Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY. All rights are owned by Roosterteeth and Monty Oum.
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Yang realized what Blake was doing immediately and ran to the door, but she was too late. "Blake," Yang warned, "Don't you dare." She pounded the door a couple times to emphasize her point, but wasn't willing to make a serious effort to break down the door. Even with the recent fortifications to Team RWBY's dorm (Glynda had gotten fed up with repairing it. Yang says Weiss is mostly to blame, while Weiss adamantly blames Yang.) Yang could probably still destroy the door if she fully used her semblance. However, that would likely burn all of RWBY's worldly possessions to ash; something that was worth avoiding. Sighing, Yang resigned herself to the situation, "Traitor!" She shouted at through the door at her faunus teammate.
"So," Yang began, "How's your day been?"
"It seems to keep getting more interesting the longer it goes on," Winter answered. After several seconds of neither party addressing Blake's declaration, Winter continued. "Is it true?"
"What are you talking about?" Yang asked unconvincingly. "Actually, never mind; yeah it's true," Yang said, "Do you… feel the same way?"
Winter had already figured out that Yang tended to be candid, but to be honest, a part of her had thought that Yang's teammate had been screwing with them. Yang seemed nice, but, well, that was it. Winter hated being put in situations like this; she was always so bad at letting people down gently. "Why don't we get to know each other first," Winter responded.
Yang's emotions visibly warred between disappointment and excitement at still having a chance but being rejected for the moment. Feeling a bit braver after not having been outright rejected as she had expected, Yang pushed a bit, "So we should go out to dinner tomorrow and get to know each other."
Winter's total lack of experience now came back into play, and she was the one on the back foot. "I guess so?" Winter said, "B-but this isn't a date; we're just hanging out as friends."
"Of course," Yang said to reassure Winter, "I'm totally alright with just being friends. I mean, I'd rather be dating but… you know what I mean right?" After Winter nodded in assertion Yang continued, "Come on, we can probably leave now." In Yang's mind, this suitably resolved her drama and meant that Blake would let them out; however, upon trying the door again she was sorely disappointed. "Come on Blake. I know you've been listening at the door this whole time," Yang said, kicking the door for good measure, "We've talked, let us out." Unfortunately for Yang, Blake was otherwise occupied with complicating the fledgling pairs' love lives.
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Weiss and Ruby had intentionally separated before entering their dorm so as to draw less attention to themselves. Yang had started teasing them for being together months ago when neither was even starting to consider anything romantic; even if Ruby wasn't 100% on board with the whole secret romance deal, she didn't want Yang to ruin Weiss's mood. Weiss rounded the corner to find Blake messing with the dorm's lock. "If you forgot your scroll I can unlock it with mine," Weiss offered.
Blake turned away from the door and began to say something before there were a series of loud bangs from inside. Weiss raised her eyebrows in question, "I take it you aren't locked out."
"I'll explain afterwards, right now I need to listen," Blake asserted, "But yes, I'm not locked out." Unfortunately, Weiss wasn't the type to accept an incomplete explanation for any inconvenience and was clearly preparing to launch into a tirade. Blake moved quickly to mollify Weiss before she missed the entirety of Yang and Winter's conversation. "Yang has a crush on Winter so I told Winter that and then locked them in," Blake explained, "I didn't want another White Rose to happen."
"There's no way they're going to go anywhere," Weiss stated, "Also, what's White Rose?"
"That's the name for the relationship between you and Rub… I'm going to stop while I'm ahead," Blake said. Weiss looked furious.
Weiss's imminent denial of her and Ruby being a thing was unfortunately ruined by Ruby rushing over to them. Weiss didn't dare make Ruby think that they weren't in a relationship so soon after the relationship began. Settling for a more general fury, Weiss said, "Why would it be a common enough subject to get a nickname?" Every word dripped with ice.
Deciding that Yang and Winter's survival was less important than her own survival, Blake confessed, "Winter and Yang decided they should try to get you two together and forced me to help them." Weiss scoffed quietly at the idea of her being forced. "They tried to get Ruby to take her clothes off while you were at the forge."
"This means war," Weiss said dangerously, "Come on, we're going to do the same thing to them." She grabbed Blake and gestured for Ruby to follow.
"Wait," Blake protested, "They're going to be stuck in there."
"Consider it the first action of our counter attack," Weiss dismissed, "Besides, aren't you into this sort of thing?"
Blake sighed in resignation as she was dragged away. If she had known the consequences for bringing a certain book series to Beacon, she would've left them behind without hesitation.
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"What do you think she's waiting for?" Winter asked with a touch of irritation.
"How am I supposed to know?" Yang demanded. "Sorry," Yang said, genuinely apologetic for shouting. "I just had a test retake to do," Yang said towards the door. After a long while of no response Yang sighed, "Well that's another idea down the drain, she's being really stubborn about this."
"Do you think she would just leave?" Winter asked.
"I doubt it," Yang said, "Unless… she might've assumed that we would, well, move quickly."
