A/N: Hey! This is Fiercesomest with the next story in our saga of adventure and disaster with Team RWBY. This is a DIRECT sequel to our earlier fic, Grimm Rats- it's possible to read this one without that one, but really you might want to start there.

If you're unfamiliar with how we work, this story was written by TWO PEOPLE: Defenestrator and myself. She writes for Yang, Blake, Pyrrha, Lie Ren, among others, while I'm in charge of Ruby, Weiss, Jaune, and Nora. We've pieced together our correspondence for you to enjoy, and should have a new chapter up every Saturday for the foreseeable future.

We've been writing this as Volume II comes out, so it's more than likely a bunch of the stuff we've made up is wrong. Just so you know.

In any case, enjoy the ride,

- Fiercesomest

Steady beeps and blips from countless monitors filled the air of the unusually crowded infirmary of Beacon. A stately physician dressed in blue scrubs and a white lab coat eyed the chart in her hand before addressing the four girls in front of her. She first turned to face Ruby, who was sitting on one of the infirmary's beds with one leg stretched out in front of her, the ghastly wound in her thigh thoroughly cleaned and bandaged.

"Ruby Rose. Laceration to the leg and prolonged exposure to Grimm rat toxins. You will be taking an especially potent course of antitoxin. You should also stay off of that leg for the time being. You will be issued a pair of crutches."

Glancing back down at the chart, the physician next faced Blake, sitting quietly at the edge of Yang's infirmary bed. She still somehow managed to look demure while sporting an eyepatch over her left eye and an enormous square bandage on her forehead.

"Blake Belladonna. Retinal detachment due to concussive head trauma," she smiled at the eyepatch, "I'm glad to hear your surgery went well. You will be given strong medication to help with controlling any post-surgical pain. Please try to avoid straining your eyes for now."

The physician then turned to Yang, who looked as though she was headed to a Halloween party in a mummy costume.

"Yang Xiao Long," the physician stared blankly at the laundry list of issues. Broken arm, lacerations, slight concussion, toxin exposure, fractured vertebrae - how exactly had this girl survived? "Just... take your medications and try not to move. Anything."

Finally, she turned to Weiss, who was sitting beside Ruby and nursing a lightly bandaged hand.

"Weiss Schnee. As the healthiest member of team RWBY, you will be charged with the care of your teammates following their discharge from the infirmary," she glanced at the chart again, "which is today."

Without another word, the physician nodded and left.

As if to express her excitement, Yang rolled over and vomited over the side of her bed.

"Oh, wonderful," the Schnee heiress pinched the bridge of her nose between the thumb and forefinger of her good hand as the blonde brawler emptied the contents of her stomach onto the checkered floor. The nurses moved to clean up the mess. "This is precisely how I've always wanted to spend my time at Beacon."

"Hey, I'm sure it won't be so bad," Ruby fiddled with the child-proof cap on the container of pills she'd been provided with. Apparently the anti-toxin course came with some pretty heavy pain medication. "We've got, what? A couple of weeks of recovery time? We're even excused from classes!"

The young team leader rubbed the back of her neck as Weiss took the container. She opened it with one deft motion and handed it back, rolling her blue eyes.

Ruby went on matter-of-factly, "We did kind of defeat an ancient evil that no one's even seen in hundreds of years. If that's not worth a couple days off from Professor Port's class, I don't know what is."

Someone brought in a wheelchair to get Yang back to the dorms.

Weiss observed the preparations with a scathing gaze, "How is she even getting discharged? Did no one see the projectile vomit a second ago?"

Despite the sarcasm, Weiss listened dutifully as the nurses went over who needed which pills when and how the anti-toxin shots were to be administered. Everything came with labels just in case, and of course the infirmary staff would be available if she ran into trouble. Otherwise, everyone was stable and on the road to recovery- they just needed time.

Weiss tossed her white hair back over the shoulder of her black school jacket, crossing her arms as she inspected the new, temporary sleeping arrangements. Yang's mattress was situated in the middle of the floor- inconvenient, but necessary considering there was no way she'd be able to manage the top bunk.

