5Taiyang grimaced as he sat up in bed. His thin, almost weightless blanket slid off his chest like water, falling into a scrunched-up pile around his naked waist. He hated the summer months. Vale never had and never would reach the scorching highs of Vacuo, but the humidity was enough to make him wish for Atlas snow. In his closet, there were three heavy, weighted blankets that he still wasn't sure why he kept. Patch's winter seemed to last little more than a few weeks. Those blankets almost never saw the light of day.
Taiyang rubbed his right eye with the palm of his hand as he stifled a yawn with the other. It was still dark out, the stars obscured by heavy clouds, invisible in the darkness. They were due for rain tomorrow, a long, heavy downpour. He grimaced again. That would help the humidity. His scroll lit up dimly to tell him the time – just after two in the morning – but he still winced against the light. However many times he did this – and the numbers really were getting ridiculous at this point – his eyes never got used to the midnight schedule. Taiyang yawned again, not bothering to hold this one in, and stood up.
Yesterday's boxers were where he had left them, discarded on the ground just beside his bed. Taiyang himself didn't much care if an intruder found him wandering his home in the buff at night, but one never knew when one might get a visitor. Taiyang's hands ran over the plaid pattern of his underwear, blinking unstaring eyes as he did. Lit only by the dim light of his scroll's screen, Taiyang was seeing the pattern in the clothing more out of memory than vision. He shook himself from his stupid, reaching down to slide the garment back up his legs.
Another yawn escaped his lips as he sleepily stumbled down the steps. It wouldn't be the last one. Taiyang's sleep schedule had been…erratic lately, to say the least. Rare were the nights he didn't wake up at least once between the hours of twelve and three. Sometimes, he woke up more than once. Of course, it wasn't always that he got up out of bed when he woke. Often, he'd just lay there, staring through the darkness at a ceiling he couldn't see. Tonight though, he had been unable to fall back asleep. It had been too distinctive tonight. Too difficult to ignore.
Taiyang groped his way through the dark living room and tripped twice over different pieces of furniture. His hand groped along the wall blindly for the light switch, and he accidentally turned on the living room light instead of the kitchen before he found the right one. Taiyang paused in front of the refrigerator, catching his own eye in the dark reflection of the kitchen window. Here in the sallow light of early morning, Taiyang looked drawn, haggard and tired – a far cry from the vibrant humorist the world knew him as in the waking hours of the day.
Enraptured by his own reflection, Taiyang didn't break eye contact with himself as he opened the refrigerator and leaned down, reaching blindly for one of the many soda cans he knew were waiting within. Summer would berate him if she knew how often he got up to guzzle down liquid sugar in the middle of the night, but early morning depression only had one cure, and it certainly wasn't water. He finished the soft drink in five deep gulps, gasping for air when he finished it. Taiyang turned away from his reflection to stare at the brightly colored aluminum can as it crumpled in his hand and fell into the trash can.
Beside the back door, Taiyang flipped one more switch, casting the backyard in the same empty, dim light that the rest of his life was illuminated by at this hour. He leaned against the counter, then, staring blankly out into the night, unmoving. He listened, straining his ears to point of pain for any hint of noise. The creak of a floorboard, the snap of a branch, the brush of a curtain, the weight of a foot. Anything – anything – that would tell him he was not alone. Taiyang had passed hours in front of this window doing just this. Sometimes, he would wait in short bursts of a few minutes and other times he would pass hours by. More than once, he'd climbed up the stairs only to stumble back down not an hour later to repeat the process over again. He'd lost track of how many times his dreams had brought him down here.
His dreams of red eyes and black hair and a smile meant only for him.
Taiyang hung his head. There was nothing. No sound. No movement. No dream. He was, as he had been for so long now, alone. Raven wasn't here. Raven wasn't ever here. His fist came down thunderously on the laminate countertop, breaking the silence of the night in an explosion of angry noise. He wanted to cry, but whatever tears he had for himself and for Raven and for what they'd had, had been cried out of him a long time ago. She'd been gone for over a year now. The anniversary had passed him by only a few weeks ago. That had been a very sleepless night.
