allow her mother's words to affect her. "Very cool thing to say."

"I didn't mean–" Raven snarls. "You wear your hair almost exactly like I wear mine; or at least it seemed like you did during the brief time before I sliced it off. It's like staring at myself in the mirror, and seeing a completely different hairstyle."

Yang sighs, supposing that she can accept that excuse. "Yeah, well, in the future, the word you're looking for is 'nice'."

Raven scoffs, but gets dressed all the same. It's a bit weird, sharing a room with her mother who is, at most, only eight or nine years older than her.

Still, eventually, Raven dresses, and tells Yang she's going to go out to get something to eat. Yang nods her head, tells her that she's planning on showering, and does just that.

She showers out the loose hairs from her head that the barber had cut, and then puts some product in it to make it poof out a bit. She's taking some hints from how Blake had done her own hair in Atlas, and she's finding herself quite liking it, truth be told.

It occurs to her as she steps out of the hotel room some thirty or so minutes later, however, that her mother hadn't exactly told her where she'd been planning on going. So it is that Yang ends up wandering around Patch, wondering just where it is her mother might choose to go for lunch.

It turns out she has no idea. Yang's favorite restaurant – a pizza place close enough for delivery to their cabin – does not contain a Raven when she enters into it to check, but it does contain two slices of pepperoni pizza and a cola, which she downs with a satisfied hum before heading back out to continue searching.

And then, of course, things get weird, as they always must these days.

Because she finds where she next searches…

"You." Summer Rose, her mother, looks surprised to have found her. "You were with Raven."

"I…" Yang doesn't really know what she's supposed to say in this scenario. That's mostly because there are about a thousand things going through her head in that moment, many of them less than helpful. "Yeah. I was."

Summer nods her head, seeming perturbed. "I see. Do you… know where she is right now?"

"I'm looking for her as well."

"Who said I was looking for her?"

It's odd to see her mother so defensive. "Uh… you, just now?"

Summer parts her lips, seemingly to speak, but she closes them a moment later, looking down and away from Yang. "You say you're a Huntress, yes? Licensed out of Atlas, was it?"

"Yeah."

"Show me."

Yang isn't surprised her mother doesn't trust her. She reaches into her back pocket, looks down at her ID, realizes it says her name on it, and then grimaces.

It's a patch job, obviously, but she quickly goes into an editing tool and blocks out her name with a white bar. It's obvious it's been tampered with, but at the very least her mother won't suspect her of either A. altering the space time continuum, or B. stealing her daughter's identity.

Which feels unfair, given it's her identity, too.

She shows her mother the ID, and sure enough, Summer's brow furrows.

"Your name is blocked out."

"I'm aware."

Summer chuckles coldly. "I suppose I don't exactly trust you, either."

She hears Summer's words, but she couldn't be more wrong.

There's no one on the entirety of Remnant, barring her team, that Yang trusts more.

"So, believe me?"

"I believe you. I don't trust you, but yes, I believe you are a Huntress." Summer sighs. "You're quite young to be fully licensed."

"I went to an academy for a year before something happened. Ended up roaming around the world with my team, before getting our official licenses a year or so after that."

It's practically no information at all, but it hurts her more than she'd thought it would to have to hold back on telling her mother, well… everything.

Because she'd gone to her mother's grave often; told her of the many things that had been happening at Beacon on the few breaks they'd had. She remembers telling her about getting to be on a team with Ruby, telling her about Weiss and Blake's spats, and the docks, and how maybe, maybe, she had thought Blake to be a little pretty.

She smiles just thinking about it, then feels an equally potent sadness remembering that the woman standing before her feels nothing but suspicion towards her.

But she can't say a word. There are things at stake more important than her own feelings, Yang knows that, but it doesn't make this any easier.

"Any ideas where Raven might have gone?" Yang asks Summer.

"I'm surprised you're asking me."

"I don't know what her life was like here." Yang states, and it's the truth. It's hard for her to imagine Raven being in Patch, and yet, she knows for a fact that Raven had lived here for over two years. She would have had to have had places she liked, or favorite locales. "I figured you'd know more about her than I would."

Summer hums. "You're honestly probably right. I suppose there's a diner down the way that the three of us always liked. Maybe she'll be there."

It's as good as any other idea Yang might be able to conjure up, so she goes along with Summer as she leads Yang through Patch, and towards a somewhat rickety looking wooden building.

