Yang couldn’t help but freeze up a little bit as Blake leaned against her shoulder. She hadn’t been expecting the contact, but even more, she hadn’t been expecting her own reaction to something so casual. After a moment of trying to adjust, she hesitantly leaned out from the touch under the pretense of changing seating positions, shifting to sit with her legs folded and her coffee resting in her lap. The sheepish and apologetic smile she gave Blake in exchange was weak, but she hoped it would offset things at least a little.
“Would have been nice if any of them had made it to me,” she admitted, staring into her cup and swirling its contents. “Maybe I would have worried less. Probably not. But who knows, maybe some did make it. You know, after I left. I haven’t been home in like two months.”
It took Yang a moment to figure out what to say next. “I missed you too,” she eventually replied. “I know I’m not showing it very well right now, but I really did. It’s just…” She ran the fingers of her prosthetic through her hair, brushing her bangs to the side. “A lot of things have changed.”
Blake could feel Yang tense where their shoulders met, and as she shifted away, she knew she’d made a mistake. She didn’t even see the small smile Yang gave her; instead, Blake’s eyes shifted down to the tea in her hands, and she tried to ignore the stabbing pain in her chest and the heated shame that washed over her. Her grip on her cup tightened almost imperceptibly, but her ears gave her away as they drew down and back, closer to her scalp.
“Maybe,” she answered noncommittally. “It’s not like either of us would have known.”
I should have known, though, her mind scolded her. I should have stayed with her and then come with her to Haven. I should never have left in the first place, never made that decision for her.
Gods, she hurt. And she had no doubt that Yang was hurting, too. She just wished she could make it all go away.
“Yeah, it has,” she murmured after a few moments. “It really… really has.”
There was so much more she wanted to say, starting with an apology. But so far, nothing was coming out. Instead, she stared into her tea and watched her reflection warp in the liquid. There was something symbolic about that, she thought. Something symbolic in the way her face twisted and rocked almost ephemerally, like it was one of her shadow-clones.
“I… hope I made the coffee to your liking, then? If… if that hasn’t changed?” She tried to joke, but her voice was tenuous at best, and she glanced up only briefly for Yang’s reaction.
Nothing about this was going the way Yang had expected it to. She’d been surprised when Blake had reappeared at Haven the previous night, but between then and now, she’d thought that she’d gotten her feelings in order and mostly under control, that they’d be able to take it slow and readjust to being together again. The way her heart was hammering in her chest at a simple lean against her shoulder showed her that that was far from the case. And now, as she watched Blake’s expression wilt from her reaction to it, guilt started to creep in and her heart ached instead. She had to do something.
“Hey,” she said gently, reaching out to rest her right hand on Blake’s knee, hoping to draw her partner’s eye. “Not that much has changed. You’re still you, and I’m still me, and we’re still us. That’s all that really matters. Just need a chance to figure out how the things that have changed fit into that.” She made a point of scooting back over towards Blake a little bit and nudging shoulders gently. A few butterflies in her stomach and a quickened pulse would be worth it if it brought her girlfriend’s smile back. She couldn’t take it slow if it meant hurting her partner.
“And you did great on the coffee. Just the right amount of burnt. Please tell me you left some in the pot, I wanna see Weiss’ face on that first sip.”
