i've got a bullet with your mouth on it

She kisses Yang back just as furiously, teeth biting on her bottom lip hard enough to hurt, and when they part her swollen lip is the only thing Blake’s able to comprehend - how pretty Yang looks without her cocky smile, when her mouth is relegated to other things and can’t fucking speak. How pretty she looks when she’s so close Blake can barely see the details, cataloging the sun setting against a lavender sky and the tip of her tongue slipping out to wet her lips. Oh, but that’s later; they’ll deny this, first. It’s just better for business.
What, Yang says, do I look like I'm made of money?
Yes, Blake thinks of saying. Yes, you kind of do. Like the world owes you just for living.

Notes:

so, i wrote this for fun, bc i was having crazy writer's block. inspired by a convo i had with my discord server about blake/yang's alternate first meeting in which blake holds gambol shroud to yang's neck, which is gay and hot.
playlist is here - the last song on it (madrona.) is important.

Work Text:

So, here’s the truth:

Blake hates her from the moment she lays eyes on her.

She knows it’s dramatic - Weiss has told her that approximately six-hundred and forty-five times in the same bored, monotonous drawl - but she can’t shake the feeling, can’t unravel it at the source; she’s so bright and bubbly and happy-go-lucky all the time, but with an edge, a spontaneity simmering underneath. She’s too reckless, that’s the problem. She’s too cheerful, like the only life she’s ever known is one seeped in content. She’s charming and beautiful and she knows how to get what she wants, and she uses that to her advantage, wearing shirts cut low and leaning over the bar and smiling too flirtatiously at the patrons; they tip her well, like she’s earned it, somehow, just for being hot.

In Blake’s opinion, she’s a manipulative, vapid narcissist, and Blake hates her lilac eyes, hates the small smirk that curls around her mouth, hates the way her blonde hair slips out of its messy bun and frames her face perfectly, hates how the sun follows her around like the rest of them aren’t worth lighting.

It’s no secret, either: Blake Belladonna fucking hates Yang Xiao Long, but what she hates even more is how Yang glances at her with her eyes burning red and her tongue darting across her bottom lip and how that look alone makes Blake’s stomach churn and curl. She leaves her shifts feeling sick, mouth dry, and thinks about quitting, thinks about how it’d be worth losing her apartment if she never had to look at Yang’s face again, never had to pass her behind the bar or in the storeroom, never had to smell her shampoo and deodorant, never had to brush fingers while handing her a bottle.

She never follows through.

(Yang’s in love with her the moment she lays eyes on her.

She knows it’s dramatic, but she also knows it’s true. The attraction is instantaneous, striking a match in a room coated in gasoline; Weiss introduces her and Blake misses a step. That’s the first sign. She hits the wood too hard and stops, staring at Yang with an expression similar to the way you’d observe space, stars, black holes, galaxies forming; there’s an awe and a fear, her eyes trailing up Yang’s body and holding her eyes, her pretty mouth slightly open, searching for words. She’s unimaginably beautiful, irises like gold and a soul Yang can sense a storm in from a mile away, and Yang wants her.

But Blake’s expression closes suddenly, lips pressing into a tight line, smile too forced to be anything but a mask.

“It’s nice to meet you, Yang,” she says, and it sounds like she’s saying I want you dead.

Yang’s grin broadens, revealing her teeth. Oh, that’s interesting, but if that’s how Blake wants to process her attraction, Yang’s not gonna stop her. Besides, she thinks, wrapping her fingers around Blake’s - who flushes, distaste becoming considerably less hidden - she knows exactly how to make the best of it. There’s no offense taken. She can’t blame repression.

In the end, it’s no secret: Blake Belladonna fucking hates Yang Xiao Long, loathes her with every inch of her being, glares whenever she enters a room, actively avoids touching her as if a single graze will draw death. The real secret is why.

Yang wears a black tank top to work the first hot day of the summer, and Blake’s eyes linger just a little too long on her cleavage as she distractedly dumps empty bottles into the recycling, mouth curling into a frown. Yang smirks, turns around, and bends over, reaching for a clean glass; Blake’s cheeks are pink and she’s studiously averting her gaze when Yang straightens.

So, actually, scratch that. Why isn’t really a secret, either.)

“She winked at me earlier, Weiss,” Blake’s in the middle of ranting on a late Thursday evening, counting the till during closing. “Some disgusting, middle-aged man tipped her ten dollars before he left, and when she picked it up, she like - tucked it into her back pocket and winked at me. Why? What’s the point? Does she expect like a ‘congratulations, you let men ogle your breasts for money--’”

“Please don’t say those words in that order again,” Weiss replies boredly, stacking glasses.

“She’s only doing it ‘cause she knows it riles you up,” Neptune points out from the kitchen, wiping down the counter. He lowers his voice - not enough. “Though it’s not like it takes much.”

“I heard that,” Blake growls, shoving the register closed and marking down her numbers. “Ugh. Whatever.”

“It was meant for you to hear,” Neptune shoots back. “Seriously. Everything she does sends you spiraling. Just let it go.”

“I will when she does,” Blake says insolently, and the room collectively rolls it eyes, sentiment unspoken: not likely.

“It’s like being back in high school,” Sun chimes in, “but with less sex.”

“Oh, that’s gonna change,” Neptune mutters under his breath, and Sun hastily turns a laugh into a cough, clearing his throat. That’s one remark Blake doesn’t hear.

(It’s sort of fun, if Yang’s being honest.

She’s not stupid; Blake’s attention is tied to her as if on string, or heavier, like a rope. Her infatuation is so poorly masked Yang can’t figure out how she tricks herself into believing it, let alone think she’s fooling anyone else. She’s not sure the disconnect; maybe Blake thinks she’s straight, maybe she thinks she’s jealous.

But she catches Blake worrying a lip between her teeth with her brow furrowed, catches the way she rubs at her forearm as if putting pressure on a bruise, catches the strangely fearful look in her eyes when she can’t turn away fast enough, and maybe it’s something else entirely.

She’ll deal with that when it’s relevant, but at the moment it’s all scathing glares and grimaces, haughty superiority, avoidance and ignorance. And it’s so fucking hot.

That’s the problem: Blake Belladonna is exactly Yang’s type, with her black hair in rolling waves down her spine and her eyes like the melting sun, all slender and tall in her heels, showing just enough skin to appeal, never enough to tease. She’s dark and secretive, keeps her air of mystery like a personality trait, just begging for someone to unravel her. Which, well, is essentially Yang’s goal.

“I want to raw her,” Yang tells Weiss seriously, who puts down her rag, closes her eyes, and breathes steadily for three, four, five seconds--

“Do not ever say that to me again,” she says calmly. “And if you do, I’ll fire you.”

Yang only rolls her eyes. “You’re such a fucking prude,” she replies, still gazing at Blake across the room. “Can’t you just support me?”

“Like you need my support,” Weiss points out, spraying the counter again. “I’m already doing everything I can. I schedule you for the same exact shifts, don’t I?”

“True,” Yang allows. “Only real best friends-slash-managers help you get laid.”

“I’m impressed you’re being as patient as you are,” Weiss observes idly, tossing the rag in a dish bin. “She clearly wants you to.”

“To what?” Yang says, having lost track of the conversation.

Weiss curls a lip delicately. “Raw her, as you so charmingly put it.”

Yang laughs loudly. Blake throws her a curious look, the intent turning scathing the moment she realizes Yang’s already staring at her. Yang grins broadly; she turns away, cheeks pink, mouth in a scowl. Yang says candidly, “I don’t think she’s ready. I think I’d just send her running.”

“Personally, I think it’d be good for her,” Weiss says, shrugging a shoulder as she pulls out a binder from beneath the register. “Then we wouldn’t have to listen to her talk about you all the fucking time.”

Yang laughs at her expense, chin resting in her palm, leaning against the counter. “Leave her alone,” she chides, only half-joking. “She’s like, so repressed. She’s worse than you were.”

Weiss flinches, apparently recalling a memory. “Thus the reason we haven’t called her out on it,” she allows, beginning to draft next week’s schedule.

They continue working in silence for a moment, idle in their own thoughts; Blake resumes tossing glances at Yang when she isn’t looking, trailing over her legs, the curve of her chest, the line of her jaw. Weiss is the one who watches her watch Yang, thinks about the ridiculous state of affairs, how it’d be easier for all of them if she’d just let Yang fuck her into the mattress. She uncaps her water bottle, bringing it to her lips.

“Besides, she’s a bottom,” Yang says abruptly, stocking the fridge with Corona, and Weiss chokes. “I have to be careful with how I make my move or I’ll scare her off.”

“Really?” Weiss asks dubiously, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “Her?”

Yang smirks at the disbelief. “Probably not a pillow princess like you, but she’s definitely not calling any shots. She’s more...she’ll play hard-to-get and reap the rewards.”

“You spend far too much time analyzing how other people act in bed.”

“Weiss,” she drawls arrogantly, “if you were into half the shit I was, you’d be paying attention too.”)

The schedule comes out on Monday, as it always does; she’s working almost every shift with Yang, as she always is.

She’d asked Weiss about it, once, who’d only shrugged and said their dislike of each other somehow managed to increase productivity or some other bullshit. Blake hadn’t had proof enough otherwise to argue. The only good thing about it is that Yang’s somehow locked in all the desirable shifts, always in the evening; Blake had done the eleven a.m. to five p.m. once and it’d been hell - all men who couldn’t wait to drone on about their lives and troubles, as if she were some kind of pseudo-therapist. Too sad to tip, barely functional enough to drink. She’d stopped complaining after that.

Yang’s already there by the time she gets in, in the middle of tying up her hair into a messy bun in the coat room; Blake brushes by her, hangs her purse on the same hook she always does.

“What,” Yang purrs a little too closely to the shell of her ear, “not even a ‘hello’?”

Blake shivers unnoticeably; her ears have always been sensitive, and the low timbre of Yang’s voice is like placing her hand on a speaker, reacting to the vibrations. She snaps her lips into a scowl, refuses to flinch away.

“It’s not like you said hello, either,” she points out shortly.

“Hello,” Yang says, amused, and Blake’s frown deepens; Yang’s so good at playing her, getting her right where she doesn’t want to be.

Blake’s frustration spills over; it’s been two minutes and she already wants to tear her hair out. “Ugh,” she seethes, pushing by Yang and back into the hallway, working on smoothing out her expression; she can’t face patrons like this. Yang catches up to her as they slip behind the bar, but doesn’t say anything more, content with what she’s managed.

Her shirt dips low, her cleavage pushed up. Her arms are muscular and Blake can’t stop staring when they flex in the dim light. Loose strands of hair fall against her face, curling. She smiles at a man as she hands him a bourbon and he gives her a twenty.

“Keep the change, baby,” he says, and Yang slips the remaining bills into the pocket on her ass, slowly, like she knows Blake’s watching.

Blake turns away, mouth dry and uncomfortable. Her heart beats once, too hard and heavy. She isn’t mad, that’s the thing. She knows exactly why Yang gets the attention she does.

It’s because she deserves it.

Oh, it’s another day; it’s always another day.

It’s a Wednesday, a bit of a busier evening than they’re used to. She and Yang don’t have the time to annoy each other, though they try in spite of it, Yang shooting her a cocky smirk and Blake dismissing it with a roll of her eyes.

There’s a man weighing her as if on a scale; she’s been serving him all night, and with every drink his gaze grows more and more lecherous, leering at her. He’s a good hundred pounds heavier and probably cracking six feet, with shocking grey eyes, strong features; he’s the type of guy who’s been told his whole life he’s too attractive to refuse, probably thinks his stare is flattering. She ignores it as best she can, too busy to do much else.

She’s in the middle of measuring shots when he finally breaks, makes his move. “Hey, sweetheart.” He leans over the bar, slurring slightly, grin lopsided. “You’re gorgeous. When’s your shift end? I’d love to walk you home.”

Blake stiffens, lips already pressed into a thin line. “No, thanks,” she says shortly, not looking him in the eye as she mixes a vodka cranberry. She somehow usually avoids most of these customers, and isn’t the most confident when it comes to turning them away.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” he croons, reaching out a hand to touch her wrist, and Blake jerks back automatically; fortunately she doesn’t knock the drink to the floor, but the abrupt motion catches someone else’s eye, and the last person she expects to rush to her defense steps up, eyes fiery red and hair messily slipping out of its bun.

“She’s here to work, actually,” Yang spits, unable to squelch her irritation. “She’s not a prize for your drunk ass to take home at the end of the night. Fuck off, and if I catch you touching any of the staff again, you’re out for good.”

Blake’s so shocked by the intervention that she only stares, barely comprehending the way the man mumbles out a “sorry” and plods off, drink in his hand, five dollar bill left on the table. Yang shakes her head in disgust, turns back to her own customers at her end of the bar, leaving Blake speechless and bewildered, that familiar burn of anger unfurling in her stomach.

(Yang’s seen the way Blake flinches away from men. It isn’t hard to put two and two together.

None of them like being touched, but Blake’s reaction is so visceral it’s as if she expects pain to follow after, like there was a time when she couldn’t jerk away and say stop. Yang recognizes signs, pays close attention to them, listens.

It’s very shortly after Blake’s hired; they’re closing and talking about relationships - well, Blake’s talking, and Ruby’s throwing questions at her like darts on a board - when she accidentally lets slip, “I had a...pretty terrible break up a few months ago.”

Ruby barely pauses. “With a guy? Girl? None of the above?”

“Guy,” Blake answers nervously, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder. Yang’s stacking chairs to the left and pretends not to notice, even though she does. She saves the observation for another time.

“What’s his name?” Ruby asks. “Would we know him?”

The idea that any of them may be acquainted with her ex is apparently enough to frighten her into checking; she swallows and says reluctantly, “Um, I’m not - not sure. Adam...Taurus?”

She offers the name like she physically tears it from her mouth, like a curse, like a poison. Ruby thinks for a second, shakes her head. “Nah,” she says. “Never heard of him.”

The tension held in Blake’s stance doesn’t relax. Yang only continues cleaning, doesn’t speak; Blake hadn’t meant to tell her, anyway - she’d just happened to be there. She knows when a place isn’t hers.

But she finds Qrow the next night as he’s setting up by the door, takes him aside with a hand on his arm. He senses the severity. “What’s up?” he asks, gravel masking concern.

“If a man by the name of Adam Taurus ever tries to enter this bar,” she says quietly, “under no circumstance should you let him.”

He processes, stares at her with a more open interest. “Adam Taurus?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” He makes the mental note, but continues eyeing her, obviously in the market for information. “Which one of you is this for?”