It seems to be a mom-and-pop diner, the kind of place that no one outside of the immediate town it's located in would have ever heard of. And yet, it has quite the crowd built up around it, with people sitting at the outdoor tables and being served rather delectably smelling meals.

Yang has literally just eaten, but she's somehow getting hungry again.

Summer leads the two of them inside, and lo and behold, sitting in a booth at the back of the restaurant, sipping from a tall mug of coffee and looking like absolute shit, is Raven.

Summer halts in place, staring over at Raven who has yet to see either of them. Yang wonders just what it is that her mom's thinking, even as she shakes her head, takes a steadying breath, and makes her way over towards the booth.

They approach, and Raven sees them coming. Her eyes widen as they lock onto Summer. She swallows visibly as Yang takes a seat beside her – trying to offer Raven some semblance of comfort – and Summer sits across from the two of them, on the opposite side of the table.

"Summer…" Raven mutters out. "What are you doing here?"

"Is that what you have to say, Raven?"

"No, I–" Raven growls out beneath her breath. "No, I didn't mean anything by it, I was just…"

Summer sighs, throwing Raven a bone. "I know. You weren't expecting me, and you're surprised I'm here, right?"

Raven nods her head, eager to explain herself and get Summer off her back.

"Why are you here? I'm not upset, to be clear, I'm glad to see you, it's just–" Yang doesn't think she's ever watched her mother fumble over her words quite this hard. "I thought when I left, you…"

"You thought I'd just let you go again?" Summer says it in a tone so very svelte and soft that Yang, again, feels like she really shouldn't be here. "After I finally got to see you?"

Raven swallows. "I…"

"Would you like me to leave?" Yang finally builds up the courage – or perhaps the willpower – to ask. "If the two of you would like to have a private conversation–"

"No!" Raven suddenly shouts, far louder than she likely intended given the fact that the surrounding tables all look over at her. "I… no. Stay."

Yang nods her head, and the others around them lose interest quickly. "Alright. I'll stay."

Summer looks between the two of them oddly, then. She doesn't seem to know what to make of the fact that Raven so very obviously needs Yang's presence. In all fairness, Yang's really not sure what to make of it either.

Her mother has never seemed this vulnerable before. But then… she also doesn't think she's ever seen Raven in a scenario where she has more on the line, either. Even the Relic of Knowledge the first time around had been…

Well, she'd not needed or wanted it. To take it would have been to invite Salem's attention, which had been the entire impetuous behind her working alongside Salem in the first place at Haven.

To get the eldritch woman to leave her alone.

"Alright," Summer clears her throat. "I'll just come out and say it, then. Tai and I talked about what happened. About seeing you again."

Raven leans forward, hanging on every word.

"He wanted to let you back into our lives." Summer speaks, and Raven's entire being seems to spark. "But I'm not quite so sure."

Raven's expression tenses right back up. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that I'm not sure the person who's sat in front of me right now is the same person I once knew." Summer explains, and with every word, Ravn shrinks down just a bit in her seat. "Do you know how many nights I lied awake hoping; praying that one day, you would come and show up on our doorstep, begging our forgiveness? Too many for me to even count. That happened a lot in the first year or so. Raising Yang was difficult, and it was even more so when I fell pregnant with Ruby. I wanted nothing more than for you to come back. We even sent Qrow out to go and get you. We thought that if you heard about Ruby; and about how much we needed you, that you might return."

Raven's staring down at the table in front of her, unable to look up.

"Do you remember what you said to him, Rae?" Summer's tone indicates that it is a rhetorical question. "Do you remember what it is you told him?"

Raven does. That's obvious. She can't bring herself to say it, though.

"You told him to 'get the fuck out of your camp'." Summer states. "That 'the two of us weren't your concern anymore'. Do you remember that, Raven?"

"I…"

"Well?"

"…I remember."

"Hm." Summer nods her head, her expression dim. "Do you know how long I cried that night? For so very many nights? It wasn't just the hormones from the pregnancy. I was gutted. Tai tried his best, and so did Qrow, but I was a wreck for weeks. I wanted Qrow to take me along to see you, I thought that maybe I could convince you if I went along, but… he wouldn't. He told me that you were too far gone. That he didn't want to endanger me for nothing."

Raven says nothing.

"That was half a decade ago, Raven. And since then, apart from Qrow's reports, I haven't heard a single word from you."

"…What do you want me to say, Summer?"

