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- RUBY
Despite her best attempts to keep neat, Ruby’s dress has a small punch stain on it. Luckily for her, red does a fine enough job at hiding the pink of the punch, especially from further out. Weiss can tell from the flash of reflection on the matte fabric, the slight dark spot. She’s trained to spot imperfections.
Ruby’s hands are sweaty, yet somehow her fingers are ice cold. She clutches Weiss’s hands like a lifeline, eyes wide and terrified as they sway awkwardly at the side of the gym. Weiss smirks at her.
“Please relax Ruby, no one’s going to grade you on how well you dance.” She says, exasperated and amused. Ruby shakes her head back and forth, looking nauseous.
“No, but if I mess up everyone will see and think I’m super clumsy and I’ll step on your toes and then you’ll yell at me!” Oh, for Gods sake.
Weiss rolls her eyes and purposefully shoves her foot where Ruby’s heel is about to go. Ruby makes a sound like a kicked dog, almost letting go of Weiss’s hands as she jumps back.
“WEISS” She hisses, both alarmed and outraged. Weiss can’t help but laugh.
“Look, your worst fear come true. But I’m fine, and you’re fine, see?”
Ruby blinks, looks down to Weiss’s feet, and looks back up rapidly.
“…huh.” She mumbles, that look on her face that says she’s figured out the newest addition to Crescent Rose. Weiss raises an eyebrow. Ruby smiles at her, grey eyes silver in the light of the dance.
Weiss yelps as Ruby grips her hands harder, swinging them both in a fools approximation of a fast paced waltz.
Ruby can barely walk with her new heels—in motion the two of them are more of a stumbling tumbleweed that other students have to dodge from whenever they get near. Weiss can’t stop smiling, heady with laughter and the smell of stained punch.
Ruby almost knocks into Nora, who has to grab her shoulders to keep her from falling backwards. Ruby’s giggling nonstop, her cheeks red, leaning against Nora’s shoulder for support. Weiss feels like she can’t catch her breath, can’t look away from her partner. For a moment, it almost feels like she’s stolen Ruby’s Joy, her foolish, colt-limbed, happiness. It fills her chest, runs up her neck, twirls through her hair. She wants to live in this world, scrape out a part in it for herself.
Ren’s looking at her.
Weiss’s mouth goes dry, her eyes flicking away from Ruby. She doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t either, just watches quietly as she puts herself back together, shoves the warmth down. His mouth turns, his eyebrows crease. He lifts his shoulders slightly—it’s a pitying expression, half a shrug.
Weiss makes a tactical retreat to find Neptune.
- YANG
First years in Beacon universally hate the Aura Break lesson. It comes midway through the year, headed by no one else but Professor Goodwitch. Learning how to comport oneself without, or how to recover from the shock of losing aura is extremely important, true, but it’s also incredibly unpleasant. A whole week of tense first years, some who have forgotten the annoyance of easy made bruises, all sniping and snapping at each other.
It doesn’t take much for Weiss to keep her aura low. They all have to drink a sort of soft poison to keep their aura from recovering for the week. Weiss has always had a low supply of aura—Winter used to grow frustrated with how quickly they had to stop training. Jaune, on the other hand, regularly has to go to Professor Goodwitch to break his aura, with how quickly it recovers. Team RWBY accompanied their sister team to watch Jaune get his ass kicked, but Weiss is in no mood to spectate for as long as it takes Jaune’s aura to break. It’s like watching a dog chew a bone.
She doesn’t wait up for team JNPR. Ruby and Blake stay, maybe out of a sense of comradery and schadenfreude respectively. Yang follows her, yawning so wide Weiss can hear the crack of her jaw.
In their dorm, Weiss sits slowly on her bed, rubbing at her knee absently.
“Did you bump your knee already?” Yang asks, a little quirk to her lips. Weiss rolls her eyes.
“No. I fell earlier this morning.” Fell is an interesting way of putting it—she certainly fell, after Ruby knocked her to the ground. The dangers of having a fourteen-year-old partner with a speed semblance cannot be overstated. Weiss had no idea how many bruises she was avoiding daily.
Weiss sighs and pulls down her knee-high socks, tossing the bloodied one towards the laundry basket. From somewhere behind her, Yang swears.
“Jesus Weiss were you just walking around on that?” Yang is crowding into her space, kneeling beside her legs. Dried blood clings to her skin in brown patches, the pink of her scrapes turning dark with the fuzz that came off her socks. It looks…gross. Ugly, but not the type of wound she thinks Yang needs to worry about. She’s heard Yang’s childhood stories, breaking an arm falling off her roof when she was trying to retile it, Ruby losing a tooth playing soccer, Yang falling off her bike and bruising her entire left side so badly she couldn’t walk for a week. This seems comparatively minor.
“Yes, and somehow I made it back to the dorm.” She rolls her eyes as she speaks, ignoring Yang’s unamused look.
“Yeah, I know, you’re tough as nails Weiss Schnee, you don’t bleed like us mortals.” Weiss is tempted to tug on the nearest tangle of Yang’s hair in retaliation, but decides against it. She’s mature.
Yang rises abruptly, going into the bathroom to gather an armful of supplies. A washcloth, bandaids, soap, a bottle of water.
“This seems like a lot.” Weiss says, eyeing the items warily as yang sets them down on the carpet. Yang just snorts, wets the washcloth.
“This might sting.” She warns, apologetic, and brings a hand up to hold Weiss’s calf still. Her skin is warm, and her palm is calloused. Weiss swallows.