Blake had her own bunk, and the heiress had allotted Ruby her own bunk, as it was lower to the ground. This meant that Weiss was going to have to deal with sleeping in the hanging death-trap above her invalid partner, but sacrifices had to be made.

Gray light filtered in through the curtains from the overcast sky outside. When the nurses had left after getting folks settled, Weiss straightened her collar, "So here we are. Does... anyone need anything? Because if you don't, I'm going to the library to pick up some books."

Blake's ears pricked. Books. She leaned forward from her spot on the edge of her bed, gripping the loose fabric of her sleep pants in silent frustration. The infirmary had been bereft of literature outside of magazines and Blake wanted to read something so badly, but in a cruel twist of fate, reading had been surprisingly high on the list of things that caused the very eye strain she had been instructed to avoid.

Yang's muffled voice drifted up from her position face-down on her mattress on the floor. "I need… a hug~" One strong arm reached up for whatever was closest by. As the unfortunate bearer of that distinction, Blake suddenly found herself pulled to the floor in a surprisingly tight embrace.

The Faunus struggled for only a moment before she resigned herself to her fate. Even if her partner wasn't exactly the picture of health at the moment, the brawler's grip was still ironclad. Blake's thoughts halted at the idea of pictures. She lifted her head to look directly at Weiss from her position pinned to the floor, expression passive but eyes shining. "Bring me some picture books, please."

"And Popular Weapons issues!" Ruby bounced upright on Weiss's bed covers. She was dressed in her sleeveless pajama undershirt and a pair of shorts. The bandage on her leg showed prominently. "Or Projectile Explosives Weekly. Either is fine."

"... right. I'll see what I can find," Weiss raised an eyebrow at the tangled mess that was Yang and Blake. It seemed that Yang's pain medication was rather potent. "If anyone needs to throw up," she plunked the small dorm-room trash can within easy reach in the middle of the floor between Ruby and Yang, "this is where you aim. Ruby, take your pain medication. Yang, stop moving. Blake, you're fine. I'll be back in a minute."

Weiss shut the door behind her and breathed a small sigh of relief. So far so good. Maybe these two weeks wouldn't be as big a disaster as she was expecting.

Then she thought about her three teammates.

Ha. Right. This was going to be a complete nightmare.

At the sound of the door shutting, Yang shifted and muttered something incoherent, making Blake squirm - her partner's breath was tickling her neck. Blake eyed the drugged up blonde below her. The brawler hadn't really had a lucid moment since first waking in a panic and trying to storm through the medevac ship to find her sister.

Blake quietly wondered if the nurses had mixed some kind of tranquilizer into Yang's pain killers. Oh right - pain killers. She needed to take her own soon. The pinned faunus tried to sit up once, twice, three times, only to be dragged back down with each attempt. Blake eyed Ruby imploringly. "A little help?"

"Sure thing," Ruby scooted to the edge of the bed to snag her bottle of pain meds, and yowch her leg hurt. Definitely past time for the painkillers. Blake's she had to lean across the bookcase under the window to get.

Then came the hard part. Ruby wrestled with the plastic containers, grumbling, "Why do they always make these lids so hard to get off?"

Blake stared at her team leader clearly having difficulties with child-proof caps. She tried to sit up again. "Actually, I meant he-hhhGHHhh," Blake's sentence was cut short as the bandaged arm around her tightened suddenly, squeezing the air from her lungs. "help... getting... up..."

"Oh, right, gotcha," Ruby gave up on the pills and turned to address her heavily bandaged sister, "Hey sis, you're strangling Blake so you should probably stop." She eased off the bed to balance on one leg and reach across the small distance between Weiss's bed and Yang's mattress, holding out the pill bottle, "Also, can you open this?"

Blake got a face full of wild blonde hair as Yang slowly turned her head towards Ruby. One bleary amethyst eye dropped open, focusing on the bottle of pills before travelling up to Ruby's face. After a moment of what seemed like intense concentration, Yang reached out, right past the pills, and gently took hold of Ruby's arm.

"Yang- no. Yang!"