“The new girl,” Yang says, still keeping her tone low. “Blake. He’s her ex, but I get the sense he...might be dangerous.” It’s the best way to phrase her unease with the intuition she has.

Qrow takes her seriously, nodding, squaring his shoulders. “Adam Taurus,” he repeats. “I don’t think I’ve seen him yet, but I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Thanks, Qrow.”

“Sure thing.”

It isn’t the only thing she does with the knowledge, but it’s the biggest; the rest are smaller, contained. She’s been there longer: she recognizes the handsy customers, recognizes the flirts, the ones too drunk to take no for an answer, and she aims for them before Blake has a chance to interrupt. It’s just better this way, she thinks, watching Blake smile at a couple of middle-aged women down the bar while the man she’s serving blatantly stares at her chest.

Nothing really bothers her anymore, and she’s allowed to kick out whatever does. Blake’s been through enough already, whatever that may have been. Yang’ll take the sacrifice.)

Sun and Neptune clock out, leave the kitchen lights on, banging through the back doors into the parking lot. Blake finishes the register, stacks a few chairs. Yang is nowhere to be found.

She glances down the hallway, fingers resting on the brick wall; there’s the telltale sounds of boxes shifting, bottles cracking against their wooden crates. She approaches the storeroom door, pries it open and slips in without purpose.

Yang’s bent over the boxes along the back wall, searching for something; her muscles flex every time she picks up a pack, dangerous and cautionary.

“I could’ve handled that, you know,” Blake says, tone more venomous than she intends. The storeroom door clicks and shuts behind her. “Earlier.”

Yang pauses over shifting boxes, tosses a glance behind her. “Fine,” she shrugs, moving a crate of Stella to the side. “Next time, it’s all yours.”

“You made me look weak,” Blake accuses, because she can’t let it go, because she needs more of a reaction than casual dismissal. “I don’t need to be protected.”

“I said fine,” Yang repeats firmly, straightening up to face her; she’s sweating slightly, the sheen visible on her forehead, and her hair is unraveling from its tie. She looks incredible, somehow, despite the end of an eight-hour shift, which only serves to irritate Blake further. The tension sizzles between them, and Blake’s nerves are alight in fire, her heart rolling.

“It’s not fine,” Blake snaps, stepping closer. “That’s the point.”

Yang only rolls her eyes, clearly exasperated by the lack of direction in conversation, and jerks her hair tie out of her hair. “Jesus, Christ,” she exhales, sweeping her bangs away from her forehead. “You aren’t special, Blake. I’d have done the same thing for Ruby or Weiss. Stop taking it so fucking personally.”

“It is personal,” Blake says, responding more to the charged atmosphere than the actual argument; it’s so electric she can feel it in her bones, as if a storm has started circling low, thrumming.

“Okay, so?” Yang asks heatedly, mirroring her, moving forward. “What else do you want from me?”

“Just--” Blake starts, stops, takes in the red tint of Yang’s eyes and her mouth looking as soft as her skin, and grits her teeth, “--fucking leave me alone.”

“Explain to me how I don’t do that already,” Yang says, deadly quiet. The air vibrates, hums with energy. She takes another step; the echo of her boot hitting the ground signals a hunt. “You avoid me and I let you. We barely talk unless it’s necessary. It’s not like I invite you out.” One more footfall; she’s securely in Blake’s space, and her eyes are hueing darker and darker, stare narrowing in. Her cleavage presses over the line of her black tank top, hands by her sides, and God, it shouldn’t be legal for someone be this beautiful and a raging bitch at the same time. “Hell, this is the closest we’ve ever been, and I think you know exactly why.”

Her gaze slips down to Blake’s mouth and flicks back up; it’s purposeful, seductive, and done precisely because Yang knows it’ll get a rise out of her. Blake feels her muscles tighten, fingers curling into fists and spreading again, feels her stomach clench like it’s trying to escape from the rest of her. There’s a secret she’s always running from; Yang’s one hell of an actress. “No,” she replies, leave, leave, leave. “I don’t.”

Closer still. Yang’s breath settles against her lips. She doesn’t move; it’s a test and she won’t back down, it’s a game and she’s winning; there’s a lesson here, somewhere, and she loses it the split second the tension finally snaps, like a wire pulled taut and pressured. The breaking point is the crash of Blake’s back against the door, Yang suddenly all around her, lips pressed against hers and sighing into her mouth with her hands on Blake’s jaw. Blake can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t stop her - she kisses Yang back just as furiously, teeth biting on her bottom lip hard enough to hurt, and when they part her swollen lip is the only thing Blake’s able to comprehend - how pretty Yang looks without her cocky smile, when her mouth is relegated to other things and can’t fucking speak. How pretty she looks when she’s so close Blake can barely see the details, cataloging the sun setting against a lavender sky and the tip of her tongue slipping out to wet her lips.

That’s all she really wants, Blake thinks distantly, allowing Yang to kiss her again, unconcerned by force; her veins coil themselves in fury and propel her, heart beating like a cocking gun. All she really wants is for Yang to shut the fuck up.

Her head sinks underwater, loose and hazy, unable to reconcile what she’s allowing with the aching hatred underneath it; Yang isn’t gentle with her, teeth digging into her lip just as roughly, her hands guiding Blake’s mouth, dropping to her jeans, tugging harshly on a belt loop.

“I fucking hate you,” Blake exhales viciously, Yang’s mouth working down her neck; at the admission, her teeth suddenly scrape the skin as she sucks at Blake’s pulse point hard enough to mark, her intent clear. Blake’s never really been a fan of hickies but her blood throbs underneath Yang’s tongue in the kind of bruise that feels good when the pressure’s gone, erotic and enticing, something she wants more of but will never admit aloud.

“I’m aware,” Yang murmurs, unconcerned, her fingers working the button on Blake’s jeans. “You’re no fucking walk in the park, either. But you don’t have to like me to let me fuck you.”

“Don’t I?” Blake asks breathlessly, making no move to stop her; she sinks down, tugs Blake’s jeans over her hips, down her legs, off. Her fingers slip against Blake immediately and she sighs quietly, as if she hadn’t wanted Blake to hear; she’s wet - too wet, considering the circumstances - and Blake gasps before she can control her reaction.

Yang grins cockily, guides one of Blake’s legs over shoulder, and presses an open-mouthed kiss above just where Blake wants it most; her teeth dig into her bottom lip to the point of pain, stopping herself from responding. “It’s called hate sex,” Yang says against her skin. “Plenty of people do it.”

“I hadn’t intended - Jesus - to join the minority.”

“Admit it,” Yang whispers dangerously, looking up at her with shockingly red eyes, like a physical synesthesia, flooding exactly the color she feels. “You fucking love this. The girl you hate more than anyone on her knees, about to make you cum.”

Blake can’t manage a response, biting her lip in place of a moan; she won’t allow Yang the satisfaction. But as if to prove a point, Yang smirks cruelly and presses the tip of her tongue teasingly against her, licking up slowly in a flick, and Blake can’t hold back the jerk of her hips, how one hand automatically falls against the back of Yang’s head, fingers curling in her hair.

“You talk too much,” Blake grits out, enraged by her own betrayal. “If you want to fuck me so badly, shut up and do it.”

Yang snickers, and then--

Blake can’t stop her jaw from slacking, lips parting, toes curling; she’s never had sex with a girl before but Yang certainly knows what she’s doing, figuring out what Blake likes almost faster than she consciously figures it out herself. She flattens her tongue, swipes up in broad strokes, wraps her mouth around her clit and sucks. It’s almost painfully erotic, her fist wrapped in Yang’s hair, hips grinding shamelessly against her mouth, her head finally knocking back against the wood when she can’t take the image any longer.

It takes her awhile to realize the breathy moans filling the room are hers, but she’s too far gone to put a stop from them now; Yang doesn’t even seem to need her fingers, slowing down with teasing flick when she senses Blake on an edge, and Blake tugs on her hair and says “Yang,” aching and desperate; Yang hums in what must be a laugh, and it’s enough--

If Yang weren’t supporting one of her legs she’d collapse against the floor, but Yang holds her stable, keeps a hand on her thigh, the other on her hip, and doesn’t complain about how tightly Blake’s gripping her hair, nails scratching against her scalp.

Yang finally stands somewhat unsteadily, and her lips are red, chin glistening; she wipes the back of her hand over her mouth and her smirk settles in its place again. Blake’s still panting, barely able to process what’s just occurred, but Yang leans close to her with her hands flat against the wall, framing Blake’s body, and murmurs, “You taste incredible.”

“Fuck you,” Blake says automatically, though her usual bite is gone, just as everything else is; there’s no room left, no walls and ceiling, no bar, no sky, no earth. She’s never had an orgasm that hard in her life and she’s having trouble putting it into perspective; too much has been missing, holding her back.

Yang slips a finger underneath her chin, tilts her head up, forces eye contact. “Next time,” she says, her mouth looking like both a hook and a curse, “you won’t get off so easily. And I do mean that in every sense of the phrase.”

Blake jerks her head away, grinding her teeth, and Yang drops her arm, still with that deliciously conceited, awful smirk; the fire returns, all the walls are suddenly right where she left them, and Blake hates her even more than she did before.

“There won’t be a next time,” she growls back, working her jeans up her legs. “This was a mistake, Yang. Clearly I’ve - lost my fucking mind, or something, but it was a mistake, and one I don’t plan on repeating.”

Yang’s smile broadens; she watches Blake fasten her button, now knowing exactly what’s underneath, knowing where to touch her, press her tongue, suck. “A mistake is kiss,” she purrs, and without warning, leans in and brushes her lips over Blake’s casually, lightly. Blake doesn’t even have the time to react - or that’s what she argues to herself, ignoring how she kisses back instinctually - before Yang pulls away, and all she comprehends is the taste of something sweet, salt underlining her bottom lip. Blake only remembers another day despite trying not to, remembers another kiss, soft and tender. Yang continues, “Not you cumming in my mouth.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Blake says before she can stop herself, furious at the situation, furious at herself - furious with Yang for being right, though she’ll never admit that. She’s still wet; the reminder pulses and burns. “I’m leaving. I don’t care what you think. It was a mistake.”

Yang steps back, creating space, smirk still irritatingly present; her irises have faded back to lilac and they’re too full of a knowing Blake isn’t sure she regrets giving; stop looking at me like that, she thinks of saying, but all Yang does is sweep her hair back into her signature messy bun and leave, sparing her a single glance before the door shuts, arrogantly unaffected.

It takes Blake a lot longer than that to even breathe again, her heart ricocheting around her chest like a bullet. She wonders if it’ll kill her.

Yang’s still sitting in her car in the parking lot when Blake makes her way to her own; the shame sits white-hot in her chest, her previous lack of willpower already starting its haunt. Yang’s not looking at her, fiddling with her phone and sound system. She doesn’t start to drive until Blake’s already peeled around the corner, but Blake swears she catches Yang watching her leave in the rear-view mirror.

She accidentally drives ten miles too fast over the speed limit on the way home. The roads are all too dark and her bed is too empty. She touches herself and Yang’s name stays in the back of her throat where it belongs.

(So, that’s not entirely how Yang intends for it to go down - pun intended - but she isn’t looking to take it back. She barely sleeps, thinks of nothing but her tongue on Blake’s clit, thinks of bending her over and breaking her, thinks of hearing her beg more, please, harder.

The two of them have the next two days off. That’s really her only regret: that she won’t be able to crack Blake sooner.)

It ends up being an entire week later before she’s forced to face Yang in the aftermath, in her own personal wreckage; there’s the constant sound of shatter, there’s the consistent crumble of stone. Somewhere a wall is coming down. She does nothing but dream in shades of red with a dull ache settling in her chest.

She avoids it as long as possible, trading shifts with whoever will give them to her until Weiss finally intervenes, forbidding her from fucking up the schedule any further. “I know you hate her,” Weiss snaps on Tuesday, “but you need to get over it.”

Or under it, she hears in Yang’s voice, imagines her smirk, shivers.

It’s a Wednesday. She arrives before Yang, for once, and is already set behind the bar when Yang walks in, and of course she’s done up, hair loose and curled, lipstick dark and wicked, black leather pants hugging her legs, the curve of her ass. Her crop top has a woman’s mouth on it, gradient print, and the soles of her heels match her lips.

Blake shuts down entirely watching her walk across the room; her brain switches off, and all she’s left with is the image she’s been poorly repressing for days, Yang on her knees, chin wet, tongue extending and flicking.

“Hi, baby,” she greets Blake flirtatiously, making sure she isn’t overheard; maybe it’s the obvious fervor in her eyes that leads Yang to boldness. “Been awhile.”

Her voice, however, jolts Blake back from whatever hell she’s been driven into; her soul is suddenly the color red, her blood is in her veins and hot, her muscles are tense and unrelenting. Her expression closes tightly, eyes narrowing. “You’re such a bitch,” she snarls under her breath, reaching for the Stoli, and Yang can only throw back her head and laugh.

This time, it’s Yang who corners her in the storeroom. Maybe it’s an accident; maybe it’s not. There’s no time for semantics when the door swings shut.

“Well, well, well,” Yang says smugly, “isn’t this familiar.”

Blake swallows, tension rising suddenly like the tide, the air too full of previous expectation. She doesn’t want to allow a glance, but Yang becomes the center of any space she’s in, and Blake can’t look anywhere without it being directly at her.

“No, it isn’t,” she says shortly, attempting to keep her temper in check. “I’m counting stock.”

“Really?” Yang pries casually. “You’re telling me you’re not thinking about my mouth on your--”

“No,” Blake interrupts, seething, cheeks pink. “I’m not.”

Yang grins, drops her eyes to Blake’s chest, her hips, her thighs; her tongue slips out bare across her bottom lip. Blake shifts her weight uncomfortably, heat rushing around her navel, but doesn’t make a point to move. Why should she, she reasons logically (so logically), why should she have to leave when she was here first; her excuses are so weak she doesn’t dare speak them aloud, letting them swirl around the bottom of her skull in disarray.

Blake’s mouth begs for rain in a drought. Yang’s smile stretches wide, cracking like the ground, carnivorous.

“You’re turned on,” Yang says, and her voice is quiet the same way loading a bullet into a chamber is. Her hand tugs on Blake’s belt loop again, and the motion is an instant memory.

“I’m not turned on,” Blake hisses, her fingers wrapping around Yang’s wrist, “I’m fucking angry,” but Yang’s hand slips underneath the band of her underwear and Blake’s hot and wet and Yang’s expression finally cracks, pupils expanding, lips parting; the want is tangible, and Blake feels her own stomach rolling, feels the urge to grind down onto her hand, feels how badly she needs Yang on her knees. It only serves to make her angrier, ripping through her like a tightening coil.

