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The first time he got jealous, it excited her.
That should have been a red flag. But she was so sweet about it, reassuring him that it didn't mean anything. She didn't like anyone else but him that way. The boy—and she called him that, a boy—could never compare. He just needed help starting the fire. Adam knew what the newbies were like, didn't he? No idea what to do once they got out of the cities. (The boy was a year older than Blake, gawky and cluelessly naive. Adam sent him home and told him to come back when he had some hair on his chest.)
He pointed out that the kid could have asked anybody for help with the fire, and he'd asked Blake. He explained to her that young men were wired a certain way. He told her, bluntly, that she was pretty and boys were always going to have ulterior motives when they talked to her. She went very red, and spluttered a few protests. But he could tell that behind all the flustered denials, she was flattered that he thought she was pretty enough to get so much attention.
It should have been a red flag, but... at the time he just thought it was kind of cute.
She was better about it, afterward. Didn't hang around other men alone. But she noticed, more and more, the way boys her age sometimes sneaked glances. And as she got older, not just boys her age. Heads would turn in the street, sometimes, as they made their way through downtown Vale. On a good day, it would make him feel smug. Yeah, he'd think, as he glared the oglers down. I get her all to myself.
On a bad day, the way she noticed would start to bother him. Like all the looks were leaching into her like poison, slowly corrupting that sweetness, that innocence that made her say, "He just needed help starting the fire." He worried she might convince herself that being stared at made her better than other people. Too good for the boyfriend that had put up with her for years, no matter how difficult she got.
"I don't understand what the big deal is!" she snapped, late one night while they were lying low in an abandoned warehouse, their whole cell sitting on blankets spread out across a cold concrete floor. "So what if I smiled at him? You smiled at the checkout girl at the grocery store, and I didn't say a word because I know that a smile isn't the same thing as a blow job!"
(Apart from the two of them, the warehouse was very quiet. The others were all making themselves busy, or lying down and pretending to be asleep, or else just staring at the far wall as though they couldn't hear the argument.)
"He kept staring at your mouth!"
"Yeah, probably because I have a busted lip! Gods, Adam, he was older than my dad! Even if he did mean it like that, what does it matter? I would never date that man even if I didn't already have a boyfriend."
"So, what, if you don't think he's hot then it's fine if he stares at you?"
"I got clubbed in the face with a police baton yesterday. I don't have it in me to worry about some random street vendor pointing his eyes in my general direction, even if he was leering. Do you have any idea how often that happens? I'd go insane."
"Yeah," he sneered. "Because everyone wants a piece of you. You know, if you keep letting that go to your head, you're going to wind up with the kind of personality that chases off anybody who wants more than sex."
She groaned and put a hand over her face. "We talked about this, Adam. I'm not saying I like it. I'm not making any kind of value judgment, it is just a statement of fact that being perceived as a woman in public means that some people are going to look at me like that. I can't do anything about it. Believe me, I would if I could."
"Don't act like it's some kind of horrible burden for you. I'm not an idiot, I know it feels good to catch somebody's eye, even if you don't plan on doing anything about it."
"Sometimes, fine! If they're respectful about it, then yeah, getting checked out once in a while can be a confidence boost. But you don't seriously think it makes me feel good about myself when a man three times my age stares at my ass, do you?"
"I thought he was only looking at your busted lip."
Blake muffled a strangled cry of frustration into her hands. "Never mind, I can't do this right now. I'll go relieve Ilia on watch."
"Are you serious? You're just going to run away in the middle of our conversation?"
"Yeah." She stood up, wrapping her blanket around her shoulders instead.
"You can't just—this really upset me, Blake."
She glared at him, ears flat, and said, "So deal with it. You're a grown man, Adam, I can't keep holding your hand through every bad feeling you ever have."
Blake didn't come back from her vigil on the rooftop for hours. Eventually the anger faded, replaced by a crawling awareness of the place where she should be, and wasn't. Like she'd cut off his arm. He was starting to get this horrible feeling that she knew what it did to him. That she used it to punish him on purpose, walking away and leaving him alone with that gnawing emptiness, until he'd agree with whatever she said if only she would come back.
He didn't want to believe her capable of that. The Blake he fell in love with, the young idealist with stars in her eyes... she couldn't have been so manipulative. But she wasn't a naive girl anymore, blissfully unaware of the effect she could have on men. She was the same age now as he was when he met her, and she'd had years to practice using those charms to her advantage. It was a deadly combination—the same round cheeks and wide eyes and pretty nymph's face, but behind it all a calculating cunning.
Sometimes, he wished he didn't love her. Wished that the fever of her would break, that he could throw her away as easily as he knew she could discard him, that he didn't crumple into the vacuum inside himself whenever she wasn't there. Wished he could pull her out, like a splinter. But the moment he did...
She must have done it on purpose. Made him need her like that, so he would have to love her no matter what she did. Maybe she knew there was no one else who would love her like he did, so she dug her hooks in as deep as they would go. Maybe...