With a languid smile, she yanked her little sister down to join her impromptu cuddle pile, pulling her close. "Warm~"

A teammate secured in each arm, the brawler promptly returned to dreamland.

Trying and failing to keep Yang's hair at bay, Blake gingerly removed the pill bottle from the hand that had suddenly appeared in front of her face. One quick twist, and she returned the capless bottle back to Ruby's hand. "Well, it was a valiant effort."

Ruby lay in a mess of books and papers she had inadvertently swept from the top of the bookcase in her effort to not be pulled in. She shoved at her sister, momentarily forgetting the bandages. Then, realizing that adding more physical trauma to Yang's already precarious state was probably not the way to go, she tried to get ahold of something else to pull herself free.

"Let. Go." Ruby strained up off the mattress with one arm, bearing most of Yang's weight, and tried to grab the top of the bookshelf, or the window sill, or something. She got the curtain instead.

RIIIIIIIIIIP.

The red fabric drifted down over them like a sheet. Pills went everywhere. Ruby maneuvered around in Yang's grip and looked at the empty bottle in her hand. "Uh, thanks Blake, by the way."

Weiss's footsteps echoed in the stone hall as she trekked back to the dorms, arms laden with books, magazines, and packages of powdered sports drink and tea. She'd run into Jaune, who had provided the former (and she would have thrown them away except he rambled for an eternity of seconds about how they helped keep him hydrated when he had some sort of stomach bug, and well, hydration was an acceptable cause) and Professor Ooblek, who had equipped her with the latter.

There were no markings on the handsome green tin concerning how much caffeine was in this particular brand of tea, but Weiss couldn't bring herself to pitch a gift from a professor. At least not till she was back in the room, where no one would see.

When she reached the door, she shifted the load of reading material so she could swipe her key and work the door handle.

The scene that greeted her made her stop short. The curtain was ripped down, there were papers and books everywhere, and all three of her teammates were down on the mattress on the floor. Weiss glanced at the clock. She'd been gone for fifteen minutes.

"... all three of you are a hazard to my health. I hope you realize that."

It took a combined effort and a decent bit of gentle prying, but with Weiss's help Yang's captives were eventually released. They decided to leave the brawler under the downed curtain, hoping it would keep her warm enough to deter future hug attacks. Blake tucked the surprisingly soft red fabric tightly around her partner, pinning those dangerous arms to her sides.

"There," she sat back and inspected her handiwork with a firm tug - good, tight as a straightjacket. "That should do it." Carefully backing away from Yang's sleeping figure, she turned to Ruby and Weiss, who were still scouring the floor for the scattered pills. "Are you having any luck?"

On the other side of the room, Weiss smacked her head on the underside of a desk.

"Luck?" She seethed, rubbing her head and straightening more slowly this time, "Tons of it. Ruby, did you take any of these while I was gone?"

"Uh... I kind of got interrupted," the normally energetic team leader sat on the circular rug in the middle of the floor, listless, with her bad leg stretched out in front of her. She looked a little pale.

Great. Weiss crossed her arms. Ruby's aura had held out against the poison and the leg-wound for a long time, but the kick she'd gotten from whatever the medical staff had given her was starting to give out. "Well then sit down and take one."

Ruby leaned back on her hands, quirking an eyebrow, "... I am sitting."

"I mean on the bed," Weiss snapped, "These aren't cheap off-the-shelf painkillers. If they knock you out I am not going to pick you up off the floor," she strode to the bathroom to rinse Ruby's coffee mug and fill it with water.

When she returned, the younger girl was situated on her bed, propped up against the headboard with pillows. She had a kind of chastised puppy look that Weiss pointedly ignored as she thrust out the mug to her, "Here."

"You know, I really don't feel that bad," Ruby took the mug, but hesitated with the pills. She hated swallowing pills.

With a quick eye roll, Blake moved over to the pile of books left by the door. Weiss honestly had the bedside manner of a cactus. Blake picked up the top book, then nearly dropped it in surprise when someone knocked on the door. She glanced at Weiss and waved a hand. "I've got it."