He had been so sure, this time. Of course, he always was, but he really had thought this was going to be the night. That sound – that distinctive, unique sound – had woken him. He was sure of it! He just couldn't be sure that he had actually heard it. His dreams of Raven had become more vivid of late. It was entirely possible – indeed, entirely probable – that his brain had just made it up. The last time he'd heard that sound, Qrow had been cradling a bleeding summer, his drunken friend bleeding profusely from a deep cut on his shoulder and Taiyang had barely been able to stand. Raven had opened up her portal with that same, distinctive, unmissable sound and walked out of their lives for good. Taiyang had been waiting every day since then to hear that sound again. To watch her walk through one of her portals with that self-important swagger.
A dream. A foolish, childish dream. Raven wasn't here, and she wouldn't ever be again. She had left, and she didn't care that he had been left behind.
Taiyang drew in a shuddering breath, the closest he'd come to tears in some time now and raised his head. Nothing in the backyard had changed. It was as silent and as empty as ever. He flicked the light switch off with the same defeated air that he had flipped it on and turned to begin the long walk back to his bed. Taiyang had long since lost count of how many times he had done this, but he knew that it never made it hurt any less. The walk back up the stairs was always far longer than the walk down them.
He faltered outside his door. His vision had acclimated to the dark as it always did, but he could only see in vague outlines. The sharp edge of his doorframe stood out to him, as did the rounded curve of the brass doorknob. He pressed his hand lightly to the wood of his door, running it over the grain. Another of his nightly rituals. Taiyang had never been one for masochism, but these days he seemed unable to not torture himself. He could still remember with perfect clarity the last time Raven had been in this house. A month before everything had went to shit.
She had smiled, and for the life of him, Taiyang couldn't remember if he'd thought it more strained than usual. She'd laughed, and he was positive it had only been as forced as it always was. They had talked of the future and what they wanted and where they were going, and looking back, Taiyang thought that she had been oddly quiet about it. They had fallen into bed together, a tangle of groping limbs and running hands. It had been tender. Loving. Gentle. One of the best nights of his life. He hadn't known it was the last time.
He pushed the door open with a familiar creak, only just enough for him to slip back into his room. He'd forgotten to turn his scroll off when he'd walked downstairs, and it was still casting the room in its eerie, dim light. He managed three steps towards the bed before he noticed it. There was a shape, a vague outline, in the space beside his bed where there had not been before. Taiyang stilled, his eyes narrowing dangerously. His limbs tensed, old habits readying them for attack. Very few people knew where he lived, but he wasn't entirely sure as to the loyalties of one of them. He didn't think Raven would sell him out like that, but then he hadn't thought she would abandon them all either.
And then he heard it – a gurgle. A tiny, unconscious little groan from a mouth too small to properly make the noise. Taiyang's limbs turned to jelly, releasing their tension in an instant. His breath shuddered. He was quick to pick up his scroll, aiming its screen like a dim flashlight at the vague shape in the corner of the room. It was a crib. A ramshackle, albeit sturdy crib with a series of patchwork blankets padding the bottom and the sides. The ensemble was entirely handmade, he could see – particularly the blankets, the edges of which were frayed and incomplete. Taiyang barely even noticed that. His eyes were locked onto a tiny, perfect little baby with the thickest, yellowest head of hair that he had ever seen.
She was fast asleep, her eyes closed peacefully. No nightmares troubled this little one's sleep. She slept with the peace of mind only a child can, before they realize the whole world is against them. In her meaty little hand, she clasped tightly to a piece of paper and, even in the dim light of his barely lit scroll, Taiyang could recognize the harsh lettering on it.
His mouth suddenly dry, he swallowed thickly. Carefully, so carefully, he reached out for the paper. The last thing he wanted was to wake the baby. He had an inkling – a desperate, wild thought – as to what was happening, but he had to read the paper. He had to know.
Despite her seemingly iron grip on the paper, it slipped from the little baby's hands with surprising ease, and Taiyang leaned quickly away, careful to keep the light off her face. It was a scrap of paper, ripped off a larger piece. It wasn't folded. It hadn't been addressed. But, of course, it could only be for him. Raven had written it to him. Her final message. Four words. The last he would probably ever hear from her.
Her name is Yang.