But there was no way out, now that everything hurt and there was only one thing that could make it stop. So he went and found her on the roof. She didn't look at him as he approached, but she didn't move away, either. She let him crouch down beside her.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I know it's not your fault when other people look at you."
Blake sighed. "Then why does it always feel like I have to be responsible for it?"
"I'm not asking you to pull a knife on those guys. Just... you don't have to smile back, okay? I get that it doesn't mean anything to you. But it might mean something to him, and that means something to me. When some guy is trying to disrespect me, disrespect both of us, and you smile at him like everything's fine? That hurts me, Blake."
"I really don't think he meant it like that, Adam. He... he reminded me of my dad. That's why I smiled."
Your dad that abandoned our cause? You smiled because some human reminded you of him? But he didn't dare say it now, not when she'd already given him the silent treatment once tonight. (He'd bring it up later—he felt like he had to bring it up eventually, had to counter the toxic influence of all those wandering eyes. She was already getting crueler. More arrogant. If he didn't bring her back down to earth somehow, he was going to lose her forever.)
"I know it didn't seem like that to you," he said instead. "You don't always notice these things. That's part of what I love about you, Blake, you're not one of those girls who obsesses over what men think of them. I just worry that means you have blind spots, sometimes. What if you don't notice someone is looking in a bad way until it's too late? What if you get hurt?"
Her expression softened. "Adam... I'll be fine, okay? I can take care of myself."
He wasn't sure he believed her—but he wanted the fight to be over, so he leaned in for a kiss anyway. It wasn't that he thought she was lying, exactly. It was just that she could be so blind to these things sometimes.
"You've been hanging around Ilia a lot," he observed, several nights later. This time they were blessedly alone in a back room of the warehouse. They were gearing up for a mission in a couple of hours, one handed down to them directly from Sienna. Or rather, they were, Blake and her new barnacle. It was a stealth thing. In-and-out infiltration. Blake said a small team would be better, and Ilia's natural camouflage and Hunter-level combat training made her pretty much ideal for it. (He'd scoffed a bit at that—the idea of combat training in a cushy human-exclusive boarding school was laughable. But he did see her point about the camouflage.)
Blake glanced up from the go bag she was packing. (Food and a change of clothes, in case the mission went south and they couldn't meet back up with the main group for a while. He hated watching her pack those bags. He hated it a lot more, knowing he wouldn't be going with her.) "It's nice to have a girl my age around," was all she said.
"I didn't know you cared about that."
She shrugged, but there was a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Fond. "I guess I didn't either. I was always traveling with my parents, ever since I was little. Trying to be a grown-up with all the other grown-ups. But back when I still lived on Menagerie... there was this girl who would always come on adventures with me, you know? Exploring the reefs, or diving off the cliffs." Her eyes got a little misty. "I guess I didn't realize how much I missed that. Having a best friend."
"You're my best friend."
"Oh, Adam, that's—!" She laughed. Just a quick burst, before she caught herself and covered her mouth with her hand. "That's sweet of you, but I didn't mean it like that. You're my partner. You're my person. I only meant that it's nice, having someone I can just be friends with."
He scowled. "I wouldn't be so sure about that, Blake."
"What?"
"She never wants to do anything unless you're there, I practically have to push her off you whenever I want to talk. It's like she's obsessed with you. What if she's a lesbian or something?"
Blake's face fell. "Would... would that be a bad thing?"
"Would it be a bad thing if your new best friend who's about to spend the night alone with you wanted to fuck you?" Adam stared at her. "Are you messing with me right now?"
"No! No, I just... say she doesn't like me like that at all. Say she thinks I smell bad, and she'd never date me in a thousand years. Would it be bad for her to like girls?"
"What?" He scrubbed a hand through his hair, frustrated. "Blake, if she is a lesbian, then she obviously wants you. Anybody would, first of all—" Blake flushed, "—and second of all, she already acts like she's your girlfriend or something."
"That's not..." Blake wrapped her arms around herself, and looked away. "I'm... I'm not asking about Ilia, Adam."
"Then what the hell are you trying to ask me? You always do this, if you have something to say then just say it."
She flinched a little. Then she seemed to rally, her ears flattening anxiously as she risked a glance at his face. "I think I might. Like girls, I mean."
For years, she had been helping him build a scaffold inside himself—like a cradle woven out of those black ribbons she wore, to hold his heart above the howling void inside of him, keeping it safe and whole. And in an instant, she'd severed every thread. Left it to sink into the abyss.
"You're not a lesbian," he insisted, a wild grab for anything that might slow his fall. "You're the one who kissed me."
"No." She hugged herself a little tighter. "I think I'm bisexual."
"How."
Blake gave him an incredulous look. "I like boys, and I like girls. How else?"
"How do you know that," he snapped, "if you haven't been going behind my fucking back!"
"I haven't! I notice girls the same way, that's all. It's only in passing. I never acted on it or anything, I never wanted to, I just noticed it."
