Chapter Text
Yang watched as Ruby opened the door to the apartment she’d shared with Weiss for the last 4 years. Once it was opened she was surprised to see it reveal, not Weiss, but Ilia.
“Hey you two.” The faunus girl smiled, “It’s been a while.”
“Uh so kinda curious if there’s a reason you’re here, Ilia?” Yang asked, since she figured Ruby didn’t want to deal with this.
“Weiss called in a favor. She uhh...well I remember that Ruby was always very frank so I will be too. She wanted to make certain that you, Miss Xiao Long, didn’t wreck something. As well as give you an extra helping hand.”
“Girl does know me. Ruby convinced me to avoid being my normal messy bitch self, but I won’t turn down a helping hand, I guess. And at least she had enough sense to not send Blake to help. I may be getting over her, but I’m still not ready to have a face-to-face with her.” Yang rubbed the back of her neck.
“Yes, well she was going to until it was pointed out to her how bad of an idea that was. I was the compromise.”
Yang just sighed and nodded.
“So, can we get started?”
“Of course, come in. You parked in the backlot, yes?”
“Yea yea, I helped Rubes move in here in the first place.”
“Excellent. I hope you don’t mind that we went through what Weiss knew was Ruby’s and packed them up to make things a bit easier on you both.”
“Dunno. Sis?” Yang asked her sort-of girlfriend(she really needed to clarify with her about all that) who nodded and gave a thumbs up in return.
“She says sure. I think she’ll want to look through just to make sure, but thanks for the help with that I guess.” Yang smiled, afterall it meant more time for cuddles when they got home.
Things moved well from there. Weiss had actually done them a favor by packing up Ruby’s stuff like she had and aside from a few things had managed to pre pack everything but Ruby’s desk, which she knew better than to touch. Everyone knew how Ruby got about her personal area. The desk with the computer, as well as whatever ‘engineering’ project Ruby was working on(To Yang’s eyes it looked like Ruby was getting into clock repair). Ruby was packing things into the spare boxes, some more haphazard, others more carefully marked. The more carefully packed ones were labelled with a simple ‘FRAGILE’ in marker.
“Hey Yang, do you and Ruby want something from that sandwich place on the corner? Weiss did give us some cash for lunch.” Illia asked from the doorway.
“Sure? Chicken Salad for me and BLT for Rubes. You just gonna lettuce stay here, all alone? Aren’t you worried I’ll wreck the place?”
Ilia groaned at her amazing pun, “Not really. You seemed sincere, which is a bit of a surprise, but I suppose people can change.”
“Yea okay then. Thanks. We’ll just be here finishing up.” Yang nodded, a bit surprised, but willing to accept the comment for what it was. Honestly most people would think her friends weird, but anyone who spent time around Ruby knew she was very frank, so they tended to learn to be the same with others in the friend group. There was certainly something to be said for not beating around the bush.
“Right, see you in a few.” Ilia said with a wave.
Yang just smiled and continued watching Ruby. Without Ilia here to walk in and see them she allowed herself a moment to enjoy her girlfriend’s motions. Currently she was carefully placing one of her projects in a box. She really wanted to kiss her right now, so she approached her and brushed fingers against her shoulder.
“Hey Big Sis. You okay?” She asked first.
Ruby shrugged, “Where’s Ilia?”
“Went to go pick up sandwiches, you were focused on this.”
“Ah. Well in that case.” Ruby stood up and grabbed her collar, pulling her down into a deep kiss. Her tongue probed at her lips which she gladly opened to Ruby. Her eyes fluttered shut and she simply enjoyed the kiss and Ruby’s hand on her hip. As she was beginning to run low on air Ruby pulled away, panting and smiling.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since we walked in the door.” Ruby said with a smile that made Yang’s guts twist in a very pleasant way.
“Love you Big Sis.” Yang smiled and pressed her forehead to Ruby’s.
“Love you too Princess.”
The sound of a bag hitting the floor pulled their attention to the doorway, framing a shocked Ilia.
Ruby groaned, “Fucking seriously. One day? Are we that bad at this?! Uggggghhhhhhh.”
In spite of the situation Yang felt a chuckle escape her, “I mean, to be fair sis, you were always terrible at keeping your own secrets. I think you made it at least 24 hours this time.”
“Yesterday doesn’t count Yang. We laid about the apartment, talked and fucked all day. And now she knows that too. I don’t know what I expected, fucking hell.” Ruby groaned again.