“Not turned on, huh?” Yang repeats darkly, touching her teasingly with two fingers, and Blake’s head falls back against the wall on instinct, her other hand curling around Yang’s shoulder. It’s impossible to speak with Yang stroking her lightly - too lightly to accomplish a fucking thing - but she forces herself to keep her hips still, keep her spine straight.

She grits her teeth, meets Yang’s eyes boldly and spits out, “Fuck you, Yang.”

Yang only smirks widely, removes her hand, and lifts her fingers to her mouth, wrapping her lips around them one at a time and sucking. It’s so pornographic and filthy that Blake suddenly loses every witty insult and comeback she’d had stockpiled in the back of her brain, managing a sort of strangled noise in her throat, gaze trained on Yang’s mouth.

“Oh,” Yang says haughtily, “I think we can arrange that.”

Yang’s irises are melting red; she bends down, and for a single moment Blake flashes to the image of her on her knees again, Blake’s thigh resting over her shoulder and her tongue working steadily, but Yang only picks up a crate and straightens, smirk transitioning into a smile. She turns and walks back out of the storeroom, the door swinging shut behind her, and Blake can only lean back against the wall and burn, imagining relief.

(“Hey,” Yang murmurs to Sun when he clocks in later that evening, crate tucked under her arm, “you think you can convince Blake to go out with you later?”

He eyes her oddly. “Uh, is this like, some kinda trick?” he asks bluntly. “‘Cause that girl’s so into you I’m not convinced she even knows the rest of us exist.”

She rolls her eyes so hard it’s somehow loud enough for him to hear. “Not like that,” she says, only mildly vexed. “Just, like, convince her to go to Heat with us tomorrow night. Make sure you mention I’m going, but don’t make it sound like a big deal.”

“Ohhh,” Sun says, catching on and smirking as he hangs his backpack on the wall. “I know what game you’re playing, Xiao Long.” He pauses, apparently an afterthought. “But shouldn’t I like, not mention you’re going?”

Yang grins broadly. “Trust me,” she says arrogantly, brushing by him towards the bar. “You’ll be surprised how quickly she agrees.”)

Sun approaches her towards closing, when the bar’s calmed down and the stragglers are finishing their final drinks, laughing quietly and counting out their cash for tips. She’s reorganizing the bottom shelf, her hair up in a ponytail and her eyes wandering over to where Yang’s stacking glasses.

“Hey, Blake,” he says, and she manages to tear her gaze away long enough to offer Sun a smile.

“Hey, Sun,” she says, mouth returning to its line. “What’s up?”

“I’m here to save your social life,” he says dramatically, hoping it’ll be enough of a statement to spark saving face. “We’re going to that club downtown tomorrow night, Heat or whatever. You’ve gotta come with us, dude.”

“Oh, do I?” she asks, genuinely amused; she puts the last bottle back in place and turns towards him, arms crossed, observing. He can see the scale, the pros and cons. “Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me, Neptune, Weiss, Yang, and Ruby,” he answers promptly, keeping their names all relatively stable; Blake’s lips twitch at the mention of Yang’s name, brow furrowing in the smallest dent. He decides to test theories; Yang’s are usually right, anyway. He lowers his voice, aiming for reluctance. “I know you and Yang don’t like, get along or anything, but--”

“No, I’ll go,” she interrupts immediately, as if any internal debate had been rectified the moment he’d said Yang. “I’m not going to miss out on something just because she’ll be there. It’s fine.”

Sun struggles on holding his tongue back in his mouth, no sign of the laugh he’s fighting with. “That’s a great outlook,” he says, hopes his face isn’t blowing it. “It wouldn’t be the same without you. We’re meeting at mine at nine-thirty to pregame.”

“Sounds good,” Blake says, pulling out her phone. “My shift ends at nine, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Wear something hot,” he says, winking playfully. It’s more to keep up appearances; he knows she belongs in somebody else’s bed.

She rolls her eyes, already reverting to ignoring him. “Down, boy.”

It’s possible that pregaming is a bad idea.

She says possible only because she’s already in the middle of doing it. She’s three shots in and Yang’s staring at her, lips wrapping around her shot glass, liquid sliding down her throat, bare and pale. She’d look so good with bruises, Blake thinks idly, her face already flushing. She’d look so good giving them, too.

Blake loses her when they finally arrive at the club; it’s dark, packed, hot, and she’s sure Yang’ll have no shortage of attention if the number of heads turning when she’d walked in had been any sort of indication. She sticks by Weiss, for awhile, dancing and laughing until Ruby starts absorbing her attention, and then she slowly gravitates to Sun, trying bizarre shots at the bar with Neptune. She indulges a few, noting which ones she likes enough to learn to make, before she finally toes the line of ‘too drunk to care’ and winds up alone.

She’s hanging off to the side observing when a man slides up next to her, starts chatting her up; he seems harmless, but Blake knows harmless types, knows how they shapeshift, how they turn to wolves. He’s smiling easily, making small talk and jokes that she barely returns, but he’s getting closer, closer--

“Excuse me,” Yang interrupts diplomatically, and Blake starts at her sudden appearance, “but she isn’t interested.”

He shoots her a clearly insulted look. “Excuse me?” he says loftily, irritation bubbling to the surface, his hands in his pockets; it’s an aggressive stance, though not one that actually manages to intimidate her. Not much does.

“She’s already going home with someone tonight,” she says charmingly, draping an arm around Blake’s shoulders; it’s a testament to how good she looks that Blake can’t even think to push her off, too busy staring at her mouth.

“Who?” the man says, affronted, glancing around sarcastically.

Yang smiles, teeth gleaming like something devilish and inhuman. “Me.”

He stares, stares, stares. “You,” he finally repeats, caught between a crossfire of a laugh and grimace. “What, like you’re a fuckin’ lesbian or something?”

“That’s exactly what I am,” Yang says, sinister undertone warping her voice. “And I’m gonna make her cum harder than you’ve probably ever made anyone, assuming they weren’t faking it to begin with.”

Blake’s lips part at the insult, lungs flattening, expanding again, breath coming in short. It’s too unexpected to fight back in the moment; it must be, or she’d be saying something, but all she can think to do is watch the tension unfold, watch Yang’s eyes glitter under the light, watch the man sputter and fall flat. The pressure over her shoulder feels both too much and not enough. She feels a laugh bubble and pops it.

His gaze slips to her, but she’s too absorbed in Yang to offer any insight, assistance. He curses at them under his breath, slides off, glowering disgustedly. Yang turns to her, smirk still in place.

“You’re welcome,” she says lowly, relishing in the moment, the finality, the force of it--

Oh, right, Yang probably shouldn’t have been allowed to do that, she probably shouldn’t decide who Blake can and can’t talk to at a club, she probably should’ve been stopped, yelled at, humiliated. Blake takes her hand, tugs her along the back wall and into the bathroom; there’s miraculously no line, and she makes up the wait for words by soaking them in ferocity, indignation--

“What the fuck, Yang,” Blake fumes, cornering her against the wall, actually shaking in outrage, vibrating underneath her skin. “Like you had the fucking right--”

“To what?” Yang retorts forcefully. “Tell him the truth?”

“It wasn’t the truth,” Blake replies furiously, can’t stop her eyes from dropping to Yang’s chest, up her neck, her mouth; God, damn, she looks good, tight black jeans ripped up the thigh, black heels adding on at least two inches, crop top riding up her abs, lips red and sinful; all Blake can think of is poisonous apples and girls in fairytales on the brink of death, because it’s how she feels: like she’ll die if Yang doesn’t touch her.

“Oh, yeah?” Yang asks, smirking cruelly. “You want to fuck him? I don’t think he’ll take much convincing--”

Blake thinks of ripping her hair out, thinks of ripping Yang’s shirt off, thinks of how wet banks shed sand like skin. “No,” she hisses, “but that’s not the point--”

Yang leans in close, too close, effectively cutting off any further complaint; Blake’s voice runs from her immediately, swallowing as if the sound is a containable force. Yang’s smirk grows wider, obviously aware of the effect she’s having, and raises a hand, index finger resting against the bottom of Blake’s chin.

“What’s the point, then?” she whispers, staring down at Blake through her eyelashes; it’s intentionally seductive. Yang sure knows her angles. “That I can’t tell you what to do? Because I think that’s exactly what you want.”

Blake wants to push her away, wants to deny, deny, deny; but Yang’s so close, so incomparably gorgeous, so fucking dirty, that all Blake actually imagines doing is saying please. Her silence is enough to cross lines, her eyes flicking back and forth between Yang’s, the denial on the tip of her tongue too late.

Yang twists her fingers through Blake’s hair, crashes their mouths together, doesn’t care if it hurts or if their lips are off-center or if she catches teeth; it’s about power, not perfection, and she’s got it all. Blake’s not here to fight, not anymore, not when every argument keels over and dies under the pressure of Yang’s mouth.

“I’m not doing this is the bathroom of some club,” Yang breathes against her. “If you want me to fuck you, you’re coming home with me, and we’re going now.”

“Fuck you,” Blake snarls, and she actually sees the split second Yang snaps, irises flushing red.

Yang’s hand darts low, captures her wrist tightly - not tightly enough to hurt, just enough to hold still - and says dangerously, “If you don’t want to make the decision, baby, I don’t mind making it for you.”

Blake bites down on her lip, feels the slickness between her thighs, dreams of riding her fingers; it’s too filthy, too hot, Yang entirely in control and flaunting it. As if reading her mind - maybe just the lust in her eyes - she smirks and tugs Blake in front of her, hand on her lower back, guiding her towards the door.

“We’re leaving,” she murmurs in Blake’s ear, and all Blake can do is obey.

They take a Lyft, and Yang’s miraculously put-together, poised and steady; she keeps an arm wrapped around Blake’s waist as if she’s holding her up, when all she’s really doing is holding her there, close. It isn’t helpful at all; it’s possessive, and Blake can’t even pretend to hate it. She’s too drunk for fear, too drunk for ambiguity. Fuck me, she thinks like it’s the only thing left. Fuck me.

Yang gets her inside, strips her of her shirt, her boots, her jeans too quickly and sloppily for Blake to keep track of; there’s no need for build up because they’ve done it all already. Yang slips her underwear down her legs and finds Blake wet, finds her smeared across the inside of her thighs, finds all the lies she’s told all night, disproven in an instant.

“You’re so needy,” Yang taunts from between her legs, curling her fingers inside of Blake and adjusting her position when she doesn’t get the angle she’s looking for; a moment later and Blake’s spine is arching off the mattress, mouth open and soundless. “You hate me, but you can’t wait to get underneath me.” She flicks her tongue at the same time, and Blake finally, finally moans, strangled like it’s been forced out. “I’m getting mixed signals, Belladonna. I thought this was a mistake.”

“It was,” Blake manages, grinding shamelessly against Yang’s fingers, one hand tangled in her hair. “It still is.”

“Oh?” Yang asks, pressing her tongue flatter for a brief second, and Blake chokes on an inhale. “So why are you here?”

“Hate sex,” Blake says breathlessly, writhing, trying to shift herself closer to Yang’s mouth, who only grins, just out of reach. “That’s what you - fuck - you said, isn’t it? People - do it all the time--”

“Sure,” Yang murmurs, and there’s an amusement tying up her voice Blake can’t unwrap just yet. “We’ll go with that.”

Blake tugs on Yang’s hair, lungs skittering to a halt, and Yang finally sucks, allowing release; she writhes against the continuous pressure on her clit, Yang’s fingers still working inside of her. It feels so good she isn’t sure how she’s still alive, and she’s not entirely convinced she is; the pleasure surpasses any point she’s ever reached and she’s left without references, only able to agonize against the unrelenting earthquake, the eruption building low--

Yang laps at her as she cums, holds her thighs down with both hands, doesn’t stop until Blake cries out desperately from the sensitivity of it. She crawls up Blake’s body after, dragging her bottom lip into her mouth, back of her hand running across her chin.

“Jesus,” she says, eyes wild and feral, the devil herself gleaming out of shadow, “I fucking love eating you out.”

“Shut up,” Blake growls, shoving Yang off of her until she’s on her back, blonde hair splayed messily underneath her and her smirk nearly glowing. She’s tired of being rendered speechless, tired of losing the last word to Yang’s tongue. Her turn. She’ll take what’s being given.

But her bravery wavers when she actually sits up and sees; Yang’s just laying there, waiting expectantly, watching her, and the thing is - the thing is--

Yang smiles, and it isn’t cruel or teasing, cocky or seductive; it’s a reprieve from the heat, almost a white flag briefly making an appearance, like Yang’s telling her we can stop if you want to, you don’t have to go this far, I know this isn’t real. But it is. Or it used to be.

The thing is that Yang’s beautiful, toned muscle shaded in the string lights, hair wild and spread across her pillow, irises still saturated in red, skin smooth and unbroken. She’s beautiful and she’s aware of it and she doesn’t just fuck people, let them see her as she is - but she’s letting Blake.

There are measurements to this. There are rules and consequences. So, she’s faked a lot of things; maybe she can fake being blind.

Blake drops her head, kisses her with more passion than resentment, acquiesces to a simpler, softer side; her uncertainty gleams through. She lets her hand drift against Yang’s skin, follows the indent of hip, the crease of her thigh, to--

Touching Yang is undeniably hotter than she’d imagined, her fingers slipping across her clit, dancing lower, gathering wetness; Yang’s biting her lip, trying to keep her hips as still as possible, letting Blake take whatever time she wants. There’s nothing clinical about it; she’s driven only by unrelenting desire as she slides a finger almost torturously slowly into Yang, watching her face change, her expression shift, and adds another. She isn’t even fucking her, that’s the thing. She’s just feeling her, feeling the way her muscles tense, how she clenches involuntarily.

“Three,” Yang finally speaks, “use three,” and Blake bites her lip but does as she’s told; Yang’s spine curves and she gasps, fingers resting on Blake’s wrist, hand moving steadily.

“Like that?” she asks, trying not to groan at how tight she is, burning at the thought alone.

“Curl them slowly,” Yang pants, and Blake obeys, pressing up against her until Yang’s knuckles go rigid, bloodless, and the sounds falling from her mouth turn blatantly pornographic; “there,” Yang says breathlessly, “that’s - that’s it, but I can’t - I can’t cum from it, it just - shit - feels good--”

Blake slips her fingers out at the admission, and Yang whines before Blake finds her clit, rubbing circles, alternating pressure, familiar enough with herself to know Yang’s signs; her body shakes and trembles, her stomach taut and coiling; Blake kisses down her neck and pauses over her pulse point before sucking hard, working her fingers steadily, Yang straining up against her.