"What do I want you to say?" Summer almost laughs. It isn't a happy thing. "You tell me, Rae. What do you think I want to hear?"

"…I…"

"Is that it? You don't know? Or do you know, and you just can't bring yourself to say it."

Yang, again, really wishes she weren't here for this.

And then, it feels like time repeats itself. Yang watches her mother – her biological mother – look up at Summer. She watches as a thousand different emotions pass by her face, as she tries to rationalize a decade of bad decisions, and…

And then it's all she can manage to just say, "I'm sorry…"

And Summer's face warps as well. Her visage, previously stoic, cracks down the middle. Her hands crumple into fists. Her knuckles almost go white.

"Why… why couldn't you have just said that so many years ago!?" Summer suddenly utters, seemingly devastated. "Why did you… what is it with you!?"

"I don't know, I…" Raven shakes her head, tears gathering in her eyes as well. "I don't know. I'm a fuck-up, Summer. I'm not… I just don't understand how to…"

Summer's lips quiver as she tries to speak, but she ends up shaking her head, letting out a horrid breath of sorrow.

"It's… it's not alright, Rae. Qrow was just as fucked up as you, but somehow, he managed."

"He wasn't as–" Raven goes to shout, but again, the people around them are looking right at their table. "Let's take this outside."

"We haven't even ordered."

"Are you really hungry right now?"

Summer just blankly nods, accepting Raven's words.

They end up walking for a good five or so minutes, until they're along the outer edges of Patch, before Raven continues speaking.

"Arguing about which of us was more fucked up is pointless," she says, and Yang can't help but agree. "But you're… you're right. Qrow was able to adapt. I've…"

"You did." Summer's voice is small. "You did, but then… but then you ran away."

"I…"

"Why?" Summer asks, and it seems to shake her, finally getting to ask. "I've had that question sitting in the back of my head for nearly a decade now. I think I deserve the answer, Rae."

"It's… because I was terrified."

"…Is that all?"

Yang grimaces, taking a step back away from her two mothers. She… can't really blame Summer her words, no matter how brutal they are.

"It… this was…" Raven looks to Summer. "I never… growing up, Qrow and I did whatever we had to do to survive. That included killing people, robbing others, and… and some worse things. Some things I've never really been able to get out of my head, no matter how hard I try."

Raven lets out a shaky breath. "I can't… I saw Yang, when she was born, and I looked down at her, and I just… I knew, in that moment, that with me there, she…" Raven bites her bottom lip hard enough that Yang thinks she'll draw blood. "She'd end up like me. Or…"

Summer gapes at that, clearly not having expected such a response. "Why would you…"

"I don't know!" Raven shouts out, and she looks down at her shaking hands a moment later. "I don't even know, Summer! I'm not… that person, that weak, ineffectual idiot who ran away from you all those years ago, I… I barely even know who they were anymore! That's not me, that's not… I…"

"Is that why you came back?" Summer asks, and she sounds almost hopeful. "To make things right?"

"I came to right my wrongs." Raven tries stepping forward, and, when Summer doesn't step back, she takes yet another. "Summer, listen to me… I know you don't want to let me back into your life so easily, and I…" Raven looks down and away. "And I can't really blame you for that. I think if it were me in your shoes I'd think the same thing."

Summer doesn't say anything. She just listens, and watches, even as Raven takes a step forward every second or so. The distance between them is closing.

"I'm not asking you to accept me right away. I'm not asking for you to let me tell Yang the truth, or… or for things to go right back to the way they used to be between us, but…" Raven stops three paces from Summer, and stands right there. She doesn't get too close, doesn't try to push further.

In that moment, Yang thinks that maybe, just maybe, her mother has grown as she says she had.

"Please. All I ask is a chance. Let me prove myself to you. I just want to be a part of your life."

Yang can tell by the expression on her mother's face alone that she's utterly dumbfounded. Her hands shake at her sides. Her eyes, gleaming silver in the midday sun, finally let loose the tears that have been building within them.

"Gods damnit, Rae," Her mother laughs as she reaches up, and wipes at her eyes, at her cheeks. "Why? Why did you have to leave?"

Raven steps forward, then again. A single pace separates them. A single step; inches.

"I'm sorry."

"…Again."

"Huh?"

"Say it again."

Raven parts her lips, and nods her head. "I'm sorry, Summer."

"Tell me you won't leave. Promise me. You'll stay right here, and you won't go again."