Yang couldn’t help the full on laugh she erupted into at this. If their secret was fucked anyway, might as well enjoy the ride.
“Okay so just to confirm, you two were just kissing?” Ilia finally said something which made Yang calm her laughter with a grin.
“Yep.”
“And you are still...sisters, yes?”
“Also yes.”
Ilia looked like she had shut down so Yang went over to grab the dropped bag of sandwiches, guiding Ilia to a chair in the process. She gave Ilia her sandwich then gave Ruby hers as well, finally sitting on the floor with her head resting between Ruby’s knees. The contact was good and she no longer had a reason to hold back, here and now.
The three ate in silence as Ilia continued to process things.
“Okay so you two are...what, dating? or...what..How long… I just…”
“Okay so here’s the deal. After Weiss dumped me I went to stay at Yang’s. We got drunk. We fucked while very drunk. We woke up. We talked. We agreed that we both had romantic and sexual feelings for each other. We talked more. We decided to give this a try and see where things lead. I did not cheat on Weiss, Yang did not cheat on Blake. We are both consenting, grown-ass women, who can make our own decisions about who we date and who we fuck. We want to take some time to figure out if this is something that’ll work long-term before we come out about us to everyone, because once we do we might lose some friends. We want to make absolutely sure that it’s worth that.” Ruby explained.
Ilia took a moment to really look at them, maybe trying to see something. Eventually she let out a huge sigh, “I can’t keep this from Blake and Weiss. Things are complicated on our end too, but I refuse to keep a secret like this from them.”
“Wait, are you like dating them?”
Ilia stammered and blushed and looked anywhere but at them.
“It’s complicated.”
“Then explain. So we can understand. I told you how this happened between us. If you’re going to insist we approach our exes, who are apparently dating if I understand correctly, and tell them that we are too then I feel like it’s the least you can do.”
“I can’t. I said things are complicated between us and I refuse to betray their trust like that. But I can tell you that...Well, I can see where you’re coming from.”
Ilia tapped her foot and sighed, “I won’t tell them right now, but I do need to text them and tell them you figured out we were dating and get the permission to fill you in. Is that fair?”
“Sounds fair to me. Yang?” Ruby turned to her and she nodded.
Ilia pulled out her phone and began typing. After a few minutes she nodded and put it away.
“That’s that cleared up. They say ‘Hi’ and hope you don’t hate them too much. Honestly I’ve told them both off for how they left you. You both deserved a better break up than they gave you, from what I’ve managed to glean about your relationships with them. I’ve tried not to ask too much about that to respect both of your privacy.”
“Okay and?”
“So basically Blake noticed about a month of a half-ago that Weiss was disowned by the Schnee Family.”
“What the Hell! She never told me that.”
“Ugh. Seriously Weiss!?” Ilia groaned.
“That was around when her little brother was named heir, right? I remember Penny bringing it up at work and I asked her about it. She said it was fine, though.”
“Well from what I’ve gathered, Blake saw the press release and knew that it meant that Weiss was likely not just no longer the heiress, but probably disowned. She went over to comfort Weiss about it and they accidentally kissed. Blake panicked and called me, to try and figure out what to even do now, and after another week or so she decided she wanted to break up with Yang; regardless of if Weiss wanted to get with her. She told me one night that while she loved you dearly, she wished the two of you had remained friends, because she just wasn’t that satisfied with you and mostly was sticking with you-”
“Because she didn’t want to lose me as a friend.” Yang finished with a sigh as Ilia nodded.
“Yea, I think I was the same. We had some good times, but I just could never keep up with her when she got to talking about politics and current events and stuff. I mean I care about that stuff but the deeper stuff I just don’t get, like Blake did.” She was more the type to ask when the protest was going to be, or otherwise how she could help and prepare with that in mind, “Not to mention how out of sync we were with our kinks. No, I think the break up itself might have been the right call. I just wish she’d have done more than tell me she was breaking up with me and then walked the fuck out. If we had talked it out maybe I wouldn’t have gone on a month long bender to avoid thinking about it.”
Ilia nodded sadly.
“So was Weiss cheating on me or what?” Ruby interjected.
“I, that depends what qualifies as cheating. She refused to do anything beyond what friends might do, while she was with you, and wanted to think about things.”
“I don’t count an accidental Kiss as cheating. And if all they were doing was getting coffee and talking, I’m not going to fault them on that.”
“Then no, she didn’t cheat on you.” Ilia relaxed her shoulders before continuing, “Basically Weiss wanted the chance to consider if she wanted to stay with you and came to a similar conclusion that Blake had.”