“Oh, fuck you,” she whispers repeatedly, fingertips digging into Blake’s back, “fuck you, fuck you--”

When Yang cums, Blake finally understands her addiction to it, how she fucks her like she’ll never get another chance, how she drinks it in like she’ll never get another taste; Yang cums and convulses, moaning Blake’s name into her ear, crooking up a knee automatically as she rides it out; Blake thinks of continuing, of never stopping at all again, of fucking her senseless for the rest of her life, but--

She’s still so fucking wet; Yang’s watching her through hooded eyes, and so Blake slips each finger in her mouth one at a time the way Yang had done to her the previous week and sucks. She’d found it sinfully hot then, hopes it mirrors that effect, and she’s rewarded when Yang bites her lip, attempting to choke back her voice, ab muscles tightening again.

Yang sits up suddenly, wraps her hand around Blake’s wrist, pulls her fingers away; she leans in instead, captures her lips in an open-mouthed kiss, tongue sweeping across Blake’s, tasting herself.

“As fun as that was,” Yang murmurs when they break, “I’m kind of wondering how many times I can make you cum in a night.”

The answer is a lot, that’s about as specific a number she has. The answer is so many she passes out after the last one - could’ve been ten, maybe forty; that’s how it feels, at least - and wakes up in Yang’s bed, well into mid-morning. And the only reason she wakes up at all is because--

“Jesus Christ,” she groans out, her voice husky and unused, heavy with sleep; Yang’s got a hand between her thighs, already stroking her clit, and she’s still as wet as she was the night before, still aching for it, still desperate for pressure. It’s automatic, instinctual; Yang smirks broadly at her, slides her fingers lower, slips inside of her.

“I thought about eating you out, you know,” she murmurs conversationally, starts fucking her slowly. “I thought about how hot it would’ve been waking you up with my tongue inside you.”

“Holy shit,” Blake exhales, cants her hips in time with Yang’s fingers. The thought’s too hard to hold onto. “Why...why didn’t...you?”

Yang shrugs casually. “Wasn’t sure how light a sleeper you were.”

“For future reference,” Blake manages, eyelids fluttering, “please, God, do that.”

She’s a split second too late to take it back; Yang’s mouth curls like something dark, ominous. “Future reference, huh?” she repeats, and punctuates the sentiment with a particularly hard thrust that makes Blake’s jaw drop. “So we’re not even pretending anymore, are we?”

When Blake doesn’t respond, Yang combs her fingers through Blake’s hair and jerks her head back sharply. “Answer me,” she murmurs threateningly.

“It isn’t pretend,” Blake gasps out, so close, so close. “I still - fucking hate you. But at least you’re - you’re incredible in bed.”

(Well, it was always only a matter of time, anyway.

Blake’s feisty despite her lack of experience, though Yang knows she won’t be able to say that much longer; this isn’t closure, it’s a reckoning, a collision course they’ll run over and over and over again.

Yang sits up, ties her hair into a ponytail; she can feel Blake watching how her shoulder blades glide underneath her skin, how her spine straightens. Her throat is littered dark, pinpoints of red popping out against purples, maroons; Blake’s back is a delightful display of scratch marks dragging down.

“Look,” Yang says, pauses as she stands and stretches with her arms over her head, “it’s a little too late in the morning for you to be doing the walk of shame.”

“So?” Blake asks lazily, still horizontal in Yang’s bed.

“So,” Yang says impishly, turning to her with a look in her eye Blake’s growing startlingly familiar with, “you can leave, that’s one option. As much as you hate me, I’m not holding you against your will.”

“Sure,” Blake allows, albeit suspiciously. “What’s option two?”

“Option two,” Yang says, sitting on the edge of the bed, “you can probably guess yourself.”

Blake rolls her eyes, lifts herself up onto her elbows. ”What - I stay and let you fuck me into oblivion, basically?”

“I think I’ve done that already,” Yang says, her lips set mischievously and her eyes glinting. “I’m thinking until you forget your own name or something.”

Blake exhales loudly. “Jesus,” she says, but it’s mild, and takes a moment observe Yang candidly, as if weighing her offer. Yang gets the sense she’s a little too well-fucked to refuse, stuck in that post-orgasm haze. “Can you at least wash my clothes while I’m here?”

“No,” Yang says. “I just did laundry yesterday. I’m not wasting a tide pod on you. Do I look like I’m made of money?”

Blake laughs unexpectedly, seems startled at the sound; she’s never really laughed in front of Yang, not when they’ve been alone. It’s too close to home. Yes, she thinks of saying. Yes, you kind of do. Like the world owes you just for living.

“Ugh,” she says, reigning herself in with a grimace. “Cheap bitch.”

“Slut,” Yang says pointedly in response, her teasing smile genuine. “I’m not the one who ruined my own underwear.”

Blake covers her face with her hands and laughs again.)

As it turns out, Blake’s attitude is heavily influenced by how many orgasms she’s had in the past twenty-four hours, because by the time they’re both working the same shift two days later, it’s all gone backwards.

Somehow, Yang even breathing in her general vicinity is enough to drive her to an edge; she laughs like knives, her smile apocalyptic; she dresses the same way she always has, low-cut shirts and tight ripped jeans, not meant for imagination, only memory. Men leer at her the way they always have, tipping her generously as she leans over the bar. Blake privately fumes over it, the way she’s always done.

Yang seems content with their arrangement - she flirts with Blake when nobody else is looking, when they’re too distracted to listen - and always ends the night alone, doesn’t corner her in storerooms, doesn’t drag her to the car. Blake isn’t sure what she’s angrier about: the fact that she’s setting it up at all, or that she isn’t following through. Blake just can’t stop fucking thinking about her.

There’s a Friday night Yang’s off and Blake isn’t - it’s a rare occurrence; she’s behind the bar with Ruby instead - when the door opens. It’s pretty crowded, so it isn’t something Blake notices immediately, too overwhelmed with orders, but she hears a familiar laugh, and--

Yang’s standing a little farther back with a beautiful red-headed girl Blake doesn’t recognize, and they’re both stunning enough that the room breathes around them; people keep tossing them looks, clearly coded and poorly hidden, but the two don’t even seem to notice. As she watches, Yang leans in close and whispers something in the girl’s ear, eyes darting around the room; the girl smiles, entertained, and Yang pulls out her phone, back in her own space.

They make their way to Blake’s side of the bar - of fucking course - and the heat bubbles up in Blake’s blood, the sting of something sharp, digging in and cutting. They manage to charm two guys out of their seats somehow, and then they’re just sitting there, waiting for Blake to approach them. Yang’s eyeing her with this awful, shit-eating grin, and the other girl’s eyeing the entrance to the kitchens interestedly.

Yang leans in and whispers to the girl again. Blake’s knuckles clench around the neck of a bottle so hard that for a split second she’s afraid of breaking it.

(“This plan of yours better work, considering all the trouble you went to to make it happen,” Pyrrha says dubiously, tossing Qrow a polite smile as he lets them in the door. “Jaune never gets Friday night shifts, and I know Ruby hates closing on the weekends.”

“Whatever,” Yang says, leading Pyrrha towards the bar. “That kid owes me for life, anyway.”

“Sure,” Pyrrha says, clearly disbelieving of the show. “What’d you do, promise her a gallon of cookies or something?”

Yang ignores the tone, mouth suddenly against her ear. “That’s her,” she murmurs lowly, and this is one conversation she absolutely doesn’t want overheard. “Black hair, crop top, behind the bar. Look, but don’t like, look like you’re looking.”

Pyrrha rolls her eyes as Yang shifts back, pretending to pull out her phone; Pyrrha finds the girl instantly, but the lighting’s dim and she’s moving too quickly with head down for Pyrrha to get much of a glance. “I can’t see anything from here. Let’s sit at the bar. I’ll give you my official opinion as to whether or not this was all worth it.”

Yang’s mouth pulls into a grin. “Just so you know,” she says candidly, “she thinks she hates me.”

Pyrrha laughs. “‘Thinks’?”

“You’ll see.”

Two men are getting ready to leave as they approach, and one winks at Yang before offering up his seat; she doesn’t respond him at all, settling on the stool. Pyrrha follows her lead, also dismissing the men. Not worth their time.

Yang leans over, angling her entire body as if making a claim of Pyrrha’s space. She says, “I’m just doing this to make her jealous. You’ve gotta get the full impact.”

Pyrrha only smiles again, humoring her. “Well, she’s coming over, so I’m looking forward to it.”

Blake stops in front of them, haughty and indifferent, arms crossed over her body. “Hi,” she says shortly, her jealousy blatant and untempered. “What do you want?”

Yang allows her gaze to linger on Blake’s mouth, enjoying the way her frown deepens. “I’ll just have a strawberry margarita. With chili salt on the rim.”

Blake doesn’t even acknowledge her, instead turning her calculated gaze on Pyrrha; it’s sharper, more appraising. “And you?” she asks, almost like an interrogation.

“That sounds pretty good to me,” Pyrrha agrees, somehow managing to keep herself appearing clueless to the power dynamics at play. “Can I do raspberry instead?”

It seems to take Blake every ounce of willpower to answer her politely. Her jaw clenches once and relaxes. “Sure,” she says, already turning away.

Pyrrha finally lets her laughter loose the minute Blake walks off, hiding it behind her hand. “Oh my God,” she says, obviously delighted; Yang only raises her hands as if to say I told you so. “You really weren’t kidding.”

Yang drums her fingers against the bar, still smirking. “I really wasn’t.”

“Damn.” Pyrrha snickers again. “How she thinks she hates you is beyond me.”

“Well, she doesn’t think that when she’s in my bed, but denial’s a bitch.”

“Jesus Christ.” Pyrrha leans her chin on her hand, stares at Blake as she works. “I’ve never seen a girl more your type.”

“I know,” Yang allows, sighing. “It’s torture. She’s so hot, it’s like - I can play it pretty cool, but sometimes I feel like I’m just gonna fucking die, you know?”

Pyrrha rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic.”

“Whatever.”

“How’s Weiss feel about all this?” Pyrrha changes direction. “I mean, workplace dating is messy enough...”

Yang shakes her head, mouth stretching back into a grin. “She thinks it’d be good for Blake if I just like, fucked the denial out of her. She’s tired of us talking about each other all the time.”

Pyrrha laughs at the explanation. “I’m rooting for you,” she says dryly, watching as Blake throws her another subtly dirty look from down the bar. “Though I don’t think you even need me to.”)

“You okay?” Ruby’s voice cuts through the brick wall building itself up in her brain; her eyes are trained on the tight grip Blake’s got around an innocent lime, juice dripping onto the counter.

“Whatever,” Blake huffs angrily, tossing yet another scathing glance over towards Yang. “She can fuck whoever she wants. I don’t care.”

Ruby nearly drops her glass, apparently caught off-guard by Blake’s remark. “Pyrrha?” Ruby says disbelievingly, reaching for a melon liqueur.

“Oh, she has a name?” Blake retorts, forcefully capping a bottle. “I can’t keep track of Yang’s harem.”

Ruby snorts with laughter, and actually has to stop pouring before she screws up the balance of the drink she’s making. “Pyrrha’s Jaune’s girlfriend,” she explains through her giggling. “She lives across town, though, so she doesn’t come to the bar a lot.”

Blake pauses mid-motion, staring at Ruby indecisively as if she’s processed the information but can’t unravel pick an emotion to link it to. Her head whips over to where the two of them are sitting, gaze narrowing in, shrewd and discerning--

They’re now sitting normally, Yang talking animatedly to her in a tone too low for Blake to understand, and Pyrrha’s nodding, cheek resting against her knuckles.

“Harem,” Ruby repeats, still snickering under her breath. “As if Yang pays attention to anyone who isn’t you.”

Blake slides their drinks across the wood, eyes Yang purposefully, directly. “Yang,” she says calmly. “Can I talk to you for a moment? In the back?”

“I don’t know,” Yang says dubiously, playing her up. “I’m not working tonight. Weiss wouldn’t really like that…”

Blake only stands there steadily, refusing to be baited. “I’m sure worse things have happened,” she says pointedly, and there’s the floor against Yang’s knees, there’s a sweetness to her tongue.

It passes between them wordlessly. “Okay, okay,” Yang says, sliding off her stool, tossing a wink to Pyrrha when Blake turns her back. Pyrrha only rolls her eyes again, pulling out her phone.

Blake doesn’t lead her to the storeroom - she can’t handle those implications - but to the coat room, which is big enough for the two of them and not much else. At least they aren’t likely to be interrupted, but also not likely to get into anything illicit, either. She’s cutting it at the source.

“I know what you’re doing,” she hedges irritably, shutting the door behind them. Yang only raises an eyebrow, lips curling, admitting nothing. “Ruby told me that girl is Jaune’s girlfriend.”

“And?” Yang says passively.

“Stop fucking with me,” Blake says, scowling. “I don’t care what you do, but you don’t have to try and piss me off. It’s immature.”

“Maybe I wasn’t trying to piss you off,” Yang says, taking a casual step towards her, hands shoved in her jean pockets. “Maybe it isn’t all about you. Maybe I was out for a drink with a friend, and you’re so fucking possessive all you see is a threat.”

Blake ignores the last sentiment entirely, latching onto the only thing she can warp in her favor. “If it isn’t ‘all about me,’” she quotes venomously, “then feel free to leave. I’m not stopping you. Or,” she stresses, and Yang’s eyes never leave her lips, “you can wait an hour for me to clock out, and you can come home with me.”

Yang lifts a hand, catches Blake’s chin before she can jerk away, thumbs her bottom lip. “You’re so fucking easy,” she murmurs coldly, still smirking, and drops Blake’s chin somewhat roughly. “I’ll wait.”

(Yang follows her to the back door an hour later, tugs on her arm to stop her right before it. “Hold on,” she says, stepping in front of her, opening the door. She leans halfway out, looks left, right, scans the lot and gestures Blake on. It’s a strange motion, one Blake’s realizing she’s seen her do before, almost like it’s habit. Not like she doesn’t want them seen, but like there’s someone who might be out there she doesn’t want to see.

Blake files it away. She isn’t really in the mood for vague conversation or mysterious behaviors, only in the mood to have Yang’s fingers digging into her hips as she hovers over her mouth, knees on either side of her head.

“I know what you’re thinking about,” Yang says, smiling at the road, fingers creeping up Blake’s thigh.

Blake doesn’t even hesitate, glancing in her rearview mirror and flicking her right-turn signal. “Sitting on your face.”

Yang’s silent for a moment, biting her lip.

