Chapter 3

Rekindling

Blake awoke to nausea and a pounding in her head. She tried to open her eyelids, but either they were too heavy or she'd somehow lost her vision in the night. Her first instinct told her this must be a hangover, and one that even put the morning after Yang's birthday celebration to shame. Every inch of her body ached, and she was dully aware of warm, heavy breathing on the back of her neck.

She immediately tensed up as every instinct told her she was vulnerable and in danger, but the fear driven by her skittish nature was slowly replaced by butterflies in her stomach.

Even if she couldn't see, Blake knew her face must've been scarlet, and groaned inwardly as waking up with someone in her bed definitely hadn't been the plan even if she and Sun were technically still letting each other see other people, and briefly she wondered what state the other girls must've been in to let her bring a boy back to the room. Ruby would probably just giggle at the two of them, but Weiss wouldn't appreciate having slept in the same room as the opposite sex, and would demand that he leave before he saw her nightgown and got a peek at her upper thigh. Yang, of course, would've allowed it, definitely would've encouraged it, and more than likely would've suggested they share while wearing that crooked grin of her's that always left everyone guessing whether she was being serious or not.

Deciding nothing could be done at this point, mostly because she'd probably die if she tried to get up, Blake shifted her position to get more comfortable when she froze. This wasn't her bed, nor was it any of her roommates'.

In team RWBY's 'official handbook' that'd been written in red crayon by its illustrious leader, and co-authored by her near illiterate sister, certain articles had been included during the first team meeting that ensured that no girl ever went home with a boy if they were skunk-faunus drunk. They would keep an eye on each other and make sure they all made it home safely, and awoke with mustaches drawn on their faces. Some friends they were...

Blake attempted to flare her aura to help fight the hangover like her partner had taught her, but it was as though her powers had been completely drained.

'Looks like you wasted all your strength last night, Blakey,' said an obnoxiously cheerful voice in her head. 'Must've been having my kind of fun all night long to be this sore.'

"Shut up, Yang," she grunted reflexively.

She ran a hand over her body self-consciously. They were under thick blankets, which was good she supposed, and she wasn't naked, thank God. But she also wasn't wearing one of her yukatas. Instead, she was in a loose pair of boy shorts and a tank top, which were obviously meant for a girl with wider hips and larger-

*gulp*

'Girl?'

She found herself feeling more wryly annoyed with herself than upset, and found solace that at least she didn't have to worry about any surprises in the coming days. And who knew? She couldn't remember anything from the previous night, so perhaps nothing happened at all. Maybe the stranger had just been kind in offering to share her bed and a pair of her pajamas. And maybe Beowolves could fly...

Slowly, she opened her eyes and glanced over her shoulder to see who she was sharing a bed with, or more precisely she realized, a couch.

'Couldn't make it to the bed could ya, Tiger?'

Once the blurry objects went away and her sight adjusted to the dark, Blake realized she was staring into lilac.

"Morning," yawned someone buried under a blonde mane. "Was I talking in my sleep again?"

"You..." she snarled accusingly. "I should've known. It was always going to be you wasn't it? You just couldn't help yourself could you?"

"Oh, hey, Blake. Fancy meeting you here huh?" The other girl casually parted her hair to the side as though nothing was out of the ordinary, which for her was entirely possible. "Have a good night sleep?"

"Uh, I'm never drinking again," she swore to herself, which caused the other girl to snort. "Yang, is that your hand? Actually, why do I even bother..."

"Heh, would it make you feel better if I said I sadly can't feel your Bellabooty right now?"

The amber colored glare answered her question.

"You're no fun," Yang pouted. "Want me to move it?"

"Would you mind?"

"Yes actually. I usually have to sleep with it in a sling, and it's comfortable where it's at."

Her teasing was lighthearted, but something didn't quite make sense to the half asleep, hungover faunus. Had they gotten into another bar fight?

"Why do you have to wear a-" Blake paused, realization slowly sinking in as well as horror. "Oh God, Yang! I-I-"

She tried to crawl off the couch in a poor escape attempt but the blonde wrapped an arm around her and nuzzled close.

"We can talk later," Yang whispered. "For now, let's just pretend we're back at the dorm." She began humming softly in her ear, rubbing their heads together as a show of affection. "I've really missed you, you know."

Blake's heart threatened to leap out of her chest and her body began to tremble, causing her former partner to tighten her embrace.

