Chapter Text
“Blake,” Yang says, digging her feet into the ground and dragging herself closer. She glances out at the townsfolk, ensuring they’re out of view. She doesn’t want an audience or any distractions for what might happen. “I’m, uh, sorry. It’s just that when we first met, you were reserved and… scared to face your issues or feelings. And I know we’ve grown a lot these past few months, and you’re incredibly strong after what you’ve been through, but I just need to make sure. You’re it for me, Blake, and I’ve never tried to keep that a secret. But I have to know that there’s nothing at all holding you back.”
“Nothing is holding me back,” she says confidently, chin rising.
Blake barely manages the sentence out before Yang slips a hand behind her neck and pulls her closer for a kiss.
Every worry from the past few days seems to vanish the moment Yang’s lips meet Blake’s. Her fluttering stomach has long since evolved into a complete twist, and Yang is almost concerned that her dreams are becoming full-fledged hallucinations.
Blake yanks her from this concern effortlessly as she drags her tongue across Yang’s bottom lip. She untangles their clasped hands to grab at Yang’s arms, fingers running up her bicep.
There’s absolutely no way this is a dream. It’s a million times better.
Their lips separate long enough for them to sigh against each other, before Blake drags her close again, her hand wandering to Yang’s collarbone. Yang rubs Blake’s thigh almost innocently, testing waters.
Blake blindly grabs Yang’s gun and shoves it off her lap, taking its place and pulling herself impossibly closer. One of her hands weaves behind Yang’s neck and the other rests against the curve of her jaw, pulling her face to the perfect angle.
Holy shit, why weren’t they doing this earlier?
After several long, lingering moments, they finally pull away from each other. Blake’s pupils are dilated, and her hair disheveled. The clouds within Yang’s head part just enough for her to say something, anything.
“Holy smokes,” she says stupidly, staring with a slack jaw. Her thundering heart drowns out any coherent thought she could be having right now.
Blake snorts and pulls her in for another kiss, though this time it was fleeting and chaste.
“Yeah. That’s one way of putting it.”
“We…” Yang blinks and already forgets what she was about to say, her mind filled with BlakeBlakeBlake. “We should… do that again sometime. That was rad.”
“It was rad,” Blake agrees, her lips curving upwards in both delight and amusement. Yang kisses her smile, because she can, and her heart flutters with delight. “But…”
She pauses, eyes so downtrodden that Yang shakes herself out of her bliss. She understands Blake’s reservations, of course. In another universe, maybe, they could be together with no worries about dying the next day. But not in this one, where the threat of death looms around them at every second of every day.
“But we might die tonight,” Yang finishes, killing the mood instantly, lips still tingling and face still flushing. But Blake just nods somberly, the disappointment palpable between the both of them. “At least we got that knocked off the to-do list,” she jokes weakly.
Blake is merciful enough to grace her with a small chuckle. “We should probably rest,” she says. “Who knows what tomorrow will bring us?”
***
It’s a bloodbath before they even realize it is.
Blake shakes Yang urgently, forcing her from her deep slumber. The sound of gunshots sound distant to the blonde, who’s still trying to process that she isn’t still sleeping.
“Yang, we don’t have time for this, get up!” Blake demands.
Yang abruptly sits up at the sound of the fear beginning to lace into her voice. Her eyes shoot open and immediately spots a figure rushing toward them. She grabs her shotgun, aims at the person right behind Blake, and shoots. Blake releases a slight wince -- likely at the sound -- before she scrambles off their makeshift bed and onto the snow.
Yang’s mind swirls. She’d just thoughtlessly killed a person. Sure, it was in self-defense, but this wasn’t just a mindless Grimm. Like Yang, they might have had friends or family or a lover. How is she supposed to kill people?
Blake offers a hand to Yang, who takes it dizzily, and wordlessly allows herself to be pulled up. Blake whips her knife out of her sleeve and grips it backhanded, digging the blade into an enemy’s shoulder and using her other hand to shoot the same man in the gut.
Yang hardly allows herself a moment to further consider the twist of emotions she feels as she shoots her next target and kicks someone else. She’d just gotten to kiss the girl of her dreams, and now she’s living a fucking nightmare.
Blake seems to be stuck in a daze as she surveils the growing brutalization around them, so Yang calls out to her. When she doesn’t respond, Yang shakes her shoulder, feeling frantic. “Blake, we need to find Ruby and Weiss. Fuck- I should have never separated from them in the first place. Fucking shit. I can’t see anything, and they’re probably no better off-”
The moment she says it, a group of people bear down on them at once, forcing them from each other. She loses sight of Blake and narrows her eyes at the new enemies before her.
Yang readily fights them off, kicking at one opponent and ducking under another person’s punch. When one comes in too close for her to shoot, she strikes with the butt of her gun. The other assailant attempts to shoot her in the shoulder, but she deftly swerves to the side and tackles him down. She rolls off of him hastily and kicks him for good measure, knowing that if she stays stationary for too long, the other two will pile onto her.