The washcloth is rough, but Yang is gentle with it, teasing the dirt and dried blood off her leg with intense concentration. Weiss holds as still as she can, heart beating fast as she looks at Yang’s bent head.
Is this what you’re supposed to do when someone has a minor injury? Weiss has always preferred to be left alone to lick her wounds. She’s always extended that minor kindness to Whitley and Winter whenever…whenever they needed it.
“You’re good at this.” She murmurs, barely audible. She means: You’re good at taking care of people. You’re good at kindness. Yang laughs, looks up from her efforts to smile at Weiss.
“Do you know how many scraped knees I’ve cleaned up in my time?” Which. Aforementioned speed-semblance striking again.
Weiss smiles back, awkward and fond. She wants to say:
Yang, do you know I love you? Do you know what that means?
I’d do anything for you. I’d die for you. If I could, I’d learn to be gentle and kind for you.
She digs her fingers into the blankets, keeps her mouth shut. Is this a crush? If so, it’s the right word for it. She feels crushed, crumbling and squashed under some force bigger than her. Something impossible, curving beyond the horizon. Her heart feels more like it’s breaking than growing bigger.
Fuck she thinks.
- BLAKE
The blackboard behind the barista is full of cursive white writing, with artful depictions of different flowers on the side. Weiss squints at them in panic.
Holly-Ho-made cookies? Nightberry expresso? Sweet Vacuo Fog? Was that last one even consumable?
“What the hell do we order?” Weiss whispers to Blake, trying in vain not to seem overwhelmed. Blake glanced up at the board and cocked her head.
“Hmmm…nothing from that. Every caffe has teas-I just get apple-cinnamon, or earl-grey or whatever.” At Weiss’s incredulous expression, Blake huffs “What, you think I know what any of that is? I don’t want to accidentally order one of those abominations Ruby drinks.”
Weiss shudders. She knows the ones: horrifying desert-drinks full of whipped cream and sprinkles, with overpoweringly sweet flavours. She almost keeled over after mistakenly taking a sip from the wrong cup.
“Well I don’t know what to get, Yang usually orders for me!”
Blake has the gall not to look to concerned about this, shrugging even as they’re next in line, moving up to the till.
Weiss feels herself freeze as the cashier looks expectantly at them. Blake orders immediately, two teas for both of them. Weiss thinks maybe she should be angry at the assumption, but she can’t muster the will to feel anything other than relief.
It doesn’t take too long to put teabags in hot water, and quick enough they bundle themselves into the corner table.
“Are there no caffe’s in Atlas?” Blake asks as soon as they sit, which is unfair since Weiss can’t exactly snap back Are there no caffe’s outside the kingdoms?
“Coffee’s bad for vocal cords.” Weiss explains half-heartedly “It dehydrates you.” Plus, she wasn’t allowed outside of her home unless she had a ‘productive’ reason to do so.
Blake just nods. “Right, opera singer. Forgot about that.” She looks a little amused, like maybe the mental image of her friend on stage is a bit silly. Which is fair enough, considering she’s only ever known her in the context of a Hunter academy.
Weiss just flaps one hand, lazily swatting the matter aside. Her singing career is a hotbed of fucked up events that she’s only now beginning to realize the severity of. The last thing she wants to do is get into it.
“What do you think Yang and Ruby are doing right now?” She asks, looking out the window. It’s still snowing, big flakes that seem almost slow in the air.
“They’ve probably still skating.” Blake’s voice is soft, a laugh flickering through her words like a fish. Yang and Ruby have a marathon of Christmas activities that are so vigorous and intense as to leave Nora exhausted. They sled, ski, skate, shop, decorate, make snowmen, make cookies, go on sleigh tours in the countryside. Blake and Weiss pick and choose which activities to join, wisely abstaining from doing all of them.
Weiss sips her tea. It’s pleasantly warm, only a little bit sweet and with a slight spice to it. She immediately enjoys it.
“By the time we get back we’ll have more baked goods than even Nora can eat.” Weiss says, grimacing playfully. Blake laughs but holds her center like she’s already anticipating the stomach ache.
Both of them sit in a comfortable silence for a minute, sipping their teas and watching the snow fall.
“…I love them, though.” Blake says, holds her words like they’re fragile, liable to splinter and break in the air. Weiss watches her wide eyed, a subtle tremor going through her at the way those words sound out loud. They sound like a secret. She looks at Blake, the way her shoulders hunch and her lips press together, her arm clenched on her lap.
“They’re hard not to” Weiss whispers, because she’s a coward and she can’t say it directly. Blake laughs, and there’s so much knowing in that laugh that Weiss can’t tell which one of them has been stripped more bare.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Blake smiles, sweet with a hint of spice “I feel the same way about you, in case you can’t read between the lines.”
Weiss coughs and wipes her mouth with a napkin. All she’s ever done is read between lines. Being told feels like being shot.
“Jesus, Blake.” She grumbles, clutching the edges of her purse with white knuckles.
Fuck you she thinks what do you want me to say back? That I love you too? She doesn’t think her mouth can make those shapes.
“We should get back.” She says instead, rising from her seat. Blake leaves a tip and follows behind her, gold eyes tracking her movements calmly. Weiss opens the door for her, catches her hand as she passes. With the door open the wind blows through, snowflakes catching themselves in Blake’s hair like sailboats in a dark ocean.
She squeezes their palms together and tries to communicate everything she’s feeling through her eyes. Blake’s lips are chapped, her hat pulled too far over her head. Weiss loves her painfully.
Blake’s cheeks are red with the cold. She looks away.