"Hey, hey it's okay," she soothed, massaging her shoulder gently. "You're alright, Blake. Tell me, how are you feeling?"

The other girl tried to swallow but couldn't, and made a choking sound as tears began to flow.

"I screwed up, Yang!" she wailed. "And I am so, so sorry." Blake was now all too aware of the other arm beneath her, though for a different reason.

"Yeah, you did, and it hurt like hell," she said not unkindly, her voice cracking. "As a matter of fact it still hurts. But you're here now, and that's all I care about."

Her warm aura flared just for a moment, and Blake rolled over in a curled up ball. She wrapped her arms around the blonde's neck and buried her face in the bare shoulder Yang was laying on, sobbing uncontrollably.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."

She cried until there weren't any tears left, and throughout, the girl she had abandoned held her, ticking her back and playing with her hair, and occasionally whispering something into her cat ears amidst her own crying.

"What do we do now?" Blake eventually rasped, her voice muffled.

"Hmm," Yang pondered thoughtfully, untangling the dark mess. "We wait for my dad to come down and find us spooning, your clothes all over the living room, and then he makes us breakfast. Sound good to you?"

Blake made a noise sounding like a mix of mortification and revulsion, as well as perhaps a pinch of amusement. But whether it was from the thought of the girl's dad finding them cuddling together, or the infamous Xiao Long family cooking ability, or lack thereof, neither of them were entirely sure. Perhaps though it was simply from how unconcerned the blonde was about the entire situation.

"I'm not hungry..."

Cautiously, the arm around her pressed between them, and a warm hand moved up her shirt causing the faunus' breath to hitch as it tickled. Soft fingers she remembered as once being calloused rolled over her ribs, counting and inspecting them each.

"Blake, I could see your ribs poking out last night, and I can feel them. You've been wasting away, and you're practically skin and bone. Do you realize how jealous Weiss would be if she saw you right now?"

The sickly girl snorted despite herself, and let out a soft chuckle that was music to the other's ears.

"You remember the time she woke up one day and decided she was a vegetarian, and ate nothing but salads for a week?"

Yang nodded. "And on the last day of the diet, she walked out of the bathroom so happy to have lost five pounds that she gorged herself on grilled chicken and low fat vanilla yogurt until she passed out."

"And she was so mad when she gained it back that she set the scale on fire." Blake smiled, an act that was almost painful. By keeping her eyes shut and focusing on her former partner's chest slowly rising and descending, and the precious heartbeat that she once heard stop, she could almost pretend things were back to normal. Perhaps this was a dream, or maybe this was what life after death was like. Either way she couldn't complain.

"Hey, did I ever tell you that after a couple of weeks together as team, I started messing with the scale before she could weigh herself?" Yang asked, to which Blake shook her head. "Weiss weighed herself every day at exactly seven in the morning and ten at night, just like clockwork."

"Except weekends," the faunus remembered. "And never past midnight. She said that even calories weren't that cruel." Blake suddenly found herself missing terribly the high pitched, usually sharp voice that somehow always sounded like it was ready to break into song. "But what were you doing with the scale?" By her tone, Yang thought she might've been suspicious of foul play.

"It's not what you think, and I would never do a thing like that to her. I just rigged it so that it'd show her the same weight each time to keep her from going on diets and torturing herself, and us by extension. But if she ever started one, I'd set it back a pound, excuse me, kilogram, every night. Rubes isn't the only engineer in the family."

"But why?"

"Because she didn't have five pounds to lose, Blake. You remember how she looked when we first met, and how it took months for her to actually start filling out."

"That was really sweet of you, Yang, but why are you telling me this?" Even with her head threatening to split in two, she thought she understood, but perhaps just didn't want to accept what her former partner was implying.

She felt a kiss between her cat ears, a wonderful sensation that lingered for a few moments, and hesitantly she looked up at the misty lilac.

"Because the two of you are a lot alike. How many times did Weiss punish herself just because she thought she was overweight? None of us cared about that, we cared about Weiss. And you know what, one day she started weighing herself only once a day, then stopped altogether. Not because she wasn't still worried about her weight, I know for a fact she was, but because she realized that you, me, and Rubes love her no matter what. And like I said, you have a lot in common with her, Blake."

*sniff*

"Yang, I-"

"I know, and stop worrying about it."