With one enemy down and two left within immediate distance of her, she aims her shotgun and blows one of their kneecaps clean off. Their pained howl reverberates in her ears, and she swallows back the desire to throw up at her own actions. Although she may be physically capable of violence, it doesn’t mean that she enjoys it.
She shoves any moral dilemmas to the side, scrambles to her feet, and dispatches the third opponent with ease.
Blake rushes toward her, but the distance between them only grows as more and more people come between them.
“Go, Blake!” Yang shouts, ducking under a knife and jamming her shoulder into an enemy. “Find Ruby and Weiss!”
With widened eyes, Blake only nods and rushes off.
Confident in Blake’s ability to handle herself in a fight, Yang focuses completely on the three people throwing themselves at her. One assailant throws a knife at her, and she tilts her head to the side just enough for it to whiz right past her ear. At the same time, another person attempts to grab at her from behind, but she hooks the pit of their arm under her shoulder, and whirls them onto the ground. She aims a shot at their chest, counting her sixth kill of the night.
Yang can barely catch her breath from throwing a person over her shoulder before the third enemy shoots her in the side, grazing her skin. She clenches her teeth and hisses, but she does not buckle.
She raises her gun and shoots, hitting them square in the forehead and killing them. That’s seven people she’s killed now. The opponent with the knife that’d missed earlier lunges at her, successfully knocking both Yang and her gun to the ground.
She grunts, winded from the fall and from the weight on top of her. They clasp their fingers around her neck and begin to completely crush her windpipe . Her eyelids squeeze shut in pain, and her hand frantically feels around her belt until she reaches the hilt of her knife. Pulling it out of its sheath, she stabs her opponent’s neck and shoves them off her, relieving her throat.
Wheezing, she scrambles back up and dimly notes that this is her eighth kill.
She picks up her shotgun from the snow and shoots at another person charging towards her. Nine. Reloading between shots, Yang effortlessly takes down two more people, littering the area around her with even more bodies.
Ten, eleven.
An arrow soars right past her, slashing her cheek as it flies by. She winces and places a hand against the new cut, this time twirling her revolver out of its holster and aiming towards the area where the arrow had come from. Watching for another arrow to come her way distracts her enough for another person to attack her, this time with a baseball bat full of fucking nails.
She only notices him the moment he raises his arm to strike. Instinctively, knowing that she can’t dodge this very moment, she takes the blow completely with her right arm. At the same time, another arrow flies past them, only missing Yang because the hit from the baseball bat sent her staggering backwards.
Blinking hard, Yang fights back the pain of the nails that’d jabbed into her skin. The same enemy moves to attack her once more, but she dodges this time, albeit sluggishly. Anticipating another arrow, she grabs him by the neck and uses his body to shield her from the aerial attack. His eyes widen as it pierces straight through his back. She peeks over his shoulder to finally find the archer -- looking horrified at shooting the wrong person. She raises her revolver and shoots.
Twelve.
The man within her hand droops limply, dropping his bat. She feels his pulsepoint underneath her fingers slow to a stop.
Thirteen.
Yang pants heavily, the reality of her brutality crashing down onto her. She sustained injuries, sure, but she survived while they didn't.
The lights suddenly flicker on, washing the area in light. The carnage is more apparent now than ever. Yang’s not sure she’s seen this many bodies at once in her life. Her stomach coils, feeling absolutely sick.
Blake reaches Yang’s side, calling her name cautiously.
“Ruby and Weiss are at electrical,” she informs, tugging her away from the massacre -- the massacre that Yang caused. “Are you okay?”
Yang nods without a word, dazedly looking around at the slaughter before them. “A-Are you?” Yang asks, voice hoarse.
“Yeah. Had to use one of my Molotov cocktails already.” Blake shrugs and shoots at someone attacking Jaune, who’s ducked over Ren’s (thankfully breathing) body. “C’mon.”
Though gunshots can be heard everywhere, Yang’s eyes widen in particular at the sounds coming from the electrical building. The blonde rushes towards the entrance just as the door bursts open, and a man -- carrying Weiss? -- runs out. Suddenly, Ruby shoves past Yang, eyes trained on the man.
Yang reaches to grab her, but she slips out of her grasp quickly. “Ruby!” she shouts after deaf ears.
She’s about to chase her when she hears a blood-curdling cry come from Blake’s direction. Yang flinches, prepared to run after her sister, but quickly drawn towards the shout. Her stomach curls at the sight of a knife lodging itself into Blake’s back. Yang glances between the area where Ruby was and where Blake is right now. She decisively chooses to trust that Ruby -- who looked relatively uninjured -- can take care of herself better than a newly stabbed Blake.
But before Yang has a chance to lunge for her, she catches sight of familiar red eyes just a yard away from her.
While the world outside her crashes down, her entire inner world collapses with them. She knew she’d be here, of course, but with all the havoc of tonight, the possibility of seeing her had completely slipped her mind.
“Raven.”