“Okay,” she says, voice obviously lower. “Nevermind.”

Blake smiles slowly, but by the time they’re back in Blake’s apartment and Blake’s grinding against her mouth, hands curled around her headboard, Yang’s not sure why she’d ever thought anything else.)

She hears it second-hand. Maybe she’s meant to. She doesn’t really take the time to figure it out.

Something’s slipping, that much is certain. She’s a little too drawn to Yang, a little too obsessed with her mouth, her fingers, her eyes, her hair. She looks at Yang and forgets to scowl. Her heart unfurls and burns like a leaf catching fire, edges crackling into ash. It’s not entirely unpleasant, but that revelation alone makes it even more complicated, confusing.

What she hears is this: Yang and Sun are talking about a club they’re hitting up the next night after work, the same one Weiss had invited her to earlier in the day without mentioning who’d be there. Blake had politely turned her down, cited random chores, errands to run; she’s tired, she’d told Weiss, but she’ll think about it.

She thinks of Yang with her hands on somebody else’s skin, her mouth following the trail of somebody else’s body, and her stomach feels like ripping itself apart.

Oh, there’s always gotta be a breaking point.

She wears a dress, first of all; it’s black and loose, hugs her like it’s tight, hangs to mid-thigh. Black lingerie hides underneath. Maybe she knows what she’s doing. If she does, she doesn’t admit it in words.

The club’s crowded, dark, loud. She arrives with Weiss, who immediately goes searching for Ruby; Blake scans the crowd distractedly. Yang’s never hard to spot; she’s too tall, too beautiful, too commanding. The room belongs to her, as every room always does. She’s near the bar, talking to a girl with an undercut and some kind of tattoo winding up her arm.

Blake won’t interrupt, but she walks parallel to her, just enough to capture Yang’s attention if she’s looking. She doesn’t know if it works, and she doesn’t turn to look, instead tapping Sun on the shoulder with a wide smile; he’s at the front of the bar, mid-order.

“Hey!” he says excitedly. “I didn’t know you were coming - oh, sorry man - Blake, you want anything? I’m doing shots.”

“Sure,” she says. “I’ll have two.”

“Cheers,” Sun says with a grin, handing the bartender a twenty. “They’re cheap, so take a lime.”

Her throat revolts against the burn, but she’s had too much practice to let it show. She feels someone’s stare on her neck like a grasping hand as she swallows. It isn’t sex but it’s getting there.

Neptune arrives shortly after, and she does three more shots with him before parting in search of Weiss and Ruby, though she’s unsuccessful in finding them. She’s lost track of Yang, too, which is unusual; the idea of her going home with some random girl starts eating at her like acid, bitterness seeping through her tongue. She gets in line for another drink.

There’s suddenly a pressure against her spine, shoulders, hands smoothing themselves over Blake’s hips like they belong there. There’s something feral about the stance, something claiming.

“You knew I’d be here,” Yang says quietly against the shell of Blake’s ear, chest pressed against her back. The noise dulls to a drone, a hum; nothing else important is being said anywhere. “Anything you wanna ask? I’m a popular woman, you know. I get a lot of offers. But I don’t mind making you my priority.”

Blake grits her teeth together, feels her blood heating, her skin melting, bones turning to dust. Her heart sits against her chest like a hot iron, branded. The inside of her ribcage chars. “No,” she snaps. “Nothing.”

Yang’s smile curves; her temple brushes the side of Blake’s head. “I think you’re lying,” Yang whispers, tilting her head so her breath is felt along Blake’s cheekbone. “I think you want me to take you home.” Blake thinks of denying, but she isn’t quick enough to control her temper, her volume. Yang continues, “I think you want my fingers inside of you,” and populates the statement with her hand gently trailing her hip, fabric of her dress too thin to leave much else to the imagination. Blake shivers, hopes it’s so miniscule a motion Yang doesn’t pick up on it. Yang’s voice croons softly, “My tongue on your clit.” The hitch of Blake’s shoulders is enough to give away her lungs. Yang’s fingers slip further forward, dancing on her navel; she’s impossibly close; closer than she should be under the guise of lining up for a drink. Blake sees her angle her jaw, knows she’s looking at Blake through her eyelashes, staring at the bridge of her nose, her lips, her chin, her chest - the tidal wave is breaking here, now--

Yang’s smirk flickers in her peripheral, thumbing Blake’s hip, other fingers digging roughly against the indent; oh, it’s not fair, this senselessness, this fire, there’s so much to destroy and somehow it still grows. Yang finishes huskily, “Making you cum harder than anyone else ever has.”

“God damn,” Blake exhales, tilting her head back on instinct, eyelids fluttering; she’s so wet and the solidness of Yang’s form behind her is the only thing keeping her steady. The anger is momentarily indistinguishable from the desire - it’s all the same shade of red, the same lick of flame - but she finds it after, enclosing her fingers around Yang’s wrist and jerking.

They duck out of line, falling back away from the dance floor into darker corners, and fortunately it’s packed enough that they won’t be noticed under the cover of pulsing club lights and bass-heavy beats.

“Fuck you, Yang,” Blake spits viciously, shoving her against the wall. “Go fuck yourself. You fuck me a few times and suddenly you think I’m, what - here to fuck whenever you want?” Blake’s stare darts to her lips, inviting like an enter, open sign. They’re red and smooth and they fit perfectly between Blake’s thighs. She’s trying to think about that. (Not, she corrects. Trying not to think about that.)

Yang wraps her hands around Blake’s hips and tugs her harshly in, slipping a leg between her thighs; Blake bites her lip and groans in her throat, sinks closer automatically.

“Yes,” Yang says, narrowing her eyes with a sinister smirk, cataloguing how hot Blake feels against her, the length of her dress. “That’s exactly what I think.”

Blake’s lips part to respond, but Yang interrupts and her tone is darkly unbound, like she’s finally throwing herself across whatever line Blake’s pushed her to. “You want me to go fuck myself? Because I can do that, sweetheart. I can tie you up, too, let you watch. I’ll even let you suck my fingers after if you’re good.”

Blake whimpers, and Yang’s hand grazes the inside of her thigh, having slipped under her dress; she trails up, traces the edge of her underwear, and Blake’s gripping her shoulders so tightly Yang won’t be surprised if she has bruises like fingerprints.

“You were planning on getting fucked tonight,” Yang says against her ear, still rubbing her lightly with a single digit, Blake’s hips rocking as minimally as she can manage it. “Don’t lie to me. You’re wearing lingerie and you knew I’d be here. I saw you look for me the minute you walked through the door.”

“No,” Blake denies, still lost in the dull pressure of Yang’s hand against her clit, every word she’s saying sweeping her farther and farther away from rationality.

“Admit it or I swear I’ll fuck you right here,” Yang threatens, pressing harder, and Blake gasps. “You’d get off on that, wouldn’t you? Surrounded by people who have no idea my fingers are inside you.”

“Drop dead,” Blake finally manages, and Yang pulls her hand away entirely.

Yang threads her fingers through Blake’s hair instead, tugs her head back firmly, forcing eye contact. “One of these days,” she says dangerously, irises warped a familiar red, “that pretty little mouth of yours is gonna get you into trouble.”

“Maybe,” Blake taunts breathlessly, “that’s what I’m counting on.”

Yang laughs; the sound isn’t cruel or mocking but it’s holding a knife to her throat, telling her to run, demanding her to beg. Yang runs her hands up sides, cups her jaw, brings their lips roughly together; Yang sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, bites down, releases slowly. It throbs; her thighs are sticky, and she knows there’ll be a damp spot on Yang’s jeans when she releases her, pulls her away.

“Blake Belladonna,” Yang says darkly, driving a line between appreciative and amused, “you’re much kinkier than I’d originally given you credit for.”

Yang pulls her dress up in the car, rubs her outside of her underwear while she drives, smirking the entire time. Her eyes stay locked on the road, and it’s clear all she’s really trying to do is frustrate Blake to the point of tears; her hips jerk automatically until she’s writhing on the seat, inches away from giving in entirely and begging like Yang wants her to.

Yang unlocks her door, hand entirely steady; Blake wonders how she’s so composed, so unaffected, so in control, wonders if that’s why she’s so attracted to her, wonders if Yang intrinsically knows how to give her exactly what she wants. It can’t all be experiential. Some if it must be them.

Yang’s bedroom is gold with pops of red and yellow and purple, but in the dark all it looks like is even surfaces for her to get bent over, and she sucks in a breath, Yang’s string lights dimming the room. Yang tuts under her breath, turning back.

“You’re so impatient,” she observes as if it’s a cute, harmless fact, pulling Blake against her. She captures Blake’s mouth, and Blake parts her lips automatically, inviting, wanting the stroke of her tongue, wanting it lower, more.

Blake pushes past the challenge, breaks from the kiss and stops, holds there. “Don’t threaten me,” she says lowly, “if you don’t intend to follow through.”

Yang’s smile doesn’t waver, but she drops her arm, hand falling to the hem of Blake’s dress. “Who says I don’t?” she asks rhetorically, rolling the fabric between her fingers, and tugs it up, over Blake’s head and off. The curve of her mouth has Blake dripping. “Turn around. Get on your fucking knees.”

She follows orders with a reluctance she doesn’t really mean without realizing she doesn’t mean it; her fingers curl against the bedsheets, the anticipation blinding in her throat, and she hears the noise - some kind of click, some sort of adjustment - before Yang yanks her underwear down over her hips, her ass, her legs, touching her fingertips against Blake and sighing that way she’s prone to.

“You’re always so fucking wet for me,” Yang murmurs, slipping two fingers into her instantly; Blake’s eyelids flutter closed, shifting back against Yang’s hand, but after a moment she removes them and something cooler, larger presses against her instead--

“Oh, fuck,” Blake groans at the realization, automatically jerking her hips back, the tip sliding easily in. “Oh, fuck, fuck--”

She can feel Yang’s snicker more than she can hear it, blood crashing in her ears like the ocean, more and more of the dildo filling her in increments; she chokes on her own breath every inch, knotting the covers around her hands, nearly crying in relief when Yang’s hips fit against her ass. Yang draws out and pushes in experimentally, giving her only a vague moment of adjustment before she hits the spot that makes Blake’s arms shake and Yang’s name fall out of her mouth, beginning to fuck her slowly - too slowly, slipping almost fully out and back in, not saying a word - too slowly, like she’s toying with her--

“Beg me,” Yang commands, stilling entirely, and tears prick the corners of Blake’s eyes in desperation; she’s never needed something so badly in her life, never needed pressure like this, never needed pleasure to the point of pain; Yang sits inside of her and it’s torture like she’s never felt, she’s dripping down her thighs, Yang’s smile sears against her neck, the sun is in the room and collapsing--

“Fuck me,” Blake pleads shamelessly, entire body wrought with tension, muscles tight, “please, Yang, fuck me, God, fuck me, fuck me--”

It’s apparently enough for Yang to indulge her because suddenly she’s everywhere, stroking evenly until she’s fucking Blake so hard she collapses onto her elbows, cheek turned against the sheets, fists white-knuckled and tight; Jesus, Christ, this is something of a becoming, this is a catalyst, this is a catharsis, this is nowhere, nowhere near hatred.

The pressure building is too much to fight, too intense and all-consuming, swallowing her whole from the inside out; there’s a poem about black holes, about devouring hunger and dark matter, Yang’s fingers reaching around front, stroking her quickly, and Blake convulses--

“Oh, baby,” Yang says mockingly, thrusting her hips as Blake’s fingers clench around her pillowcase and her moans echo off the walls, “I think I’ve ruined you.”

Ruin is one word for it, and it isn’t entirely far off.

By the time Blake wakes up, the sun is shining through the curtains and the side of the bed Yang must’ve slept on is still warm, though empty; it’s earlier than the last time she’d been here, the light streaming in unfamiliar patterns and the air a little cooler. Her head is pounding, her mouth is dry, and it kills her to move her hips--

That memory comes rushing back almost instantaneously; she buries her face in Yang’s pillow, not sure if she’s trying to run from it or drown in it, breathes in the scent of honeysuckle and strawberries and salt, something clean. Her sheets can’t say the same. There’s a damp spot underneath her, and she doesn’t even remember falling asleep, meaning she’d cum so hard she’d passed out and there’s no way Yang’ll ever let her live it down.

She fights against her instinct to call Yang back, instead stretching leisurely before sitting up, searching for something to throw on before venturing into the kitchen. All she finds is a robe, strewn casually across a chair in the corner.

She pads into the other room, yawning; Yang’s standing by the stove, putting the kettle on, and her laptop is open on the breakfast room table. The curtains are drawn, blocking out the worst of the morning sunlight; clearly she’s as hungover as Blake is, though she doesn’t look it: she’s wearing a similar robe in a different color, orange and silky, and her hair’s pulled up loosely.

“Good morning,” Yang greets, voice somewhat scratchy and low. “Tea?”

“Please,” Blake says, rubbing a hand over her face. “And aspirin.”

Yang nods to a bottle already sitting on the table. “You can just have some of my water there.”

“What are you doing up, anyway?” Blake asks, barely managing to lower herself down at the table, reaching for the glass.

“Hungover,” Yang says plainly, shrugging. “So I’m making tea and doing a crossword puzzle. I don’t get the paper delivered or anything, but sometimes I like to do them online in the mornings.”

Blake smiles unwillingly before she can quelch it; it’s automatic, endeared, and her head pounds, tempering the way her heart stutters and speeds. She isn’t sure why she has the reaction, only that it’s there, and maybe it’s one more thing about Yang she’s realizing she doesn’t actually hate. There are plenty of those, now, ramming their way through walls, demanding to be viewed.

“I didn’t take you for the type,” is all she says, and takes two pills.

“I bet a lot of things about me would surprise you.”

Blake rolls her eyes. “Well, I’ve pegged you pretty well so far.”

Yang snickers. “I don’t think you knowing I’m a top counts as ‘pegging me pretty well,’” she quotes.

“Oh, whatever.”

“Actually, speaking of,” she says, now somewhat thoughtful, serious. She’s standing against her counter, arms crossed, one ankle kicked over the other. “Do we need a safe word? Like, was last night okay for you, or…”

Blake’s grin unfurls slowly, but once it does, she can’t stop the laughter that bubbles with it despite her pounding headache. “No,” she giggles, and Yang’s expression freezes before Blake hastily corrects her meaning. “No, I mean - no, we don’t need a safe word. I, um - I like it when you…”

Yang rolls her eyes at the loss of explanation, smirking. “You can admit you like being bossed around, you know,” she says unblushingly, taking a mug out of her cabinet. “It’s only me here, and I’m already aware, as I’ve been the one doing it.”