While reaching for the door handle, Blake spared a quick glance at the book's title - The Very Hungry Beowulf... was this a children's book? That wasn't quite what she'd meant by picture book... A slight scowl on her face, Blake opened the door.

"Pyrrha?"

"Blake! Glad to see you well. I can't stay long, but Nora and I baked these for you." Pyrrha, dressed in her school uniform, her crimson hair up in its signature tail, thrust a plate of cookies into Blake's unoccupied hand. Some of them appeared slightly mangled, but many of them actually looked bakery-worthy.

Pyrrha peered inside team RWBY's room, eyes roaming from Weiss fussing over Ruby, down to Yang on the floor. She leaned closer to Blake to whisper conspiratorially, "How is Yang taking the news?"

Blake blanched. "What news?"

Green eyes stealthily darted between Weiss and Ruby. "You know - those two." Met with nothing but a blank stare, Pyrrha continued slowly, looking increasingly nervous with each word. "Nora told us all about what Ren saw down in the tunnels. You were there, right?"

Blake scoured her memory for anything relevant. Ren had showed up right as Ruby lost consciousness. She hadn't been doing much, Ruby was just lying there, and Weiss was giving her... CPR... oh. Oh. Blake's lips twitched as she fought to keep a devious smile from spreading across her face. "Yang... has been asleep since the tunnels."

Pyrrha nodded solemnly. She then smiled, "If either of them needs someone to talk to, let them know we support them."

Blake smiled back, "I can do that." She waved as the redheaded huntress headed down the hall.

Meanwhile, Weiss was about ready to shove the medicine down Ruby's throat. She set the case of antitoxin on the bookcase by the window sill harder than was necessary. "Just swallow like there's nothing there."

"I'm trying, but it's huge. It's like a pill for horses, or something," Ruby whined, holding the pill in her front teeth. She turned the mug in her hands, "and it tastes bad."

"You're not supposed to taste it, you're supposed to swallow it," the heiress informed her, "Have you seriously never taken pain medication before?"

"Um... does cough syrup count?" Ruby tried to grin around the pill to defuse the heiress's darkening look, but to no avail, "Uh, I mean, there's not a chewable version is there? In a flavor that's not... this...?"

Weiss glanced at her charge, busy readying a syringe with the pale yellow liquid from one of the vials from the case, "No. Now swallow it so I can give you this antitoxin sometime before you pass out from Grimm rat poisoning."

"Great, yeah, because getting a shot is really something to look forward to."

"It's an injection to keep you from dying," Weiss whirled on her partner, "and you're getting it either way. The side effects happen to include a lot of muscle pain, though, hence the pain medication. But by all means go ahead and refuse to take it. Just don't wake me up in the middle of the night crying about how terrible you feel because I will have zero sympathy for you!"

"Okay, Weiss, chill out, I'll take it," Ruby spat the pill into her hand and held her mug up a little sheepishly, "Um, but first... I'm kind of out of water."

For a second, it looked like Weiss was going to blow up again, but she didn't. She set her jaw. Glared at Ruby. Then snatched the cup from the dark-haired girl and marched to the bathroom to refill it.

Blake managed to catch the last half of Ruby and Weiss's bickering as she shut the door. She grinned to herself. Those two really did fight like an old married couple. Cookies in hand, she strode over to Ruby as Weiss left.

"Here," she handed the plate, still warm, to her team leader, "a gift from Pyrrha and Nora. Sometimes it's easier to take pills with food than with water."

She glanced at the bathroom door, then back to Ruby, who still looked a bit sheepish. "You know, Weiss is only short with you because she cares." Blake winked - or possibly blinked, it was hard to tell with only one eye visible. "She was seriously worried about you down in the tunnels."

"She was?" Ruby said around a mouthful of cookie. The pill had vanished with the first bite. "I guess. I mean, I was worried about you guys too. That was not one of our best class field trips ever."

Blake shook her head in agreement, eye sparkling with mirth as she headed back to the door to search through the rest of the books.