Winter looked like she had been torn between being angry and amused, and decided to go 50/50.
"Not that I thought that we would, it's just a possibility," Yang clarified. There was a pause. "I meant a possibility for why Blake wouldn't be letting us out, not a possibility for what we would do," Yang said. When Winter only raised her eyebrows in the same manner that Weiss did before she launched into a tirade, Yang only grew more flustered, "I didn't mean to suggest that you would have sex with me immediately; I know that you wouldn't." Winter didn't react in the slightest. "Yell, laugh, move; just do something. How badly have I messed up?" Yang demanded.
Winter giggled slightly. "You're a lot less relaxed than you look," Winter commented.
"I'm never really been into someone before that hadn't asked me first," Yang confessed, "If you're expecting to be expertly wooed you're going to be badly disappointed."
"Look, we already decided to go out to eat. After that we can talk about whether this might go anywhere," Winter said rationally, the idea of being "wooed" bringing up some unpleasant memories. She got up to try the door again but it remained locked. "For the time being, I think we're going to have to wait for Ruby and my sister to arrive and force Blake to let them in," Winter said.
"I suppose," Yang responded, "Hopefully she gets back soon."
"Truth or dare?" Yang asked.
"Why not?" Winter responded, "I can always just refuse to answer if there's anything too ridiculous."
"Ha," Yang exclaimed, "Blake bet me 20 lien that I could never get anyone to play Truth or Dare with me."
"When was this?"
"Roughly 3 months ago."
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Weiss led Ruby and Blake to an unoccupied classroom before releasing Blake. Ruby sheepishly sat down at one of the desks and watched her two teammates. "So, is there not actually any advantage to forging weapons without clothes?" Ruby began.
Blake started to laugh but was cut off by Weiss's trademark glare. Coughing slightly in a weak attempt to cover her laughter, Blake replied, "No Ruby, there weren't any studies that support that."
"Awww. At least it helped us get together," Ruby consoled herself. "You're worth more than a weapon improvement," Ruby declared, standing up and throwing her arms around Weiss.
Weiss slightly panicked as Ruby revealed her relationship to the library inhabitants. Looking around frantically, it appeared that everyone was too involved in their own conversations to notice. "Ruby! We decided to keep it a secret," Weiss whispered.
"Oops," Ruby apologized, "I might've forgotten."
"It's alright Ruby," Weiss sighed, awkwardly returning Ruby's hug while still trying to not to draw much attention.
"You two have such a strange way of showing affection," Blake interjected, reminding the pair of her presence, "It's cute though."
"So Blake; any ideas on how to pair Winter and Yang?" Weiss changed the subject while extricating herself from Ruby.
"Oh, no. I'm not getting further involved than I already am," Blake said, "I'll help out with something so that we're even, but that's it."
"Fair enough," Weiss conceded, "Ruby, I know how my sister operates; how does your sister think romantically?"
"I don't know; I mean she tends to get asked out. I'm not sure I've seen her actually go for someone who wasn't already interested," Ruby appeared deep in thought, "I ought to ask her for tips sometime."
"No," Weiss said, "Please don't ask Yang of all people for romance tips."
"I don't think you need to worry too much about Yang," Blake intervened, "She already likes Winter." "We would know if Winter reciprocated if you hadn't dragged me across the school, buts it's too late for that," Blake continued.
There was a long pause as Weiss pondered where to go from here. To say that romance wasn't her thing was a vast understatement, but neither Ruby nor Blake were going to be much help. Blake had refused to get too involved, and there was a fine line between getting revenge for the earlier debacle and actually abusing her new friends. Ruby was bad enough at romance she was fooled by someone telling her to take her clothes off in order to make a stronger weapon, making her possibly the only person worse at romance tricks than Weiss herself. "Alright then," Weiss said, deciding that she shouldn't waste Blake's help on something that was going to end up poorly developed, "For the moment, we'll wait and gather information."
Blake nodded, "Can I go and let them out then?"
"I'll let them out," Ruby declared.
"Nah, I've got it," Blake insisted, "See you guys around." With that, Blake left the White Rose couple together and returned to the room that she had locked the other potential couple in. She quickly keyed in the unlock code and the door slid open.
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Yang and Winter both sat in the center of the room, staring each other down in a battle of wits. As per the great unspoken rules of Truth or Dare, the first several rounds had been nothing but truths. Once one person picks dare though, all bets are off.
"Dare," Yang said confidently; it's time we made this interesting.
"Hmmm?" Winter asked deviously. Yang nodded, retaining her confidence. "How about you swing that bed until you can touch that poster," Winter suggested, gesturing towards Ruby's hanging deathtrap.
Yang hesitated momentarily and Winter immediately capitalized. "Unless, you're too afraid," Winter taunted playfully.