“All four of us were on the same page there, at least.” Ruby nodded.
“So one last thing. This Friday Blake got tired of waiting for Weiss to decide and she and I made love. Then about 5 minutes after we did that, who should come knocking at the door but Weiss, to talk to Blake about her decision to leave you and pursue her. That’s where things got complicated.”
“That’s beyond complicated, and keep in mind this is from the girl who literally has the same person for her Sister and Girlfriend.” Yang exclaimed.
“I mean, It’s not that bad.” Ilia sighed.
“Nah, I think it’s quite the clusterfuck. Anyway, you three going to try the triad thing?” Ruby asked, cutting to the point as she always did.
“Worked well for the Juniper gang. And Weiss is pretty cute once you consider how vocally against the ‘Schnee Energy Company’ she really is.” Ilia shrugged, “Yesterday was certainly interesting, for all of us it sounds like.”
“Yea, that’s certainly one way to put it.” Yang sighed.
“Okay how about this. You tell Weiss and Blake that you accidently found out a secret about us. Something you walked in on. We’re asking you to keep it to yourself for...let's say 2 weeks, before we tell them both. It does not directly affect any of you or your relationship; it's strictly our secret. During the next two weeks we will try to work out any hard feelings we may have about the break-up through text, so that we can all sit down and have a face-to-face conversation about this. Does that work for you, Ilia?” Ruby’s tone was clear and precise, in a way Yang rarely saw. She was angry and holding back that rage. She knew her girlfriend well enough, from the years they’d grown up together, to know that when Ruby got angry she stopped actively emoting.
Yang reached out and rubbed Ruby’s leg, drawing her attention. Yang gave her a grin and squeezed her leg, hoping it helped. Ruby’s stance relaxed, she gave a grin back and nodded.
“I think...I think I can do that. Give me a minute to call them for this, okay?”
Ruby nodded and returned to her packing. However, Yang got up on her knees and turned Ruby’s chair around to jump into her lap. She gave her Girlfriend a hug, which Ruby returned without missing a beat.
“So you’re my girlfriend then?” Ruby whispered.
“Yea, I mean if that’s okay with you, I’d really like that.”
Ruby smiled and nodded, then tilted Yang’s chin up to place a soft kiss on her lips.
After the kiss Yang decided against surprising Ilia with the two of them being intimate again. Poor girl was taking it very well, all things considered.
“Okay so I talked to them and sorry, no dice. I will let you two decide how you do this, but if you don’t do it today I have to tell them when I get back to my apartment.”
Yang groaned as Ruby sighed.
“Phone. We’ll do this over speakerphone because I do not want to deal with them face-to-face. Even if things go to shit, it’ll still be better than face-to-face would be.” Ruby let out a weary sigh.
Yang moved to Ruby and hugged her again. Her Girlfriend was rapidly approaching nonverbal from the stress and she needed to get through this, “I’ll do the talking, okay Rubes?” She forced a grin. She didn’t really want to deal with Weiss or Blake right now, but Ruby was so close to shutting down from the stress and Yang knew her sister far too well to not notice the signs.
“Are you sure, Princess? I can-”
“I’m sure, Big sis. I can do this and you’re obviously stressed the fuck out. Let me do this, yeah?”
Ruby nodded and kissed her. “Okay. Good luck I guess.”
Yang smiled and nodded.
“You know if I didn’t know you were sisters I would call you two a cute couple.” Ilia sighed and looked at her phone before handing it over to Yang.
The call was already open, just on mute, so Yang put it on speakerphone and heard the sounds of Weiss and Blake arguing softly in the background.
“-ing is that I can understand where they’re coming from. I just broke up with Ruby and as the two of you have pointed out, I really could have handled it better. I can understand why they might not want to reveal whatever secret they now have. Ilia has assured us-” Yang unmuted and tried to not get angry.
“Weiss, Blake. I’m here. Ruby’s semi-verbal, close to non-verbal as things are, so I’ll be handling this conversation. I did hear the tail end of whatever you two were talking about, by the way. So if you’re both ready we can tell you and get the fuck outta here.”
Yang took a moment to think about how best to say this, but then decided she had no fucking clue how to say it so she took a page from Ruby’s book.
“After Weiss and Ruby’s breakup, Ruby came by my apartment. We got drunk. We had sex. We’re now dating, because it turned out we’re both fucked up and have had crushes on each other since High School, at least. We talked yesterday. Decided that yes, we actually want to see where this leads. Ilia walked in on us kissing. I think that covers everything. Questions, or can we get finished here?”