“Shut up,” Blake says halfheartedly, lowering her head to her arms. “I’m too hungover to argue with you.”

“It’s not an argument.”

“Fine.” Blake surprises even herself; her voice seeps exhaustion. “I like it when you boss me around. It’s hot. Last night was probably the hottest night of my life. You’re hot.”

Yang pauses momentarily, but it’s so brief Blake thinks she must’ve imagined it; there’s the sound of metal clinking, pouring, and a minute later a mug is set on the table in front of her. She cracks an eye open. Yang asks smugly, “You think I’m hot, huh?”

“Like you need me to validate that for you,” Blake says, lifting up her head, wrapping her fingers around the cup. “Thanks.”

“You’re right.” Yang shrugs, taking the seat across from her and crossing her legs. Her robe slips over one shoulder, leaving it bare. “I don’t. But you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, so it’s nice to be indulged every once in awhile.”

Blake blinks, staring at the steam rising from the liquid, slow to process. “What?” she says suspiciously, gazing up at Yang with a fluttering in her chest. “We’re already fucking. You don’t need to flatter me or something.”

“I’m not flattering you,” Yang says, eyes settling back to her laptop screen, and the way the words slip out in sincerity leaves her too hard to deny. “I’m telling you the truth.”

Blake can only keep her gaze averted low, the rim of her mug, the wooden table, the salt and pepper shakers; the blush doesn’t divert, doesn’t fall away, and she’s left with no other option but acknowledgment.

“Well,” she says haltingly, embarrassed of her own voice, “thanks.” And then, somehow smaller: “I thought - think - the same thing about you, you know.”

She dares a glance; Yang is smiling, and it’s softer than one she’s allowed Blake to see previously, the corners curled gently and her irises that same lilac hue. She allows it to dissipate into the air, lets the silence pick up its own toys from the street outside, wind chimes clinking in the breeze, cars rolling down the pavement. She seems acutely aware of how difficult the admission had been, wrapping it up and keeping it to herself.

“Ah,” Yang says, subtly interrupting the reprieve. “Obtuse. That’s the word I’m looking for.”

(Yang shuts her laptop, stares so intently at Blake that she shifts her weight nervously and winces immediately after from the pressure to her hips, and smiles.

“I don’t like that look,” Blake comments mildly, no heat behind it.

Yang pushes her chair back, stands casually. “Yes you do,” she disagrees, hint of mischief underneath her tongue. She steps around the table, lets her fingers trail against the wood, stops right in front of her. “Turn more towards me. The chair.”

Blake frowns in confusion, but its legs scrape against the floor appropriately, and only then does she realize what Yang’s planning. “Oh, no--”

Yang gets to her knees, hand curling around Blake’s calf, forcing her thighs apart; already Blake’s breathing is interrupted, her heart quickening. Yang’s smile turns predatory.

“Don’t act like you don’t want me to,” she says, and Blake can’t tell her she’s wrong because she’s not.

She unties Blake’s robe, runs her hands up and down her sides, hooks her fingers through her underwear and drags them down her legs, Blake barely able to lift her hips to help; the way she takes her time starts clouding Blake’s head again, makes her dizzy, makes her hazy, makes her desperate. Blake shifts forward, tugs on Yang’s hair, prompts her closer.

Yang laughs once - maybe because Blake’s already wet, maybe because her act is finally wearing thin, maybe because she’s so easy to break - and her tongue slips out, licking slowly.

She lifts one foot against the rung of a chair near her, the other flat against the floor, and loses herself again; maybe it’s just who she is now, someone who gets mercilessly fucked until she forgets her own name and loves it. Look; she’ll say it. The sex is too good to deny any longer.

“Jesus,” Blake says breathlessly, head lolling back. “Jesus.”

“I told you,” Yang says, licking her bottom lip entirely too sensually, “I love the way you taste.”)

It’s an innocent event, really; that’s what sets it all off.

They’re working a Friday night, and there’s a large group of thirty-something men celebrating a birthday, maybe a promotion; they’re all gathered around Yang’s side of the bar, and even though she’s normally good at handling these types of situations on her own, they’re having a few too many shots, leering her a bit too openly, leaning too far across the bar to talk to her. She keeps her expression smooth, her grievances hidden, only now Blake’s starting to see it for what it really is: an act. Just an act. She needs her job, needs the money, needs the stability. She doesn’t need men - any man - staring at her like an object, like something to consume. Blake sees her slipping as she turns away, sees her annoyance flourishing, sees the stiff lines of her muscles.

“You’re gorgeous, baby,” Blake hears one of the men say to her, smiling greedily.

“I’m aware,” Yang responds boredly, mixing a moscow mule.

“You’re aware?” the man repeats.

“Yep,” she replies, popping the ‘p’. “Plenty of guys like you have let me know, don’t worry.”

“Bet those guys can’t do what I can,” he insinuates, reaching forward--

He suddenly finds fingers digging tightly around his wrist, and Yang’s eyes bleed red, her facade finally cracking open entirely. Her muscles flex threateningly under the light.

“Do not,” she hisses slowly, “touch me.”

Blake hurries forward, drops a lime on the floor in the process, struggling to intervene; any direction this goes in won’t be good if Yang’s pushed to a limit. “Hey,” she snaps to the men, infuriated on Yang’s behalf for once, rather than at her expense, “this is a bar, not a brothel. If you’re confused by that, I can have our bouncer escort you out. Are we clear?”

Someone whistles, and a few people laugh loudly. Yang releases his wrist; the man takes his hand back, glowering sullenly. “C’mon,” one of them says. “We’ll go down the street, where the girls aren’t such fucking bitches.”

“You do that,” Blake says sarcastically, a hand on Yang’s arm, holding her steady.

“Thanks,” Yang says under her breath, irises fading as they slump off. She reaches for the vodka, returning to the drink she was making. “I just - I fucking hate it when people touch my hair. Ugh.”

Blake raises her eyebrows, bites down on her tongue, thinks of all the times she’s knotted her fingers in Yang’s hair, how she’s pulled, tugged, how she’s done that since the very beginning. But not when I do it, she thinks of saying it and can’t. She isn’t sure if she wants to know, and she isn’t sure how long she can keep pretending she doesn’t.

(Once it starts, it doesn’t stop; she catalogues observations like investigative journalism, like there’s a crime and she’s solving it. Yang somehow catches all the off customers before Blake, the ones already too drunk or watch her like she’s a prize waiting to be claimed. She’s a better multitasker, Blake realizes; she measures alcohol and glances around the bar at the newcomers, labels them mentality and beelines. She never gives Blake a chance, not that it’s a chance Blake wants in the first place.

Their shifts don’t always end at exactly the same times, but Yang makes an excuse to go out back before Blake’s does no matter what. She needs to take out the recycling, she left something in her car - Blake watches her open the door and look like she expects something to be there, though nothing ever seems to be.

She’s too gentle with Blake when they aren’t in bed or leading up to it. Her smile is softer when Blake isn’t looking directly at it, and she always seems to be aware of Blake, of her space, of her mood, of her needs. These are the silent earthquakes, rivers grinding through mountains, eroding stone. In the end, everything always crumbles with time.

They’re closing again and they’re the only two left. The lights are almost all shut off, the doors locked, and till counted. It’s expected they’ll go home together; they do more often than not, now, and nobody ever comments.

And Blake’s starting to wonder. Blake’s been wondering for awhile.

“Yang,” she says, stopping her outside the coat room as she adjusts her purse over her shoulder.

Yang recognizes the tone, stills and examines her. “Yeah?”

Blake’s tongue darts out, wets her lips nervously. “I want you to tell me the truth.”

“Tell you the truth?” she repeats, frowning; her hair’s out of its usual bun and falling carelessly over her shoulders. “The truth about what?”

Blake reaches up, gently loops a curl loosely around her finger before letting it pop back into its wave. “You hate people touching your hair,” she says softly. “You hate men staring at you and - hitting on you, like they deserve you or something.”

Yang’s eyes dance between her own, recognition slowly washing over her; she’s figured out where the conversation’s going - the only thing Blake can’t tell is how she feels about it. “Yeah,” she answers after a moment, resigned.

“Tell me the truth,” Blake implores quietly again, stare flickering to the ground before meeting hers. “Please.”

Yang lets the mask drain, lets the paint wash off. She bites the inside of her lip; her gaze rests heavy and defeated. Ah, the truth. It’s always the end or the beginning. She takes a breath with the silence, and begins speaking. “I know you hate being touched by men, so I try and serve the - the handsy ones, you know, like - the ones too drunk to take no for an answer, before you can get to them.” She can’t look at Blake while she talks, too embarrassed and vulnerable; too much of her heart is on display. “I told Qrow about your ex, that’s why he’s never been inside the bar. He’s banned from entering. And I always walk out before you in case he - he’s there. Qrow caught him sitting in the parking lot once, months and months ago, but scared him off. He hasn’t shown up since then - at least, that I know of - but I always check just to be sure.”

She briefly screws up the courage to take a peek at Blake’s face, finds her expression uncovered, drawn apart like curtains, bare awe reflective underneath. Her hands are loose, and her spine is straight, shoulders dropped. She’s just staring, and her teeth slip across her bottom lip, tugging it into her mouth.

She doesn’t look like someone capable of carrying the amount of hatred she’s pretended to hold for the past eight months; she looks so small, so uncertain and afraid, so forced out into the open. Oh, this is no longer a game to play, this is the sharp curve of a road.

But Blake steps forward, hands cupping Yang’s cheeks, and she clings on to eye contact, she reads the lavender like a bible, she tries to tell her something without words; Yang can’t maintain that kind of intensity and kisses her, keeps her lips as long as Blake will let her have them. There are no scraping teeth, no clashing bones. Her blood doesn’t catch pressure underneath her skin.

There are no answers, either, but that night, Blake doesn’t take her home.)

It isn’t awkward between them; they come to a kind of understanding, though they haven’t had the time to talk about it - that’s the excuse, anyway. They’ve been busy. Work’s been swamped. Prior obligations.

In reality, they’re hesitant and uncertain - the territory’s unfamiliar without anger, without orders. Blake smiles at her and it all keeps going unsaid. Weiss glances skeptically between them, as if waiting for a snap, for love to pour out, for a fight to break. Ruby doesn’t comment at all, only hums and mixes mojitos with slightly too much sugar.

“Let’s go out,” Sun says on a Saturday afternoon where they get off early due to Weiss having scheduled the usual afternoon team for the night shift; Coco’s already settling behind the bar with Velvet. “C’mon, we never make happy hour. Let’s all go to White Flag.”

Blake pauses at the name, sees Yang do the same from the hallway behind him. “White Flag?” she repeats. “That bar downtown?”

“Yeah!” Sun exclaims enthusiastically. “It’s been forever since we’ve been there, and they have the best happy hour deals.”

“Okay,” Blake says without thinking, her mind lost in a previous November.

Yang catches her eye across the room, trying to get a read on her expression; there isn’t much, too conflicted and hidden. She nods slowly. “Sure,” she says after a pause, tasting whisky and raspberries. “That’d be fun. I’m gonna change, though.”

Sun tosses his hands in the air. “Hell yeah,” he says without the weight of memory. “Okay. We’ll meet there in an hour.”

Yang’s there an hour after most of the others, hanging by the bar, casually sipping at a paloma. Sun’s somewhere to the left of her, trying to score a menu - or that’s what he’d been doing before being roped into subtly chugging beers with Neptune. She rolls her eyes. Figures.

Blake’s with him, too, alternating between staring at her and staring at the door, like she can’t decide which escape she wants to take, if either at all. She’s holding a half-full glass - it looks like a whisky sour to Yang, but she’s a little too far away to know for certain--

“Hey,” someone says near her ear, tapping her on the shoulder politely.

She turns around, and there’s a girl standing there with a somewhat sheepish expression on her face, rubbing the back of her head with her hand. She’s familiar-looking, very pretty, and clearly has an end goal for the conversation. If Yang weren’t wrapped around somebody else’s finger, she’d maybe be interested. Maybe.

“Hey,” Yang replies, deciding to let her continue despite it.

“I see you around a lot,” the girl says, smiling charmingly. “Never had the balls to say anything to you, though - you’re just, like, so beautiful; it’s kind of intimidating.”

Yang bites back a laugh at the obvious act; she’s seen the girl around, too, and she’s never without company. She’s about to respond, when--

“Please,” a voice suddenly cuts between them loudly, clearly irritated; Blake peeks around from behind the girl’s shoulder, glancing her up and down, unimpressed. At five-foot seven in her heels, looking gorgeously dark and slender with her black hair waterfalling and piercing amber eyes, she’s enough to be wildly intimidating. “You, move. She’s not interested.”

The girl stiffens, defensive frown taking up her face. “How do you know?” she asks, annoyed at the interruption. “What’re you, her girlfriend?”

“Yeah,” Yang tacks on, finding the interaction amusing. “What’re you, my girlfriend?”

Blake only rolls her eyes, unaffected by the blow. “I don’t have to be her girlfriend to know she’s not interested.”

“Well, then, maybe you should mind your business,” the girl retorts, turning back to Yang. “Are you interested?”

Blake crosses her arms, waiting haughtily; Yang knows to keep her luck exactly where it is. She grins unapologetically at the girl and says, “No, sorry. She’s right. She’s the only one I’m interested in.”

The girl glances between them, mutters something about a waste of time. “Not her girlfriend my ass,” she says under her breath, brushing by Blake for a different side of the bar.

Blake smirks as she leaves, and steps forward into the space she’d previously been occupying. “Hi,” she says, obviously proud of herself.

“Hi, baby,” Yang says delightedly, wrapping her arms around Blake’s waist; both of Blake’s hands fall to her shoulders, practiced and casual. It isn’t often Blake allows herself implications, doorways out of games. Clearly she’s given in. Well, she had to make up her mind at some point.

“Oh, no,” Blake sighs, wavering a little on her feet, and only then does Yang realize how inebriated she really is. “I like it when you call me that.”

“Had a lot to drink?” Yang asks, softening, and there’s a memory hitting, a brick wall and a cold November night; Blake leans in unceremoniously, brushes their noses together, curls an arm around Yang’s neck and shifts between her legs. She’s closer than she normally lets them be without a lack of light, without a corner of the room; maybe it’s her time, maybe it’s her moment. Maybe she’s finally facing the truth.

Blake bumps their foreheads together lightly. “That look,” she says instead, breathing out against Yang’s mouth, “you’re always giving me that look. It drives me - it drives me crazy.”

“And what look is that?”

