A/N: Hey, guys! Here's the first of many L&F one-shots to come, featuring my personal favorite pairing, Freezerburn (Yang/Weiss)! Enjoy!
There's nothing more distracting than being in a room, alone, with the one girl you can't seem to take your mind off of. That simple fact could not have been more brutally clear than it was to Yang at that very moment. Even trying to immerse herself in the world of Lost & Found, something that was usually second nature to the blonde, failed to hold her attention. For some reason, Yin and Torrez just weren't nearly as captivating as the girl curled up on the loveseat just a few feet away. Every single time Yang thought she was finally going to make some headway in her writing, she would suddenly hear the slightest of movements coming from the other side of the room, and that was all it would take for her to start worrying again.
She spun around in her chair just in time to see the pale, ivory-haired girl pull the multi-colored quilt up over her shoulders, hiding her flushed cheeks in the warmth of the thick fabric as she let out another barely-audible sniffle. Yang frowned as she watched the heiress shiver, and she quickly made up her mind that she wasn't going to sit and let Weiss suffer any longer. She pushed herself away from her desk, promptly getting to her feet, and she started toward the closed studio door.
"Where are you going?" Weiss asked in a scratchy voice, causing Yang to stop in her tracks. She turned to meet the girl's tired, ice-blue eyes, and gave her a reassuring smile.
"I'll be right back," she said as she twisted the doorknob, and slowly pulled it open. "Just gonna grab a snack."
Weiss nodded, and rolled away from Yang, her shoulders visibly trembling as she stifled a cough. A small pang of guilt welled in Yang's chest as she pulled the door open the rest of the way, and stepped out into the hall. She knew it wasn't her fault that the heiress was sick, but she couldn't shake the image of Weiss standing outside Brushwell's main entrance just an hour earlier, her thin arms wrapped tightly around her petite figure despite Vale's weather having been nothing but hot and humid for the past week. Weiss had called Yang unexpectedly from school after coming down with a bad cold, but because home wasn't an option for the heiress, and Yang still had work to do at Beacon, she had no choice but to bring Weiss back to the studio with her. Since then, Yang had found herself worrying about the girl constantly, even though Weiss continually insisted she would be fine.
As soon as Yang reached the break room, she headed straight for the kitchen, and wasted no time rummaging through the cupboards until she found what she was looking for. She smiled to herself as she pulled down a can of vegetable soup, and hastily removed the thin, aluminum top before dumping it into a small, ceramic bowl. It's not homemade, but it's something, she thought to herself as she set the dish inside one of the unoccupied microwaves, and watched it as it nuked.
While she waited, Yang took a few moments to look around the break room. A few employees were standing in line at the vending machine, trying their luck on whatever random piece of garbage the machine decided to spit out at them that afternoon. A man in a brightly-colored top hat was sitting alone at a table by the window, scribbling something down in a notebook that Yang presumed was a script for his upcoming slice-of-life comic. And in the corner closest to the door, a couple of interns who appeared to be twice Yang's age were watching her with disdainful eyes, whispering something that the blonde couldn't make out, nor did she care to even try.
After an excruciating three-and-a-half minutes, the microwave finally beeped, and Yang hurriedly pulled out the soup, being careful not to burn herself in the process. She grabbed a spoon before picking up the bowl, and carrying it out of the break room, refusing to make eye contact with the whispering couple as she walked past.
"I'm back!" Yang announced energetically as she entered her studio, and made a beeline for Weiss. The heiress slowly rolled around at the sound of Yang's voice, and let out a short sigh as soon as she noticed the bowl in the older girl's hands.
"Oh, you didn't have to…" she mumbled, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She wrapped the quilt tightly around her body once more, and drew her knees into her chest to keep warm.
Yang set the bowl on the coffee table, and carefully pulled the small table up in front of the loveseat for easier access. "Hey, you're the one who called me to pick you up, and that means that you're in my care for the rest of the day. And that means I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure you get better, starting with a nice, warm bowl of soup."
Weiss gave her an appreciative smile. "I don't know how to thank you…"
"Don't," Yang told her, handing her the spoon. "Just get better."
The younger girl nodded, and hesitantly dipped the spoon into the steaming bowl before her. After blowing on the soup a couple of times to cool it down, she finally took a timid sip, sighing as the heat spread throughout her body and warmed her insides.
Yang walked around the coffee table to the loveseat, and sat down beside Weiss. She turned to her with a half-expectant, half-anxious smile. "So how is it?"
"Warm," Weiss murmured, taking another sip. She managed to consume four full spoonfuls of soup before another violent shudder shook her body involuntarily, and she dropped the spoon back into the bowl, quickly ducking her head and retreating back into her fabric cocoon.
Yang frowned, and instinctively wrapped a protective arm around Weiss's frail figure, but as she felt the heiress flinch at the sudden contact, Yang quickly drew back. "Sorry," she said, letting Weiss go, and crossing her arms over her chest. "I, uh, guess I'm so used to taking care of Ruby and Blake that I thought - um, yeah, never mind…"
Weiss sniffled, and averted her gaze from the blonde. She desperately huddled underneath the quilt to try to conserve heat, but it seemed that no matter how hard she tried, she could not stop the shivers that continued to quake her small, fragile form. After a few moments of uncomfortably readjusting her position, she finally let out a frustrated groan, and turned to look back up at Yang. "Y-yang? Could you…?"
The older girl smiled, and gave her a short nod. She opened her arms to Weiss, who immediately crawled into the embrace, reveling in the blonde's natural warmth. Yang held her close, half-consciously rubbing circles between the heiress's shoulder blades as she kept her violet gaze glued to the girl in her arms. Something about holding Weiss felt different than all the times she'd held Ruby and Blake to keep them warm on a cold night or to offer them a shoulder to cry on in those rare times of need. Something about being that close to Weiss, even with the threat of catching her cold lingering in the air, made Yang's heart skip a few beats, made her feel irrationally giddy about something that should've been so second nature.
And even though she knew she probably shouldn't, Yang couldn't help but hope that there would be more times like this in the future, cuddling close to Weiss, and providing her with the warmth and comfort she wouldn't always be able to find elsewhere. As much as she told herself this was for Weiss's well-being, a part of Yang wondered if, perhaps, Weiss was the one working her magic on Yang. For months, Yang had been stuck in a rut, pushing herself away from those she was closest to because she didn't want to cause them the stress that talking about her job had caused her. But then Weiss came along, and suddenly everything was different. Everything was okay, and Yang didn't feel the need to shut her friends and family out. She was happy, she was grateful, and most of all, she was wanted.