There was a pause before Weiss spoke up “You must be joking. Is this a prank, Ilia? What’s going on?”
“Can’t confirm the parts I wasn’t there for, Weiss, but the ‘walking in on them kissing’ I can confirm. They told me the same story after I found out, but before I texted you two.”
The next voice was Blake. “Okay. So what’s the plan?”
Yang was surprised and apparently from Ilia’s face she was too. Weiss, however, was much more vocally surprised.
“Blake, you cannot seriously just accept this? They ARE SISTERS. Just what are you even thinking?”
“That it’s none of our business. Ilia are you with Weiss here?”
Ilia bit her lip before sighing. “Honestly, I’m not even sure.”
“Okay, so let me explain my reasoning here. Have you ever known Ruby to not think something like this all the way through? Yang, sure, she’s more the one to jump face first into danger.” Yang interjected with a ‘HEY!’ before Blake continued on, “But Ruby would have some sort of long-term plan. On top of that, neither are very subtle, and I’m guessing that the secret part is going to be temporary?”
“Yea, once we know if this is worth potentially losing the friends who share Weiss’ reaction. Not to mention how Dad will react.”
“On top of all that, I know we’ve all at least once thought the two of them would make a good couple, if it weren’t for the whole sister thing. If they’re willing and able to deal with that, then I just don’t feel comfortable judging them. They’re grown-ass adult women. They can make their own decision on who they date. I’d also still like it if we could figure things out and become friends again, but honestly Weiss and I fucked up really bad with our breakups and I understand if you don’t want to be friends again right off the bat.”
“Okay, so maybe I’m crazy, but we have just found out they are dating and you’re apologizing and and and-”
“Weiss, we can talk about this when Ilia gets home. For now can you promise them that we won’t tell anyone without giving them some warning, at least?”
“I...fine. I can do that, but if Blake does not convince me I may very well need to carry out the final part of that promise.”
“Guess that’s all we can ask for. Rubes lost her phone, so text me if you need to warn us...or if you decide or whatever. We’re just gonna finish packing then try to get the U-Haul returned before nightfall.”
Ilia took the phone and turned it off speakerphone before speaking into it, “One second, I want to continue this talk, but I need a moment to get some range so we can’t be overheard.” She then seemed to mute the phone and turned to Yang, “You have my vote, I think. Blake is right, and I think we all know why Weiss is reacting the way she is. We’ll try to convince her, but just in case. I’m sorry this is happening. I kind of wish I could have kept your secret.”
“I can understand why. You’ve been pining for Blake since before we even moved here.”
Ilia sighed, and nodded, “And Weiss since a month after Ruby started dating her.”
Yang whistled, “Damn, I get it though. Not like it’s illegal in Vale so there’s that at least.”
“I’ll try to help however I can. In spite of the sheer jealousy I had for both of you, I actually do consider you friends, which made everything harder back then. Now you’re being so understanding with our situation and just...Thank you. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, but I just...I love them both so much, you know? I want to make this work and I just wouldn't be able to deal if a secret like that got in the way of what I’ve wanted for so many years. So yea, I do get where you’re coming from.” Ilia wiped away the unshed tears from her speech.
“Need a hug?” Yang offered to Ilia, who nodded, so Yang gave the girl a hug. She liked Ilia as a friend, in spite of her putting them in this situation. That she was apologetic and her situation was similar to theirs meant Yang couldn’t just ignore her.
Ilia pulled out of the hug, “Look, I trust you two to finish up. I’m going to go talk with them and I’ll let you know once we’ve talked to Weiss. Okay?”
Yang nodded, “Drive Safe.”
“Yea, you too.” Ilia called out as she left the room.
Ruby released a long breath, “Thanks for that, Yang. I really didn’t want to talk to Weiss right now.”
“I figured. Gotta look out for my girlfriend y’know.” Yang laughed. “This the last of it?” She pointed towards the desk. At some point Ruby had finished loading the boxes.”
“I wanna do one last pass, but I think it’s everything.”
Yang nodded and went to grab one of the boxes that weren’t marked ‘FRAGILE’, lifting it up, “Well let's get moving. I’d like to have some time to cuddle tonight and if we spend more time here I might lose valuable cuddling time.”
Ruby chuckled, “Can’t have that.” She picked up another box herself and went to finish the job.
Yang smiled and leaned in for a kiss before they left the apartment. After all, if it was out they might as well enjoy themselves.