Weiss stormed out from the bathroom with the mug of water in one hand. "Blake, did you just call me short?" she felt the flush creeping into her face. Her height was a somewhat touchy subject. She took in Ruby's situation at a glance and faced the injured Faunus, lifting her chin, "Why would you say something like that?"

Blake blinked. "What? I didn't... oh," she did her best to conceal a crooked smile, "Not that kind of short, Weiss. I was just -" Blake's explanation was cut short by loudly rustling fabric. Her gaze snapped over to the pile of squirming red fabric and blonde hair that was her partner.

Yang twisted herself around and sat up, clearly struggling to free her arms from the curtain wrapped around her before giving up and sitting still. The brawler's eyes drifted open. Her sleep addled gaze zeroed in on the plate in Ruby's hands. "...cookies..."

Ruby looked from the half-demolished plate of baked goods to her sister. She broke off a piece of cookie and aimed, "Open your mouth, Yang."

Her sister complied.

"Fine, okay, throw food all over the dorm room. I don't care," Weiss abandoned the apparent misunderstanding with Blake and stalked back to the window, trading the mug for the syringe of antitoxin, "Ruby, let me see your arm so I can do this."

"Sure, hang on," Ruby chucked the cookie and did her best to hold still while Weiss administered the shot. She rubbed her arm when she was finished, grinning brightly, "Ouch. Well, less ouch than the whole leg thing, so that's alright. Yikes, that's cold!"

"Oh, grow up," Weiss met her partner's silver eyes for a second, checking to make sure she hadn't really hurt her or anything as she swiped the site of the injection with a rubbing-alcohol-soaked cotton ball.

Ruby just giggled good-naturedly and called out, "Heya Blake, can you bring me some of those magazines?"

"Sure." Blake grabbed the stack of magazines covered in pictures of weapons and ammunition and brought them to Ruby with a smile.

Satisfied, Weiss capped the syringe and set to work filling a new one, "Alright, Yang, it's your turn." She cast the brawler a slantwise glance, a little apprehensive about being anywhere near her while she was so out of it.

Blake glanced between Weiss and Yang. Still wrapped in her curtained prison, the blonde brawler was eyeing the syringe in Weiss's hand suspiciously as she chewed on the bit of cookie Ruby had tossed her. The hazy gleam in those amethyst eyes suggested anything but compliance.

"Weiss, let me give you a hand," Blake made her way to Yang's side, noting the way the brawler's eyes shifted away from the syringe to follow her across the room. Good, at least she had her attention.

Kneeling on the mattress, she gently wrapped her arms around her partner, carefully pulling down one side of the red fabric to expose a bare section of Yang's shoulder. Blake smiled as she felt the brawler relax - this girl really liked hugs. She glanced at Weiss. "I'll hold her still. It should be safe... probably."

"... maybe you should give her the shot. She is your partner," Weiss pointed out, edging slightly farther away from the mattress on the floor. She did not like hugs. Or punches to the face. The odds of receiving one or the other seemed about even under the current circumstances.

Blake furrowed her brows at the hesitant heiress. "And you happen to have depth perception right now, unlike some of us," she motioned with a finger to her eye patch.

Weiss's free hand twitched up a fraction of an inch- towards the scar across her left eye- before she stifled the movement. Hm. Eyepatches. Those brought back unpleasant memories. She scowled and dosed a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol, "Fine. Just keep her still."

On the bed, Ruby had a magazine open, but she wasn't reading it. "Good luck guys," she cheered them on with a mild punch to the air.

Weiss knelt gingerly on the edge of the mattress and reached to wipe a spot on Yang's shoulder with the cotton ball. Disinfect the area, administer the shot, and get out. Nothing she couldn't handle so long as Blake had a good hold on the brawler.

Yang flinched at the cold from the alcohol. Her eyes snapped back to the syringe nearing her arm, flashing dangerously. Blake held fast as the brawler started to squirm. She pleaded with her partner. "Yang, just one shot, and then I'll keep you company for a while, ok? How does that sound?"

Yang's sleepy amethyst eyes shifted to meet amber. She grinned. "...'kay."

