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They go to the beach when it’s all over.
It’s a really mundane trip. It’s, like, a Tuesday—the most boring day of the week—and even the weather is just… normal. Nice, even.
Something prickles at the back of Yang’s neck on the ride there, daring her to enjoy herself when literally anything could go wrong at any moment. She’s wearing her prosthetic, but the tips of her fingers tingle anyway, just begging her to jump into action.
But… it’s over. Really, genuinely.
Beacon, Mistral, Atlas, the Ever After, Vacuo…
They’ve been there, they’ve done that, and now? Now she can feel a sunburn developing on the tip of her nose. That is the worst of her problems.
She doesn’t know what to do with herself.
“Hey,” Weiss says, hovering over her. Her skin is somehow even whiter with the amount of sunscreen she’s slathered all over herself. Yang wants to laugh. How strange to feel like she doesn’t know how to. “Do you want a mimosa?”
She stares at Weiss for several long moments. A synapse fires in her head with no destination.
“A… mimosa?” She might as well be asking Yang to drag a chunk of the moon down.
Weiss lifts her arms, bottle of champagne in one hand, carton of orange juice in the other.
“It’s brunch time,” she says, easy as anything. “I’m going to have one.”
Yang opens and closes her mouth. Something is not computing.
“Mimosa time!” It’s Nora, slamming bodily into Weiss and swiping the bottle of champagne, leaving Weiss with the juice. She runs off, but Weiss doesn’t look affronted (a first, maybe.)
“Hey.” She crouches, kneeling down on Yang’s oversized beach towel. “Are you okay?”
“Is this real?” It comes shooting out of her mouth before she has a chance to pass judgment.
Weiss, posture usually a pillar of stone, slouches as if Yang’s draped the question over her shoulders. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”
“It—yeah it’s weird. I mean…”
She flings her arm out to where Nora and Ren are building a sandcastle. Where Jaune, miraculously young again, is slapping the side of his speaker, trying to get his scroll to connect so he can play his music.
Weiss looks back, takes in the scene. She nods facing the surf, where Ruby and Blake are looking for seashells. “It’s really weird.”
It shouldn’t be—they’ve had time to lick their wounds, time to sit with all they’ve been through. There has been time to rebuild, too. But Yang still feels the fight on her heels, pressing her forward.
Weiss turns back to her and there’s a shriek, ear-splitting. Yang realizes that it’s not one of terror the split second after she’s shot to her feet, fists balled at her chest. The buzzing under her skin, pooled adrenaline—spreads into her bloodstream.
But it’s just Ruby, her arm outstretched—a little crab dangling from her finger.
“Yang?” Weiss puts a hand on her shoulder. She’s standing too. “Yang. She’s okay.”
Yang’s heart pounds against her ribs, slowing as she watches the scene unfold. Tries to believe what she’s seeing.
Blake carefully pries the thing off Ruby’s finger, delicate hands releasing it back into the water and crouching to pick up the shells Ruby’s dropped. Ruby’s laughing, Blake’s grinning.
Yang feels like she can’t catch her breath.
“See?” Weiss says, sounding far away. “They’re both okay.”
“Yeah,” she responds, finding her voice hoarse. “They’re both okay.”
Weiss squeezes her shoulder, letting her arm fall. “Do you need anything?”
She does, she thinks. Doesn’t know what it is.
“No,” she lies. “Thanks Weiss.”
She knows it’s not convincing, but Weiss leaves her to watch Ruby and Blake as they rifle through their shell collection.
—
She watches Blake approach and it feels like a movie. Like someone else’s life.
Her skin is damp, sand clinging to her bare legs. Yang doesn’t know how to breathe again, for another reason.
“Hey, you,” Blake greets, close enough to hear, and Yang feels something chip at the feeling that’s been chasing her.
“Hey,” Yang says, doesn’t mean to sound so relieved. “Found some shells?”
Blake drops down next to her on the towel, not an inch of space between them. Her wet leg sticks to Yang’s. Another piece breaks off.
“I am a generous person. I gave them all to Ruby. I think she’s going to decorate Nora and Ren’s castle.”
She leans into Yang’s space, plants a kiss on her cheek and hesitates there, a hair’s breadth away. Yang turns to her fully, vision suddenly taken up by Blake alone, watching bright eyes dart over her face.
“You’re pretty,” Yang says, means it. It’s the only thing she knows for sure right now. A chunk loosens.
She gets an up-close look at the pink that dusts across Blake’s cheeks. Maybe it’s Yang’s favorite color now. Maybe it’s always been.
“So are you. Something’s up.”
Blake knows the inside of her head like she lives in there. (She does, she does.)
Weiss is a great listener, a great friend, but… Blake is Blake, and that’s really all there is to it.
“I can’t wrap my head around this,” Yang says, the simplest route between two points. “I’m like… waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Blake twists, cups Yang’s face with gentle hands. “I don’t think any of us can.”
The loose chunk falls, reveals something soft and squishy and Yang doesn’t know how to look at it.
“What… what do I do?” She knows to go to Blake for help. She knows that if she’s got a problem, it’s Blake who has the answer, or at least—knows the road there. “What do we do?”
“Sit here with me?” Blake offers, her thumbs running across Yang’s sunscreen-sticky cheeks. (She wouldn’t have put any on without Blake’s prompting. Wouldn’t have thought of it. Would have regretted it later.) “Enjoy the breeze?”
That’s easy enough. The rest of the pieces crack and fall.
Yang leans in, kisses Blake like the world’s not on fire, and believes, for this moment, that it isn’t.