She pressed their foreheads together, but Blake quickly buried her face again in shame. She tightened her embrace around the blonde though, who returned the affection by humming a soft tune she normally reserved for her younger sister when she was upset. The faunus hummed along to the familiar tune sounding almost like she was purring, and held onto the girl she used to share a soul with as if afraid to let go.

Just as they were both beginning to drift off, a voice thick with a Mistralian accent spoke up.

"Morning, ladies." Both their heads turned toward the tall man leaning against the entry way. Although there was only a faint light in the living room, there seemed to be a faint halo of sunlight around him. "Though, I guess it's more like good afternoon."

"Oh hey, Dad." Yang sunk down into the blankets shyly. "Don't mind us. I've just got one hand touching Blake's Bellabooty and the other up her shirt. Wanna guess which one I can't feel?"

He didn't react beyond blinking at his grinning daughter, though he did briefly glance at the scarlet faced faunus who was trying her best to look innocent, which around Yang was nearly impossible.

She smacked the girl's hand away, which seemed to only encourage her, and forced a smile. "Hello, Mr. Xiao Long."

He stiffened, and for a moment seemed unsure what to say. "Hello, Blake. Good to see you again. Please, call me Taiyang. Or Tai for short."

The professor and now part-time huntsman was obviously uncomfortable, and she couldn't exactly blame him. Not after what she'd done to his daughter.

Both of his daughters Blake corrected.

Yang let out a chuckle as though something just occurred to her. "Hey, Dad. Aren't you glad the first time you catch me fooling around naked it's with another girl and not a guy?"

Blake quickly peeked under the covers, keeping her gaze averted but let out a sigh of relief when she saw her former partner was only trying to get a rise out of them.

Taiyang rolled his eyes but they seemed a little brighter than before and his lip twitched in amusement, especially the longer he studied his eldest daughter and her shameless grin.

"It'd make your pops feel a whole lot better if you didn't imply I could've caught you earlier, sweetie," he remarked dryly.

"Who would you rather I take after, you or Mom?"

"Neither," he said without hesitation. "I'd rather you be like your sister and take after your stepmother."

She snorted. "Tell me, how did Summer get pregnant again? Oh, that's right. From what you and Qrow have told me, are you sure you'd rather us take after her?"

Her father scowled and bit his cheek in thought for a moment, but before he could speak his daughter continued. "Nobody on that team could be entirely innocent. Either you all corrupted her, or she was already like us. No offense to Summer, but being Mom's best friend and personal photographer immediately raises some red flags for me. They didn't have any money for tuition, and one day going through your things I found a couple of magazines they did that you probably didn't want me seeing. To be honest, looking through them, I'm not sure who was a worse influence on who. Care to tell?"

Blake covered her mouth to keep from laughing as she'd forgotten just how quickly her former partner could turn a conversation in her favor. Taiyang for his part didn't look surprised, merely defeated while shaking his head. It made the faunus happy to see the pair interact. Her only encounter with the man had been brief, when he picked up Ruby to take her back to Patch shortly before the start of the Vytal Festival, which felt like a lifetime ago.

Taiyang was a tall, muscular man with a dark tan, and like his daughter had golden hair. It was cut short, falling just above his eyes, but in his youth he supposedly had a mane nearly as impressive as her's. Despite pushing forty, Blake thought he looked rather remarkable for his age, but the faunus could sense a heavy sadness in his eyes and smile. They were all too familiar to the faunus, as even though she'd inherited so much of her mother's beauty, her former partner had gotten her dad's best traits too. Smiling no longer came easy to him, but he still tried. At least in front of his girls.

Around his neck was a thick gold chain with a wedding band that'd been meant for a much slender finger. Even from across the room and in the dark, her sharp eyes couldn't help but catch the engraving of a dark pair of wings inside a burning heart, and a matching band around his finger. Still, even after all these years.

Blake of course recognized who the black wings had belonged to, and saw that the tattoo on the man's right bicep was the same burning heart with black wings, but inside the pair, was a small, delicate looking white rose.

Her heart immediately skipped a beat, and instinctively tightened her grip around the girl. She couldn't imagine losing what this man had, and fought the tears back down as she realized what she had done to her former partner.

"How you feeling?" he asked coolly.