Without warning Yang pulled her arm free and flopped back down onto her side, dragging her surprised partner down with her. She curled right up to Blake, easy smile on her face as she drifted back to sleep. Blake sighed from her new position on the floor - her right arm was pinned beneath the brawler's side, and the heavily bandaged arm around her waist wasn't going to let her up any time soon. She motioned to Yang's exposed shoulder with her free arm. "She's all yours, Weiss."

It looked like the blonde girl was going to comply. Or... at least she was unconscious. Close enough. Weiss breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thanks," she shifted a little closer to Yang and gave her the shot.

Ruby, still on top of the bed covers, turned back to her magazine. She was starting to feel a little bit... weird. But not bad. Except she couldn't read the paragraph accompanying the picture of a new brand of high-impact Dust rounds, "Hey, Weiss, are these magazines in English?"

"Yyyyyyes?" The heiress leaned back, feeling across the top of the wooden bookcase for the cap for the syringe. She tore her blue eyes away from the needle for a second and spotted the problem, "You're holding it upside down, you dunce."

"Ohhh," Ruby squinted down at the page, contemplating this revelation.

Weiss turned to Blake, who was still trapped in Yang's embrace on the mattress, "Please tell me you're not taking the same pain medication as these two."

Blake raised an eyebrow at Ruby, then shrugged. "I didn't compare labels." She put her unpinned hand to her head, "I probably should take mine soon though. I can feel the headache coming back."

Weiss jumped up and snatched the pill bottles to take a look. The capsules showed white through the orange plastic. The labels were the same. Exactly the same, in fact, barring a small dosage adjustment. She pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. "Are you sure you couldn't get by with aspirin or something? I keep a supply on hand for occasions exactly like these."

"Guys, I think I want to be Crescent Rose when I grow up," Ruby announced. She was on her stomach, propping her head up with one hand while she 'read'.

"... just here," Weiss handed Blake the pills she needed. She set her fingertips on the coffee mug from earlier, "Do you need water?" If she did, Weiss had no idea how she would actually drink it, pinned as she was.

"No, I should be all right..." Blake glanced from Ruby, giggling to herself while reading a magazine upside down, to Yang, whose face was pressed into her neck and - was that drool? - to the pills Weiss had just handed her. She narrowed her eyes at the two tiny capsules.

What exactly was in these things? For all intents and purposes it seemed to act like morphine, and Blake wasn't keen on the idea of leaving Weiss as the sole sane person in their dorm room. Her head twinged mercilessly, pressure building right behind her eyes signaling the onset of a migraine.

Then again, Weiss was perfectly competent. They would probably be fine. Maybe just half wouldn't affect her so badly… Blake popped one of the two pills into her mouth, grateful that it was much smaller than Ruby's, and swallowed. Coughing slightly - those pills really did taste awful - she looked back at Weiss. "I guess I'll take one of those picture books though..."

Beacon's library didn't have a large children's section, so Weiss had gone ahead and checked out most of it. She crossed the room and collected the stack.

"Does it matter which one? There's Goodnight Shattered Moon, or The little Dust-propulsion Engine that Could..." That could what? Weiss frowned at the simple drawing on the cover and flipped through it. Inanimate objects didn't 'think they could'. Children's books were stupid.

Meanwhile, Ruby was completely and totally out of it.

"Are you gonna read us a story?" She asked, moving to sit up on the edge of the bed. The heiress pushed her back down.

"No. Look at the pictures in your magazine. And don't mess them up- these are checked out on my account," Weiss had a feeling she was definitely going to regret that, but for now there wasn't much she could do about it. She flicked her white ponytail back out of the way over her shoulder and flipped through a few more of the picture books.

"How about this one," she passed Blake a board book about a dog with pointed ears and a disproportionately large head. Or was it supposed to be a cat? She couldn't tell, but it seemed like the one most likely to survive Yang's drool.

"...Sure," Blake stared at the book's monochromatic cover, looking slightly put out. See Ursa Run. She squinted her eye at the... thing, running happily across a stark white background. Had the illustrator for this book ever actually seen a Grimm in person?