"Of course I can handle it," Yang answered. Ruby's designs were a lot stronger than they might look to an outsider. There probably wasn't any better way to make a rope bunk bed. This should, probably, maybe, might work. Yang climbed up into the bed with gusto than was necessary. She looked across the room towards the objective on the opposite side of the room: an Achieve-Men poster. She began to ease the bed into motion, and things appeared to be working fine. In fact, this entire dare might've gone off without a problem had Ruby's bed not bumped Blake's bed.
As opposed to Ruby's bed's rope supports, Blake's bed was held aloft by erotica novels, and was actually incredibly easy to dislodge. Yang watched helplessly as the bed teetered side to side; Ruby's bed continued to swing and hit Blake's bed again. While the bed was an inch from being dislodged, Blake opened the door.
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Blake expected a large, potentially violent reaction to her unlocking the door. Yang would probably yell, but she could be defused by showing her the video she had discreetly taken of Ruby and Weiss's earlier hug. Obviously Blake would rather not further escalate her teammates' strange romantic cold war, but sometimes things had to be done. Winter was a bit of an unknown, but if she was like Weiss she would be angry but easily distracted with other irritations. Out of all of the possibilities, immediately getting a face full of bed pieces wasn't even in the top 100.
Blake's bed teetered off of the questionably literature and began to fall towards Winter sitting in the middle of the room. In an effort to protect Winter, Yang leapt off of Ruby's bed towards Winter. The force of her jump dislodged one of the ropes and caused Ruby's bed to crush Weiss's bed. Yang punched Blake's bed as it flew towards her, breaking it into tiny pieces and adding to the pile of wood and stuffing that was the remains of Ruby and Weiss's beds.
Blake was speechless as she watched these events unfold. As the dust cleared, Yang noticed Blake standing in the open door. "Geez took you a while. Why did you keep us there for so long?" Yang asked.
Yang's statement confirmed that Blake hadn't just had some variety of hallucination. "What just happened? Where are we going to sleep?" Blake asked, "I left you guys in here for like half an hour at most!"
"You should ask Weiss those questions. Also you owe me 20 lien," Yang suggested as she fled the scene, "Oh look. It's dinner time."
"I really can't catch a break today, can I?" Blake asked as she surveyed the carnage. Yang's bed stood alone, somehow undamaged in the chaos. "I'm going to have dinner," Blake told no one in particular and headed out to the cafeteria.
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Blake knew that she should resist. Getting involved had only served to make everything more complicated every single time she tried. Unfortunately for anyone who wanted to have a normal dinner that day, Blake didn't listen to her better self and well… intervened. Yang looked up from the short video on Blake's scroll with a devious grin on her face, "Yes! It's time for phase 2 of Operation White Rose. I need you to get a drink and get back here before they do."
"I'm not going to protect you if Weiss decides to murder you for whatever you're planning," Blake responded. Blake always got tea with dinner, which made the request to get a drink pretty irrelevant.
"We'll just have to make sure she's too 'busy' with my sister to do any murdering then," Yang joked.
"Yang, whatever happened to threatening Jaune about dating Ruby only for it turn out that they had been working on leadership tactics?" Blake deadpanned.
"I've grown older and wiser Blake."
Blake only responded with a decidedly Weiss-esque scoff and went to brew her tea. Yang leaning over and whispering conspiratorially to Winter was a bit worrying, but Blake was too busy resolutely ignoring them to notice.
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Yes! It's finally done. Taking 5 AP classes and 1 college class during senior year of high school might not have been the wisest choice. Now that things have settled into a groove I can fit in a little bit of writing each day, but the update schedule is still going to be pretty crap. I'm doing my best though. Blake is now working for both sides of the shipping battle, Yang messed up a few times with Winter, the dorm got seriously damaged, Yang and Blake both know about Ruby and Weiss's relationship, and Yang is clearly plotting something. This chapter was a bit more filler than I'd like, but some things needed to be set up. Next time on Finding Love and Shipping Siblings: Will Blake get to enjoy her tea? Who will use the one surviving bed? How badly injured will Yang end up? Did I almost forget that this whole question thing existed? Find out... hopefully in less time than it took to write this part.
For anyone who somehow hasn't heard, RWBY Season 3 is starting on the 24th: time for my interpretation of Winter to end up dead wrong. I personally wish they would focus on the main 4 characters instead of continually introducing more, but the hype engines are still at maximum capacity.
Review Responses:
AntonSlavik020: Ruby's far too open for Weiss's plan to have any hope of lasting a long time, so I think we'll be fine on that count. Weiss doesn't know that her entire team already knows, which might not last very long. Thanks for the review.
Master Kosa: Weiss hasn't dated much, but she has tried a couple times. After a couple dates she's willing to kiss but hasn't gone any farther. I'd try to include this information in the actual story, but there wouldn't be a great time to bring it up for a while.
I think someone named Yang/Winter Frostbite, but for the moment I'm going to stick to my guns. I might change the description if I start seeing more people referring to the couple as Frostbite. This is the only fandom I know of where there isn't just ship wars, but ship-name wars. Where would we be without RWBY lesbian fan-works in our lives? As always, thanks for reading and please review. Hope everyone enjoys.