Blake wasn't sure who he was asking, and couldn't find the words to speak as his familiar looking lilac eyes studied her. They almost seemed to understand what she was thinking, but Blake didn't think they looked all too happy to see her or all that trusting. She couldn't blame him of course. He had lost his partner and later his teammate, the mothers of his precious girls. And Blake had committed the cardinal sin by abandoning her own...

"She's hungry," Yang answered. "We both are."

He turned his attention back on his daughter, a wry smile on his face. "No kidding. The two of you have been laying on the couch for nearly two days, and I've only seen you get up once or twice during that time."

The faunus turned to her expectantly but Yang didn't react. "Clear out the fridge and make us some breakfast would ya."

Her father waited a moment, gesturing for her to continue.

"Pretty please, Daddy?" she begged, talking like a younger version of herself while batting her eyelashes up at him.

Tai chuckled, his smile warmer and genuine as his aura flared from across the room. "Scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and something resembling pancakes are on the way, sweetie."

He walked through the room with a spring to his step presumably on his way to the kitchen, but paused seeing the girl's clothes laying by the fireplace and how they both hid under the blankets.

"Y'all aren't naked are you?"

Yang burst into laughter and after a moment he walked away, perhaps not wanting an answer. "Oh, that's right," he recalled, "my innocent little girl apparently takes after her mom, dad, uncle, and stepmom seeing how she just had her hand up another girl's shirt..."

He walked away while his daughter thrashed on the couch.

"Now you see where I get my sense of humor!" She slapped her on the backside, trying to get her to hop up. "Come on, it won't take him long."

"But he just got in there."

"And he's had a lot of practice using his semblance to screw up breakfast."

Yang sat up, her body stiff and in obvious pain, and helped Blake do the same. The blankets fell to the floor and the faunus swung her legs over. After getting past the headache and dizziness, she glanced down at herself feeling a tag self-conscious. She was in a black top and matching shorts that showed off more skin than she would've liked, especially around someone's dad. The short's drawstring had been pulled as much as it could, but it was still loose around her hips. Wearing her former partner's clothes made her smile, but the amount of skin showing wasn't why she suddenly wanted to cover up. Her body was covered in ugly bruises. They traveled up her legs up to her stomach, chest, arms, and shoulders, and knew her face hadn't gone unscathed.

"Sorry," Yang said, noticing her gaze. "I haven't exactly felt like getting out of my pajamas lately. Actually, I haven't unpacked since we got here. Those are all my dad could find for you..."

Blake nodded. She was afraid to ask why she hadn't been getting out of her pajamas as she thought she already knew the answer, and by the way her former partner was tracing her bruises, she knew they'd be brought up very shortly.

Yang quickly fixed her hair before bending over and retrieving a sling off the floor, which immediately caused Blake's body to freeze. She glanced down at the arm dangling uselessly by her side. It had lost much of its muscle mass, and a deep scar that nearly encompassed all the way around was a few inches above her elbow. Without thinking about what she was doing, she touched the arm and brought her lips close.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, as if speaking to the arm itself. "I'm so sorry, Yang."

The blonde finished getting her arm in the sling and rested her head atop her best friend's. Blake swallowed something painful, and hesitantly glanced down at the girl's chest, but it uncharacteristically covered up, and she knew why. And it was her fault...

"Come on, Blake. We can talk about it after we've gotten some food in you." Yang took her by the hand as she simply didn't have the strength or the will to stand on her own, and once on her feet had to lean against her for support, something that was vaguely familiar to the faunus. She found herself occasionally squeezing her making sure she was real, and found herself being squeezed right back.

(A/N: Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. This was a fun chapter to write, and I like to think Yang was making up for lost time with all of the teasing. I really enjoyed their interactions in this chapter, especially since "big sis Yang" is one of my favorite aspects of her character. She's a very physical person, and that lends itself for a lot of moments between the girls. Their big talk will be coming up soon, this just wasn't the time or place for that. Blake needed to know that she's already been forgiven before Yang gives her a much needed talking to. Yang's obviously more hurt than she is angry, but perhaps that wasn't always the case. We shall see. Also just as a heads up, I've finished writing "The Prodigal Stray" and it will be five chapters long. I say this not wanting to sneak up on anybody as there will be some unresolved issues in the end. Yang and Blake have some heavy things to discuss coming up, and their relationship probably won't be a hundred percent like it was for quite some time, but this story is to simply get them on the right path again. I hope you enjoy. All credit goes to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has blessed me with this story and wonderful readers like yourself. God bless)