The lights flicker and dim; it’s past that point of the evening. Blake’s eyes dart to her lips and back. She swallows like the words are physical but she’s unable to keep them down. “Like you love me,” she murmurs, and she’s terrified, her heart pounding towards the closest emergency exit.

She’s never been good at hiding her emotions; Yang sees the fear but not the regret, and she wants the step past this, wants the bar of progress, wants to feel they’re moving forward. She lifts a hand to Blake’s cheek, strokes her skin once, pulls her in; they kiss and without the cover of untempered animosity and resentment they’re left with something gentle, something they’d normally find in the clutches of three a.m. or the airiness of a morning after, something they’d found once before and lost.

“You’re not gonna remember this, are you?” Yang asks softly, kissing her again.

Blake shudders when she pulls away, fingers curled around the fabric of Yang’s coat. “Probably not,” she allows, and in a single moment of clarity wishes she’d never let Sun indulge her in happy hour. It’s all too familiar; too many drinks, too many moments leading to memories she’ll pretend to bury.

Yang sweeps her bangs away from her forehead, and her smile is unrelentingly tender, her irises lilac like the shade of her skin under pulsing club lights, like the grey sky reflecting sun, like the song Blake listened to at four in the morning in Yang’s car the night after they kissed for the first time.

“I do,” Yang admits quietly, sad curve to her smile. “I do love you.”

There’s a silence between them, somehow, despite the crowd surrounding them, despite the music crooning through the speakers, despite the volume of their own secrets. “I know,” Blake whispers, thumbing her lip, and then: “I lied.”

“About what?” Yang asks, stare darting between her eyes. She holds her voice steady, that same level of mild calm. There’s never any pressure; that’s something that’s changed about her.

“I remember it,” Blake confesses, breaking down. “Our first kiss. I remember it.”

Yang pauses all at once; her heart, her breath, her blood; her eyes widen and Blake finds the winter in them, finds an evening buried in Yang’s coat and the sky opening around them like a snowglobe, finds the two of them entwined and every scar in bloom.

(She’s only been working at the bar for a month. Adam’s still fresh but he’s gone and he doesn’t haunt her anymore. Her new apartment is draped in various shades of purple and gold accenting white, and there’s light always pouring through curtains. She’s not afraid to hear the sound of a door opening, hollow footsteps approaching, the grinding of teeth. She loves her life, loves becoming, loves the novelty of belonging to nobody but herself.

She loves these things when she’s alone, but--

When she’s at work, somehow there’s too much sun, there are too many stars, the expanse of space is too vast; the heat sinks into the walls and expands, the wood cracks and the beams collapse, her heart breaks her ribs with the force of beating. When she’s at work it’s all Yang, Yang with her carelessly tied-up blonde hair, her lips resting in a playful half-grin, her irises glinting from lavender to red like oil in rain, the threat of muscle visible in her arms, her stomach, her back, her legs; it’s all Yang and her bare, unraveling beauty, so consuming Blake can’t enter a room without a loss of sensation, blind and mute, and she can only smell strawberries, she can only taste ash, the floor sweeps itself underneath her feet, her lungs beat in accord with somebody else’s breath, and nothing - nothing - is within her control.

Blake hates her. She can’t not. She’s everything Blake’s never had, happening again, and there can’t be more danger than the known but Yang says hello and she sends Blake falling.

She’s convinced out to a club one night and they all go, Weiss having purposefully scheduled them a night off. The crowd pulses and lights hue blue; Yang’s skin matches her eyes under the glare of them. She’s in tight ripped jeans and an off-white sweater, boots adding an inch she doesn’t need, somehow looking entirely as if she belongs despite the casualness of her outfit. She hardly touches a drink, and she talks to a few girls but she doesn’t indulge them. Blake pretends like she isn’t keeping tabs on her and ultimately forgets to anyway.

She’s had at least five mixed drinks - she thinks with whiskey, but she’d let Sun keep up her order and she’d lost track; one of them might’ve been a double - when she realizes Yang’s gone. Ruby’s dragged Weiss onto the dance floor somewhere, and Neptune’s currently trying to catch Sun’s attention.

“Hey,” she says to them both. “Where’s Yang?”

Sun shrugs, unconcerned. “Probably stepped out for air.”

Blake nods comprehendingly, turns immediately towards the door and pushes her way out. She’s not sure exactly what propels her forward; it’s easier to inhale, but it’s lonelier. She’ll make the trade.

It’s cold out; she’d left her coat inside, but the full chill doesn’t hit her because of the alcohol warming up her bloodstream. She passes by the bouncer, glances down the street one way and finds nothing, turns the other--

Yang’s standing by the edge of the building into an alley, scrolling aimlessly on her phone, one hand tucked in her pocket. Blake’s struck by the simplicity, by the nothingness, by the unimportance of the the moment; she’s got her green overcoat on and she’s just idly shifting her weight between feet, passing time.

Maybe it’s the pressure of her stare that does it; Yang suddenly looks up and spots her there, gaze zeroing in, brow furrowing in confusion. “Blake?” she asks, pocketing her phone. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Blake says, walking slowly towards her, arms crossed in front of her body. Yang watches her approach somewhat amusedly. “I just - I didn’t want to be in there anymore.”

“That’s fair.” Yang smiles; Blake almost misses a step, heel wobbling. Yang reaches out automatically and wraps a hand around her elbow, steadying her. “Had a lot to drink?”

The touch burns, warms her in a good way; Yang’s tone isn’t judgmental and so Blake doesn’t bristle. “Yeah,” she answers honestly, grimacing. “More than I thought. Sun was just kind of - handing them to me.”

“He does that,” Yang says, still observing her. “Where’s your coat?”

“I left it inside.”

Yang rolls her eyes harmlessly, shrugging out of her own. Blake doesn’t stop her; she’s too drunk to pretend she doesn’t want to wear something Yang’s lived in, too drunk to pretend she doesn’t want to be consumed. Denial and sobriety are mutually exclusive.

Yang steps closer, tosses it around her shoulders, helps her slip her arms in. Her body heat settles against Blake. Her coat is heavy and worn; there’s a small hole in the bottom of a pocket that Blake keeps thumbing, pressing against. She says hoarsely, “Thanks.”

“No worries,” Yang says, smiling at her again, and Blake’s stomach turns uncomfortably.

“You don’t act like you hate me,” Blake accuses drunkenly, though remains free of malice. That’s an accident; she doesn’t normally slip up on a lie when it’s the only thing keeping her sane.

Yang’s eyebrows raise and drop, apparently unconcerned with the direction in conversation. “Well, I don’t.”

“Why not?” Blake asks, surprised by the quick response, and Yang laughs slightly at the torn expression on her face. She adds, “I’m not very nice to you,” as if Yang isn’t fully aware of this fact herself.

“I know,” Yang replies, lips quirking as she attempts to hold back a grin. “You have your reasons, though, I’m sure. It doesn’t matter. I don’t hate you.”

It takes a moment for Blake to engage a response, like she’s too busy with abstract thought to create language from it. She’s staring past Yang, down the street to an intersection, watching the lights flash red, green, yellow, red.

She says, “Maybe I don’t hate you, either,” and leans her head back, exhales into the night. “Maybe I’m full of shit. D’you ever feel like that?” The question’s slurred somewhat rhetorically; her gold eyes find Yang’s and she plucks the words from her soul like tuning a guitar. “Like you’re just - waiting for things to happen to you, but pretending you aren’t, and getting angry when nothing does.”

Yang’s staring at her strangely, amusement faded, and the rawness seeping from her expression is too much for Blake to comprehend the depth of, only managing to catalogue that it’s there at all. For one tiny, terrible fraction of a second, she’s convinced Yang’s seeing through her to the truth, seeing it spread out like a roadmap to a place she’ll never reach; a moment later and it’s gone, Yang averting her gaze to the sidewalk, eyelashes lowered.

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “I feel like that.”

It’s too sad and serious, too full, too ripped around the edges. “I don’t want to go back in,” Blake says abruptly. “Why are you out here in the first place?”

Yang blinks against the change of pace. “Uh - I just needed to clear my head. I’m not really drinking tonight, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t really drink when I’m out with Ruby,” she admits candidly. “I’ve kind of - taken care of her our whole lives, so it just feels...wrong, you know? Like, irresponsible or something. That’s why I drove.”

“I can understand that,” Blake says, and wobbles on a heel again; Yang returns to gripping her arm. “Fuck.”

“D’you wanna go sit in the car?” Yang offers, concerned undertone. “We can listen to music or something.”

“Sure,” Blake says, despite meaning to say no, I’d rather die than be alone with you, but that’s the fourth, fifth, sixth instinct; it never makes it anywhere near the surface. “That’d be nice.”

“Even if it’s with me?” Yang teases wryly, beginning to guide her to the parking lot.

“Yeah,” Blake murmurs. “Even if it’s with you.”)

“You remember?” Yang repeats carefully, floored expression threatening to make a home there.

“I’m sorry,” Blake whispers, and pours the way rivers do, swiftly and without end. The bar itself seems to have vanished entirely, left them alone in their own slice of space and time. “I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t - I couldn’t face you if I hadn’t...pretended. I couldn’t - I couldn’t face me.”

“Hey,” Yang breathes out, cups her cheeks, tries comforting her everywhere at once. “It’s okay. I never - I never blamed you for...” she cuts herself off, takes a shuddering breath; her hands drop to Blake’s, intertwining their fingers. She shifts off the stool and stands. “Wait. I don’t want to do this in here.”

Blake follows her wordlessly out the door, feels Yang’s lifeline against her palm like a thread binding them; it isn’t too busy on the sidewalk outside, but Yang guides her halfway down the block anyway, stopping somewhere shrouded between dim streetlamp and shadow. Blake misses their closeness, doesn’t intend to let it go; she nestles herself in Yang’s arms again, hands linking around the back of her neck.

“I guess I...I kind of always wondered,” Yang confesses, holding Blake against her. “If you knew.”

A car drives by, hits a puddle; she thinks of headlights flickering like fireflies in the distance from a parking lot behind a bar.

“I thought I hated you,” Blake says, presses their foreheads together. “And if I hated you, I couldn’t have - kissed you like I did.” She punctuates the thought by doing exactly that, finding Yang’s mouth right where she’d left it; she tastes like whiskey and raspberries, but her lips feel certain. “I couldn’t have - have wanted more. So I just...I ignored it, and then I hated you for the - for making me remember it every single day.” She adds weight to the time. “Every day.”

“I never hated you,” Yang tells her quietly. “I know it’s crazy, but I swear, I - like, the moment I saw you. I knew.”

“Yeah,” Blake murmurs, keeps her voice just as low, afraid she’ll cry if she raises it. “Maybe I knew, too.” Her grip tightens subtly, fighting against her own instincts; she shakes her head. “I did,” she says. “I do.”

Yang laughs once, but the sound is forlorn, resigned, yet hopeful in spite of. “You’re going to remember this, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Blake says, drawing in; the shadows stretch and fade, the night bleeds out above them; the sun is somewhere underneath their feet. For now, they’re content with stars. She kisses Yang and it’s enough.

Yang murmurs, “Can I take you home?”

“Yes,” Blake says again, and it sounds a lot like I love you.

(They never actually make it in the car, for some reason; Yang gets the keys in the ignition and the stereo on, plugs in her phone, starts a playlist on shuffle, but by that point Blake’s made herself comfortable sitting on the hood and well, Yang isn’t one to argue with beautiful drunk girls.

She hops up next to her, staring out into the rows and rows of half-lit houses, moon glittering overhead, the street awash in a pearly glow. Yang’s windows are open; some song about love and ruin softly echoes out between them.

“When you said - you also felt like that, like me,” Blake stumbles over suddenly, interrupting the tranquil silence, “what were you thinking about?”

Yang only stares straight ahead, gaze distant and unfocused; headlights glint through the trees from opposing roads. There’s no real debate. “My mom,” she says truthfully.

“What about her?” Blake glances at her curiously, wide-eyed and compelled.

“Which one?” Yang replies, allowing a sad smile, resting her cheek in her palm. Blake pauses, biting down on the inside of her lip, but it’d been rhetorical. “My mom left me after I was born. Ruby’s mom died when I was about four.”

“I’m sorry,” Blake says, staring at her hands on her knees, Yang’s coat still wrapped around her body. It’s slightly too big for her and she sinks into the extra space. “Which one were you thinking about?”

“My mom,” Yang answers, burdenless. It’s nice to tell Blake because if she could shift her life slightly, like moving a box to the back of a closet, and if Blake’s past weren’t so intent on scarring, she’d be the person Yang would tell anyway. “I never really got an answer for why she didn’t want me, and I guess - I don’t know. It used to make me angry, you know? Like, I’d alternate between that and - just waiting for her to come back. But she never did.”

“I’m sorry,” Blake repeats, curling her fingers around the sleeves, and what she follows with is too profound for sobriety; it’s the kind of thing she’s saying because she can’t find a reason to stop. “It must hurt. To be left.”

“Yeah,” Yang agrees with a soft ache. “It does.”

“I’m usually the one doing the leaving,” Blake reveals, burrowing deeper into herself.

“I’m sure you had your reasons.”

“You keep saying that,” she says, more bewildered than accusatory. “How do you know?”

Yang finally looks over at, eyebrows raised in a contemplative, mild sort of surprise. “You seem like the type,” is all she says at first, vague and unhelpful. Off of Blake’s pointed glance, she continues slowly, “You don’t seem like someone who just...hurts people. You seem like...someone who’s been hurt, and did what you could until it became too much. Until you felt like you didn’t have another choice.”

Blake gazes at her as she speaks, and she can only think of bruises, can only see splinters, can only taste blood; eventually it’s all tuned out by the shape of Yang’s mouth, telling her exactly what she’s always wanted to believe about herself. She rests a hand flat against the hood, twists towards Yang, hooked on every syllable.

Yang’s gorgeous like this, defenseless and real, hair down and shoulders hunched, kicking her feet idly against the front bumper. They’re already close together, but Blake shifts until their elbows bump, until their thighs touch. She says, like it means something, “I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“No?” Yang asks quietly, going no further.

“No,” Blake says, returning her eyes to the treeline. They’re both staring out at the darkness spanning in front of them, unmoving; she’s trying to ignore the way her skin buzzes, hums. She doesn’t know why she says it, only that it’s important.

“I’d never hurt you,” Yang almost whispers, a confession she shouldn’t admit. Too soon, too soon. “Never.”