"So, what?" He started to pace. "All those times you told me not to worry about those guys who ogle you in the street, because you never wanted them to look at you, you were ogling some of them back? And ogling some of the girls, too. And, what, I'm supposed to be fine with that?!"
"I wasn't ogling!" Her eyes were shiny with tears, but she scrubbed them away before they could fall. "Adam, come on, don't do this. You can tell when you think girls are attractive, right? Us being together doesn't just turn that off. That's all it is, okay?"
"No," he said coldly. "I don't look around to see which girls are attractive. Because I love you, Blake, and I actually think that means something."
Blake balled her hands into fists. "I knew it! This is exactly why I was scared to tell you, I knew you were going to do this, you always do this!"
The temperature inside him dropped another ten degrees. "How long," he demanded. "How long have you been—?"
"I've been bi my whole life." She glared up at him, defiant. "And I've known about it for almost a year now."
He nodded slowly, his jaw aching from how tightly it clenched. "Okay, so... help me out here. I'm not sure about the numbers. How many times do you think you told me, in that almost a year, that I didn't have to be jealous because you weren't hanging around any men alone?"
Blake's mouth dropped open. "What—what was I supposed to do, Adam? Never talk to anybody without you there?!"
"If you'd told me from the start," he snarled, "then maybe I'd be able to trust you! But you lied to me for a fucking year. You set up this overnight mission with Ilia, and your reaction to me saying I was worried she might want to fuck you was to say it's fine, because you might want to fuck her too!"
"I don't like Ilia like that!" Blake shouted back. "I don't like every girl any more than you do! And maybe if you didn't act like I was cheating on you every time I breathed in a man's general direction, I wouldn't have to go behind your back just to handle basic logistics for the cause you'd supposedly give anything for!"
"What?"
"Yeah!" She laughed again—cruel, derisive. "Yeah, you know what? I've been sneaking around the camp to answer questions your men are too scared to ask you. I've been having hot, nasty talks with them about where they can put their stuff without you yelling at them! Sometimes, when I'm feeling really naughty? I even comment on the weather."
His hand spasmed. It was only then that he realized it had fallen to Wilt's hilt, clenching around the grip as if itching to draw. Blake saw it, too. Her eyes got very wide, and when he took a step toward her, she shied away until her back hit the wall.
"You think this is funny?"
Trembling, her eyes not quite meeting his, she said, "I think you're being ridiculous. Come on, Adam. You keep saying we're at war. We're fighting for our lives out here, we need to trust each other. All of us. If you can't trust me or your men to even talk to each other, then how can we possibly work together to protect other faunus?"
"How could I not get jealous when it doesn't seem like you even love me anymore? You used to care how I feel. Now I'm always being ridiculous, and I need to just get over it."
"That's not—!" She let out a long breath through her nose, her eyes squeezing shut. "Of course I care how you feel. But that doesn't mean you get to dictate my entire life around your feelings."
He scoffed. "Fine. If you want to play it like that, I'm the leader of this cell. And it's up to me to decide who to send on Sienna's mission. So, Ilia is going with Maize."
"Mai—you can't be serious. Adam, he is not ready for something like this!"
"I care how you feel," Adam said, shrugging. "But I'm not going to do anything about it. That's how it works now, right?"
"Adam! You're going to get him killed!"
"He'll have to shape up eventually. Sink or swim, right?"
"And when he sinks?" Blake demanded. "When you have to explain to Sienna why you sent a rookie to break into a police station, and now we don't have any of that bodycam footage? We only get one shot at this. The moment they realize what we're doing, they'll delete it and blame the missing files on the break-in."
"He's our only other infiltration specialist," Adam pointed out. "Maybe you should've thought about all this before you gloated about going behind my back." He didn't see the point of this mission, anyway. It was obvious the cops had killed the guy. What was a video going to do, except shake up a bit of pity from shitty humans who wouldn't do anything about it? Nobody would actually care.
Blake stormed off in a huff. She wouldn't talk to him for days, and the numb hollow feeling grew and grew until he was nearly screaming with it. Until he did scream with it. Until Ilia and Maize came back, footage secured, and Adam found out the little shit had just stood around playing lookout instead of actually going in with her.
"The fuck did you want us to do?" Ilia asked, baffled. "I told him to wait outside so he wouldn't get us both caught. Blake was sick, so we worked with what we had. Shit happens. Besides, he helped scout our exit route, it's not like he just sat on his ass the whole time."
(He gritted his teeth and ignored her. He'd already talked to Sienna about sending her to Mistral—saying she was good at what she did, but a bit redundant when they already had Blake, and she'd been having personal issues with some of the others.)
The next morning they moved camp into the woods, and he caught Maize sniffing around Blake where she was reading with her back to a tree. He gave him a black eye. She got between them, steering Adam away into their tent.
She asked him what was wrong. She listened while he told her about the cut-off ribbons, the cold, empty place he fell into when she wasn't there. She told him she was sorry. She put her hand on his forehead, and soothed the pain away.
She told him she loved him. And then, when he asked her to show him, she did.