"I'll never leave again. And if I have to, then you'll know exactly where I'm going, and for exactly how long."

Summer wraps her own arms around her body, crying into her own forearm.

Raven closes that final bit of distance.

"I promise." Raven whispers, even as she tilts Summer's face up.

And then Raven kisses Summer.

And Yang's brain sort of short-circuits around there.

Oh.

Oooooh.

Oooooooohoh.

Huh.

Yang has absolutely no idea what to do with this newfound information.

Eventually, the two part, and Summer looks up at Raven with an expression so complicated that Yang doesn't even bother attempting to parse its meaning.

"I… I'll talk to Tai. I'm not letting you back in, not yet, but… I'll see if… well…"

Raven just nods. "I'll be here. I'm not going to leave."

"Where are you staying?"

Raven gives Summer the hotel, and even their exact room number. Summer jots it all down, and then nods, wipes at her eyes again, and steps back from her.

"I…" She tries to say more, Yang can tell, but nothing really comes. "I'll call you when I can."

"Alright." Raven says, and she looks like she's both on cloud nine and utterly gutted. "I'll be waiting."

Summer nods to her, and then – seemingly having forgotten Yang had been there in the first place – gives an incredibly curt and professional nod towards her as well.

And then she departs, making her way back towards the Xiao-Long cabin.

There's a space of one or two minutes, then, where neither she nor Raven say a single word.

Mostly, that's because Yang just hasn't found the words to accurately say what it is she wants to.

She feels this is fair, given she's just figured out her mom, dad, and mother had all been in…

"Oh my god." Yang mutters eventually, shellshocked. "You were in a throuple."

Raven turns back towards her with a raised eyebrow. "You didn't know?"

"I didn't–" Yang spits out angrily. "I'm sorry; of course I didn't know! You disappeared! How was I supposed to know!? When would I have figured this out, mom!?"

Raven winces, as if to give Yang that one. "I guess that's fair. If you must know, then yes. Things were rather complicated back at Beacon. I and Tai–"

Yang shivers uncomfortably. "I really don't want to know."

She thinks her mother will back off, then. After all, it makes sense that she will. She has no reason to go any further, at least not in Yang's opinion.

And yet, Yang has been blind to something her mother has been growing increasingly annoyed about. The fact that she's been the source of Yang's teasing, and that she's been unable to get one back at Yang at all.

So, in that moment, when she finds something that genuinely perturbs her daughter?

She takes no prisoners.

"So," Raven plants her hands on her hips, a cheshire grin growing on her lips. "Your father and I got into a relationship in… perhaps our third year of Beacon?"

"Stop!"

"It was nice. Mostly a physical thing, of course,"

Yang starts walking away, content to leave her mother there, but the woman chases behind her.

"So, there we were; having messy, sloppy sex–"

"Stop!"

"When one day Summer walks in, and suddenly she can't meet my or Tai's eyes!"

"Stop it!" Yang starts running, but her mother is just as fast as she is.

"I thought it was a normal thing; she caught your father with his–" "Don't!" "In my–" "Aah!" "But I soon realized that Summer was in love with Tai as well when I caught her staring at him."

"Mercy! Please!"

"So, I suggested we have a threesome–"

"Oh my god, I will do anything–"

"But then Summer kissed me, and I realized she was also in love with me, too,"

"Okay that's actually sweet–"

"This happened while your father was railing me–"

"Gah!"

Maybe this isn't over. Maybe Summer and Raven haven't made their peace nearly as much as it seems they have, but…

For now, Yang supposes, this is better than seeing her mother without any life in her at all.

…Sort of.

"And so, the three of us realized that we all just sort of wanted to make one big fuck pile–"

Yang wretches.

End Chapter 15

That awkward moment when you learn WAY too much about your parents love lives.

Poor Yang.

Alright, not a ton to say at the moment, other than that, of course...

If you want to support me, and get access to the next FIVE chapters of this story right now, far sooner than they'll release on FF or AO3, then consider checking out my Patron! There's an e in there after the r and before the o. I assume you know what I'm talking about, but FF and AO3 don't like me typing that. It's just website dot com /Deferonz!

Want to support me without signing up for a monthly payment? Check out my Kofi! just website dot com /Deferonz

I'm currently taking Drawing commissions, and one-shot writing commissions! Feel free to send a dm to this account, a review or comment on this story, or reach out to me through other means!