Weiss deposited the rest of her armload of children's books on one of the desks against the side wall, oblivious to Blake's disappointment. She still thought that it was an odd choice of reading material. Not everyone had the same tastes, however, and her teammate was going to be loopy on pain meds pretty much for the duration of her waking hours so Weiss didn't question it.

Blake sighed and was about to thank Weiss for the fine piece of literature when an ear-splitting growl suddenly emanated from her stomach. Blake turned several shades of scarlet. "So... what are we doing about lunch?"

The heiress turned, pausing, "I suppose... I could go get some toast or something from the cafeteria." And leave them unsupervised for who-knew-how-long. She narrowed her eyes. Ruby had her face down on the blanket, mumbling, possibly asleep, her arms splayed on top of the magazine she'd been reading. Yang seemed content to cling to Blake like some kind of over-sized, horizontal koala.

Well, things seemed fairly quiet, and she was hungry, now that Blake mentioned it. Maybe leaving for a few minutes would be fine. She raised her brow at the dark-haired Faunus and crossed her arms, "You aren't going to do anything stupid, are you? When the pills take effect, I mean."

Blake glowered up at the heiress. Forget a cactus, Weiss officially had the bedside manner of a Grimm. She rolled her eyes, wincing internally at how the action unexpectedly made the room spin. "I'll be fine, thanks."

The icy heiress snapped shut the case of antitoxin, sealed the used syringes in a puncture-proof bag that had been included with the kit, and checked to make sure the caps on the pills were screwed on tight. Next on the list was a convenient way to transport food from the cafeteria.

She took Ruby's black and red book bag from the bedpost of her precariously strung bunk and dumped the contents on the floor by the baseboard. Emptying her own book bag would have taken a lot of time, after all- it was very highly organized- and she wanted be gone and back as quickly as possible before Ruby or Yang woke up. She would just shove her partner's mess of crumpled notebooks, papers, and candy bar wrappers back into the bag when she was finished with it.

Shouldering the now empty bag, Weiss strode to the door, with a last few words to Blake, "If I come back and the room has gotten wrecked or blown up or something, I'm blaming you."

Blake threw one last glower at Weiss's back as she shut the door behind her, letting the cardboard children's book drop gently onto her face with another sigh. It didn't look any more appealing up close. She closed her eyes, brows twitching. How on earth had Weiss understood "picture book" to mean books fit for a two year old?

The cutesy Ursa illustration slinked away into hiding as the book slowly slid off of Blake's face and onto the bit of mattress behind her. She should have been more specific. Art book - that would've been tough to misinterpret…

Amber eyes drifted over to Ruby, sprawled out and unmoving on Weiss's bed, then down to the sleeping face of the brawler pressed against her. She couldn't help the small smile that pulled at her lips. Maybe the sisters had the right idea. Blake shut her eyes and took the chance to relax, allowing herself to doze for a bit.

Dozing led to outright sleeping, and for a good while the room fell into a peaceful silence.

Something tickled Blake's nose, dragging her from her dreamless sleep. Fighting the urge to growl, she opened her eyes to glance at the time… only to find amethyst staring right back at her. She started and froze. How long had Yang been awake?

"This blanket is really tight..."

The brawler's eyes seemed distinctly clearer than they had in days. Blake wondered if Yang's pain medication was finally wearing off. Maybe it would be safe...

"Hang on." Blake helped her partner sit up before loosening the curtains around the blonde. Finally freed from her fabric prison, Yang stretched her arms out and bared her teeth in an enormous yawn before turning to gaze at Ruby, passed out on Weiss's bed.

She stared for what felt like a very long time before finally turning away, seemingly satisfied that her little sister was alive and breathing. Without so much as a word, Yang flopped back down on her side and stared into space.

Blake blinked in surprise - she fully expected to get dragged back down as well, but as she examined her partner more closely, she noticed a distant look in those amethyst eyes. In fact, the brawler looked downright... sad.

Blake stared down at her sulking partner, unsure how to proceed. She wasn't terribly experienced in trying to offer comfort. What would Ruby do? What would Yang herself do? A terrible idea struck her then, probably spurred by the pain medication slowly taking effect. Resolved to at least try, Blake stretched out on the mattress on her side, propping her head up on one hand to better face her partner.