All Blake’s fuzzy mind can process is that the bruises are gone, the doors are repaired, and the taste of blood has the opportunity to be replaced by something else, something sweeter; she tilts her head and there’s Yang, there’s the curve of her cheek, there’s the bridge of her nose, there’s the outline of her mouth, there’s the sun and the sky and all the stars, there’s the reflection of moonlight and the pulling tide, there’s a devouring black hole and the dismantling planets, there’s the Big Bang and the becoming, there’s--

Blake raises a hand, cups her cheek, turns her head and kisses her.

It’s not perfectly placed but it’s soft and still; they both momentarily wallow in the shock of it, not as if a dam has broken but as if it’s straining against a flood, and then Yang slips lower, captures Blake’s bottom lip, kisses her again, and again, and again. It’s right, that’s the thing: it’s natural and instinctual and familiar, something they should’ve been doing since the moment they met.

The angle seems to wear on Yang; she breaks away, one of her hands on Blake’s thigh, and slides off the hood. Blake merely watches, still soaked in a mess of hazy emotion, until Yang moves in front of her and nudges her knee, and she understands. She spreads her legs, lets Yang step between them, wraps her arms around Yang’s waist and draws her in; Yang palms her jaw, guides the tilt of her head, allows her tongue sweep across Blake’s lip. Blake opens her mouth in response, and she lets them be raw, she lets them be bloodless, she lets them be.

She isn’t sure how long the two of them stay like that, wrapped up in each other; she’s too distracted by how soft Yang is, her skin, her lips, her fingers. Strangely, she can only taste Yang as a rainy day, coffee and mint and something else Blake can’t quite place, comforting and familiar. She swears years go by and she doesn’t notice.

The same three notes play in the background arrangement of the song humming through Yang’s stereo, the voice almost monotonous in its steadiness. She can’t make out the words but there’s a slow drumbeat kicking in, and though it doesn’t quite reach a crescendo it burns against the back of her skull, burrows so deep it imprints. She’ll never forget it.)

She’s in Yang’s car again and they’re no desperate pleading, no heavy breathing, no smirking taunts; they’re holding hands over the gearshift, the same song crooning through Yang’s speakers from all those months ago. Blake’s leaning against the window, staring out at the passing streetlights; the clock reads 4:13 a.m., backlit in a dull white.

“This is why I wondered, you know,” Yang says, stroking the back of her hand with her thumb. “We were like, closing a few weeks later or something, and I - you had your earphones in, but the volume was loud, and I could make it out.”

Blake remembers that night, remembers Yang staring wide-eyed and Blake’s ribcage closing around her heart. She hums in response before speaking. “I listen to it a lot,” she says. Her fingers tighten around Yang’s; she thinks of what she would’ve said if they’d done this then. “I used to just - play it late at night and think. I couldn’t be angry. But if I wasn’t angry, I didn’t know what I was.”

“Would it have helped?” Yang says poignantly. “If I’d asked?”

Blake stares out at the wet roads, glinting in an orange glow. “No,” she says, breath steaming up the glass. “I wouldn’t have known what to say. I never did.”

Yang pulls into her parking space in the driveway, just sits, letting the song close out naturally before shutting off the engine. Blake opens the door, gets out, runs a hand slowly over the hood of the car as she walks around.

They stand on the doorstep, hesitating like a first date, like they’ve never touched, never kissed, never fucked. Yang’s somehow getting closer, though she isn’t taking any steps; Blake sees her as if through the lens of a camera, unfocusing and flickering in the light with every miniscule, forward motion; it’s that moment of holding breath, of staring at the curve of a mouth, of wondering if, if, if, until--

Yang kisses her, or maybe she kisses Yang; she isn’t sure, but their lips brush as if against a canvas, the slightest beat of wings, the rain pattering on the roof. She finds the line of Yang’s jaw, and Yang’s arms loop loosely around her waist, pulling her in automatically.

“Maybe,” Blake whispers when they part, “we can see what it’s like when we aren’t pretending to hate each other.”

Yang smiles. “I think we can probably manage that.”

(The problem is--

Yang’s lips start affecting her, the sweep of her tongue and the pressure of her teeth, the warmth and wet of her mouth; Blake starts thinking of other things hot and wet, starts nudging Yang closer between her legs, starts kissing her like she’d rather be taking off her clothes. Yang pulls away, and her pupils are blown, her lips swollen and red with irises to match. She looks like something deconstructed, a vision of what she usually is, undone and unrepentant.

She says huskily, “Blake,” and Blake’s never heard her name sound so much like a prayer.

“What if,” Blake starts forwardly, “I asked you to take me home?”

Yang stares at her mouth, drops to her chest, their hips pressed together. She swallows. “Depends on what you’re really asking,” she whispers.

“I want you to fuck me,” Blake says bluntly, and Yang bites down on her bottom lip. “God, I want you to fuck me.”

Yang shakes her head as if to clear it, leans in and finds Blake’s lips again, but doesn’t make a move back. She just kisses her as she has been, and slows it gradually as if trying to reign herself in, aiming for a lull.

“I want to,” Yang breathes out against her mouth. “I want to more than anything.”

“But,” Blake says, knowing it’s there, “I’m drunk.”

“You’re drunk,” Yang echoes quietly, hands spread against her thighs. “I think you’d regret it.”

“Oh,” Blake murmurs somberly, “I know I would.”

Yang smiles sadly, Blake thinks of kissing it gone, of faking sobriety, of saying no, please, I’ll be fine. It’s just another lie.

Ominous clouds are rolling in above; Yang steps back, helps her slide off the hood, and her fingers feel too warm, her skin too smooth. She says softly, “I’ll take you home.”

She lets Blake keep the jacket, settled in the passenger’s seat, and shoots a text to the group asking if one of them can grab Blake’s coat before they leave; Sun sends her a thumbs up in response. Blake says, rain starting to patter against the roof, “There was a song playing earlier. Can I find it?”

Yang glances at her surprisedly, but passes over her phone, letting Blake press back, back, back as she listens to the first few opening notes before continuing. Yang doesn’t complain, just lets her go through five, ten, twenty songs--

“This one,” Blake says, and types it into her own phone, saving it to her song library. She leans her head against the window, watches the road pass by. She thinks of taking Yang’s hand over the gearshift, but it’s four in the morning and her bravery is fading with the alcohol.)

“So?” Yang asks tiredly, eyelids still shut. “What’s the verdict?”

“Hm?” Blake responds, too exhausted for actual words.

“On the sex. We were markedly less angry than usual.”

Blake smothers her unexpected laugh with her pillow, arms still buried underneath. “What an accomplishment.”

Yang waits before prompting again, still half-asleep. “So?”

Blake cracks an eye open, and there’s the sun in bed with them, nestled against the sheets; she lifts a hand to Yang’s face, runs a thumb across her bottom lip. “It was nice,” she says softly. “It was nice not to pretend.”

Yang’s smile unfurls slowly against her fingers. “But?” she prompts.

Blake mirrors the opposite, grimacing at the call-out. “But I kind of like you bossing me around,” she admits, and Yang snickers at the now two-time revelation. “It’s just so fucking hot.”

“I remember,” Yang says, settling in amusement. “Well. At least we know what we like, and it’s the same thing.”

Blake shifts up on her elbows, looks down at Yang on her back, tracing over the eyeliner slightly smudged under her eyes, grin spreading.

“I remember,” she echoes softly. I do, she hears on a loop. I do love you.

Yang’s eyes dart between her own, processing; her teeth slips across her lip, pulling at her grin in order to stop it from spreading. “And?” she prompts.

There’s no point to it, already bare in the open; Blake rests her chin in palm, strokes Yang’s bangs away from her forehead with her other hand. She thinks of the months she spent brushing past her behind bars, wanting her; thinks of the nights she spent with Yang’s name in her mouth, thinks of the quiet conversations after, spilling into the moonlight, sometimes rising with the sun. Most of all, she thinks of how hatred looks a lot like love if it’s bottled up with the wrong label.

“I love you,” she says.

Yang laughs, grin stretching too wide, like it’s finally become uncontainable. “Well,” Yang says, entertained, “took you long enough.”

Somehow, Blake should’ve seen this coming. She rolls her eyes. “I’m finally telling you I love you and your only response is to gloat.”

“Can you blame me?” Yang asks. “It’s been forever. You’ve been in love with me for so long, like - that was the wildest case of denial I’ve ever seen.”

“I take it back,” Blake says mildly, sliding back down on her stomach with her arms tucked underneath her pillow. “I don’t love you anymore.”

“Sure, baby,” Yang humors soothingly. “I don’t love you, either. I’m just a sex addict, and you’re like, really hot.”

Blake’s mouth curls at the corners. “Except I’d actually believe that.”

“Oh, ouch,” Yang says with a laugh, and reaches out, trails her fingers up and down her spine. “I’m only kind of shallow. And only kind of because I haven’t even like, looked at anyone else since you showed up in my life, glaring daggers at me from across the bar.”

“Whatever,” Blake says blissfully. “I had the right idea, if this is what I’m in for.”

“What, consistently incredible sex with the woman you love?” Yang says sarcastically. “Wow, yeah. I didn’t see it before, but your life sure fucking sucks.”

“Shut up,” Blake says, still smiling in the face of the playful argument. “You know, I was really wondering if we’d be able to like, keep pretending to hate each other after this, but I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

“Definitely won’t be,” Yang agrees seriously. “I’m sure you could still piss me off if you tried.”

“And what would I do?”

“You’re such a possessive little thing,” Yang drawls. “Some guy’s gonna look at me the wrong way across the bar, and you’re--”

Blake frowns, smacks a palm over Yang’s mouth. “That’s enough,” she interrupts, only slightly irritated with the idea. “Your point’s been made.”

Yang’s laugh vibrates again her hand; Blake acquiesces and removes it. “You’re not really mad about that kind of stuff, are you?” she asks, eyes glimmering.

“No,” Blake admits immediately, smiling. “You’re going home with me. Not them. They can look as much as they want.”

“So it is a possessive thing.”

“Do you care?” Blake asks rhetorically. “You’ve been toying with me for months. Like I’ve always been yours to take home and fuck.”

Yang leans up on her elbows, glances down at her. “Well, you have been,” Yang says, smirking darky. “You still are.” Blake meets her eyes, finds them like a gradient, the threat of red. She’s testing the mood. She continues lowly, “Do you have a problem with that?”

Blake draws in, shuddering, but she’s only thinking of the softness, only thinking of a touch as quiet as dawn, only thinking of a fall like water. She reaches up, curls a hand against the back of Yang’s head, brings her down for a kiss too gentle for what’s proposed. Yang’s lips turn to a smile, the lines of her body relaxing.

“No,” Blake murmurs when they part, but the tide has settled in.

“Hm,” Yang says lightly, glittering like the sun and all its stars. “Maybe another day.”

Blake’s waited all night for confrontation. It’s a Tuesday; it’d been slow, boring, but at least she’d been able to talk to Yang casually in the downtime. Their shifts hadn’t been in sync; Yang had gotten off at seven, and Blake had said she’d meet her at home.

It’s Weiss and Ruby at the bar with her as Sun and Neptune wrap up the kitchen; the boys are laughing at something, and it’s echoing off the walls. A pan clatters; Weiss clicks her tongue in annoyance.

“So,” Blake starts loudly, getting their collective attention, “did you all know I was in love with Yang?”

Weiss is wiping down the bar, Ruby counting the till. Both pause, though don’t seem surprised by the revelation. Sun and Neptune are somewhere in the back, but there’s a smattering of footsteps and Sun pokes his head out from the kitchen.

Ruby says, “Uh, no?” the same time as the rest of the group chimes out various choruses of yeah, duh.

“Obviously,” Weiss says snottily, but Blake ignores the attitude; she huffs, continues. “You literally never shut up about her.”

Blake’s jaw falls slack; Sun laughs loudly at the expression. “Dude,” he says, launching into an explanation he’s clearly been holding onto for months, “I had a crush on you when I got hired, and Neptune was the one to tell me. Not that I needed much convincing the first time I shared a shift with the two of you. Damn! I was like, I gotta get them a room or a ring, stat. So, yeah, like, everybody knew.”

“Jesus,” Blake says, but turns back to Ruby. “And you?”

“Okay, yeah,” Ruby admits, going back to the dollar bills. “It was pretty obvious.”

“How?” Blake asks, because Ruby’s known for being somewhat oblivious to the nuances of the people around her; it’s not exactly her strong suit.

“You kind of looked at her like you wanted to eat her,” she says, pulling a face. “And not in a, like, cannibalistic way.”

“I mean, why d’you think we let you rant about her?” Neptune points out logically. “She’s our friend. If we thought you actually hated her, don’t you think we would’ve, like - jumped to her defense a little more often?”

Blake’s frown is so deep it’s molding her face, like it’s carved there. “I don’t know,” she says. “I didn’t...think about it.”

“You didn’t think about a lot of things,” Sun supplies helpfully. “Also, Ruby’s right; you checked her out way too often to hate her. Like, the amount of times I caught you staring at her tits alone--”

“Sun,” Weiss warns, holding up a pen like a weapon.

“I’m just saying,” he defends.

“And nobody thought to like - I don’t know - point this out to me?” Blake says, outraged. “Maybe just pull me aside privately?”

“Look,” Weiss says shortly, “I just did the whole repressed lesbian thing. It wasn’t fun. I didn’t really feel like doing it again.”

“Except with repressed bisexual,” Ruby adds helpfully.

“Ugh,” Blake says, but she drops her chin, smiling. “You’re all fucking worthless.”

“At least I won the bet,” Weiss says idly, unconcerned. “I came the closest. It’s been seven months, hasn’t it?”

Blake’s lips curl; well, she’ll get her dues in payback. “What were all the bets?”

(“I give ‘em a week, tops,” Sun says, watching them glare at each other as they stack chairs.

“Three months,” Ruby bets, waving a five dollar bill.

“I don’t encourage on-the-clock betting,” Weiss says snootily, “but I’m giving them six months.”

“One month,” Neptune says. “They can’t keep this up. Something’s gotta give.”)

So, here’s the real truth:

Blake’s in love with her from the moment she lays eyes on her. Yang’s so gorgeous it’s like a magnet to the eye, someone she can’t not look at the moment they’re sharing space. She’s witty, funny, more intelligent than people give her credit for, and Blake wants her from the second they shake hands, lifelines blending into one; from the first instance of their breath being drawn across a room, the subtle shift of air. Yang kisses her and the world collapses in, sucked by a starving black hole; Yang gives her a jacket and a song and says here, live here, but at the time there are too many stars, too much fire burning not to scald.

Eventually they turn to diamonds and the heat doesn’t scar. Eventually she catches up with herself, waiting at a finish line.

Blake smiles.

“Actually,” she says, “Neptune won.”

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