"Hey." Her lips quirked as Yang glanced up in her direction. "Why the... Long face?"

Amethyst eyes widened in shock, paired with a half-smile. Yang's secret weakness - puns. "You did not just-"

"I did." Blake's smile softened. "Now tell me what's bothering you."

Yang stared up at her partner as if seeing her in a new light. With a muffled groan, she covered her face with her hands and went silent. Seconds dragged into minutes, and Blake began to wonder if Yang had fallen asleep again. If she hadn't been so intently focused, she may have missed her partner's whispered words.

"I was the first."

"I'm sorry?" Blake tilted her head.

"The first to get taken down." The blonde continued in hushed tones, clenching her fists and staring down at them as if they had betrayed her. Anger flashed in her eyes. "I wasn't able to help Ruby, I wasn't able to help defeat that giant rat… lord… whatever thing..." She brought her hands to her face, dragging them downwards to stare into space through her bandaged fingers. "I was the weakest link."

Blake clenched her teeth at the heated frustration dripping from Yang's every word. This was not the answer she'd been expecting. She shot a desperate glance at Ruby - still asleep. No help there. She would have to deal with this herself somehow. Blake wrestled her features into a neutral expression, gazing down at her unmoving partner.

Yang wasn't one for blithe reassurances, the brawler valued words as direct as her fists. A straightforward approach would probably work best. Blake placed a gentle hand on her partner's shoulder, taking care to choose her words carefully, tone even and relaxed.

"Unless you've forgotten, you went down taking a blow for me."

Yang's eyes snapped to her partner's, unreadable amethyst searching for something in the cool amber gaze that met her. "Yeah, but-"

"And to be fair," Blake continued matter-of-factly, "you fought an entire horde by yourself for who even knows how long. Probably hours."

A long pause followed as Yang continued to stare, ever searching. Slowly, a hesitant smile began to work its way across the blonde brawler's face. "Yeah - it was pretty tiring."

Blake threw her partner an encouraging grin. "You took enough damage to drop like, five huntresses."

Yang grinned right back. "Yeah, I guess I did!"

"You totally did."

Yang's eyes narrowed playfully. "You know, for a supposed moody loner you're pretty good at this whole cheering-people-up thing."

Blake hid a giggle behind her hand. She wasn't sure if it was Yang's infectious smile or the pain medication finally kicking in, but she could feel her inhibitions slipping.

She found that she didn't care.

"I know something that'll cheer you up even more."

Curiosity sparked in Yang's eyes. "Yeah? Like what?" The brawler's heart nearly stopped when Blake reached past her for something from the bookcase, bringing their faces mere inches apart. She caught her breath only when Blake pulled back again, brandishing a pack of colored markers with a devious smirk.

"Like, doodling on Ruby's face while she's asleep."

Yang's face slowly split into an ear-to-ear grin. "I like the way you think."

Uncapped markers in hand, neither of them spared a single thought about Weiss as they descended upon their team leader. Neither of them kept track of the time, either.

What felt like ages later, Blake and Yang stood back, admiring their joint work of art.

Yang wiped a fake tear from her eye. "It's beautiful."

Blake nodded stoically. "Yes, it is."

A veritable rainbow of shapes and colors covered Ruby's peacefully sleeping face. The younger girl now sported bushy purple eyebrows, a pink handlebar mustache, a green monocle, and more hearts and stars and shapes than should have been humanly possible to fit on one person's face.

To top it all off, the portrait of an angry blue bunny that looked suspiciously like a certain icy heiress hopped across her forehead. That had been Blake's personal masterpiece.

Yang grinned at her partner in crime. "Weiss is going to kill us."

"What if we hide the evidence?" Blake took one of the magazines from the pile, opened it, and placed it gently over Ruby's face.

"I like it. But she's still going to kill us."

"...Not if she has to find us first."

Amethyst eyes sparkled in delight. "I really like the way you think."

A/N: This is only the beginning. :3

Hugs,
Defenestrator