"Sooooo what's everyone doing for Christmas?" Ruby asked, half hanging off the edge of her bed. Yang would be worried, but Weiss was directly under her to break her fall. Intentionally or not.

"You know what I'm doing." Yang scoffed. "Patch family Christmas."

"Oh Yeah!" Ruby called doing a fist bump that wobbled her precariously. "I can't wait to see everyone again."

"I will be returning to Atlas." Weiss said. "Winter will be home. It will be nice to see her again."

"What about you Blake?" Yang asked, looking over at her soulmate turned partner.

"I was just going to stay on campus." Blake shrugged.

The dorm froze. All eyes fell on Blake, who suddenly looked very uncomfortable. There was a moment of absolute silence.

That was inevitably broken by Ruby falling off her bunk, landing directly on Weiss. As the squabble started up Yang rolled over and stole her soulmates book. Keeping her finger between the pages because she didn't want to die.

"Are you really staying here for Christmas?" Yang asked.

"I don't exactly have anywhere else to go." Blake shrugged.

"You could stay with us." Yang offered, ducking a pillow that escaped the RW spat.

Blake made that noise that sounded like 'go away and die' but actually meant 'please be serious I want that more than anything'. Yang was pretty good at sorting those sounds out by now, and Blake tended to forget that.

"Blake." Yang waited until the other girl actually met her eyes. "Do you want to spend Christmas with Ruby and I and our family, on Patch?"

Blake looks down, looks up, looks left, and finally meets Yang's eyes.

"Yes."

"Wooohooo." Ruby shattered any moment Yang could have made by leaping across the room and wrapping around Blake like a bright red koala. "You're gonna love it so much I know you will!"

"Are you going to do anything about that?" Weiss asked as Ruby babbled on a bit more about the limited sights Patch had to offer.

"I don't know, it is nice not to be on the receiving end of that for once." Yang grinned even as Blake's eyes screamed 'help me'.

"Ahhhh! DAD!" Ruby vanished in a shower of rose petals and full body tackled their dad.

"I might be regretting my decision." Blake muttered, eyeing the scene. Yang grinned widely.

"Too late now."

"Is my other daughter shunning me already?" Dan called, having wriggled out of Ruby's grasp.

"Of course!" Yang hugged her dad, feeling her bones creak. With a final squeeze he let her go. It was good to be home.

"And you must be Blake." One arm still wrapped around her dad ginned at Blake's sudden deer in the headlights look.

"Yes sir?"

"Glad you could make it. My girls haven't been giving you too much trouble have they?" Dad grinned. "When I found out they were on a team together I was going to send a care package… Still could, if you'd like."

"Will it contain tranquilisers?" Blake asked.

"Enough to take out an Ursa Major." Dad promised, ignoring Ruby's very vocal protests. "Come on, we should probably stop causing a scene."

"It's not possible." Yang stage whispered. "Xiao Long genes."

"My ears are burning!" Dad called as he shepherded Ruby toward the car. "Keep up or you're walking home."

"Hello Zwei, my pretty puppy hello did you miss me I missed you hello oh yes you're so cute yes you are." Ruby was fawning over her the corgi in a way that involved rolling across the lawn.

"Ruby leave Zwei alone."

"Yangs just jealous you love me more, yes she is, yes she is."

"You're in luck, girls. You're in time to decorate the tree." Tai said, opening the door.

Ruby froze, and Yang stopped so suddenly that Blake walked right into her.

"Really?" Yang asked, a hint of breathy panic in her voice. "That's, that's great Dad but I should really show Blake around Patch so you and Ruby can just get started without us. Right Blake?" Yang added, franticly gesturing behind her back.

"Ehh? Yes?" Blake agreed. "I don't want to intrude."

"Oh, you won't be." Tai sounded ominous and Ruby shuddered. "Pass me your things girls, go get started."

"I'm sorry Blake." Yang muttered as Tai left. "I would never have suggested this if I thought this would happen."

"It's going to be okay, Blake." Ruby added with forced cheer. "I promise."

"What are you talking about? It's just a… tree…" Blake trailed off as she saw the monstrosity in the living room. "Oh Dust."

The tree was at least eight feet tall and scraping the ceiling. At the base it would be wider than she, Yang, and Ruby combined could reach. Surrounding it were boxes and boxes of lights and decorations and baubles in red, yellow, white, silver, and purple. It looked like someone had robbed a holiday store.

"Yep." Ruby said weakly.

"All of this goes on the tree." Yang added. "All of it."

Blake took another look at everything.

"Okay, where do we start?" Blake asked those with experience. Ruby whimpered, Yang cracked her knuckles.

"Alright Team RBY! To the lights."

Blake collapsed on the couch bonelessly. Three hours, they had been decorating the tree for three hours and it still wasn't finished.

"Why?" Blake asked the general ceiling area. "Just why?" Blake grunted as Yang flopped over her.

"Well aren't you lot a sorry sight." Tai called from the doorway. "You're lazing around and there's still a box left."

"You can't be serious." Blake said.

"Oh no, he's serious alright. Every decoration goes on the tree, and then comes off the tree."

Simultaneously the three girls shuddered.

"Hey, Blake, wait up!"

"Hm?" Blake paused at the foot of the stairs, looking back at Yang. "What-"

"Here." Yang thrust a brightly wrapped box into her hands.

"-is this?" Blake finished, looking at the box.

"It's a tradition." Yang gave a wide smile and little half shrug that meant she was actually worried about something.

"This isn't going to explode right?" Blake asked, already peeling off the tape neatly.

Yang didn't answer but Blake was distracted but the gift. It was a bauble, and Blake thought she'd hate them by now but apparently not. It was mate black, with a gloss stencil of her symbol on the side.

"It's a tradition for family to have something on the tree, and soulmates definitely count as family-"

Blake kissed her, soft and gentle at the foot of the stairs.

"Thank you."

A/N: It took 10 chapters but I finally wrote a kiss... Well mentioned one anyway. I tried not to make this a Christmas fic but I spent 6 hours decorating tree's that aren't even mine. Christmas spirit was forced out of me.

Also and omake because I couldn't work it in properly.

"Hel-looooo! I believe you two may know each other?" Those words were what made Blake look up from her book. There was a blond who was apparently the one who spoke (holyshitholyshit) and…

"Aren't you the girl that exploded?" Blake asked, without all the red it was hard to place the girl who'd been yelled at by the Schnee.

Also her soulmate was right there! And Blake hadn't said anything? What was wrong with her?

"Uh, yeah! My name's Ruby! But you can just call me Crater... " Call her what? "Actually, you can just call me Ruby."

"Ok." Blake looked back down at her book, trying to keep calm and work out what she was supposed to say. The two girls were whispering but Blake wasn't paying attention, what was she supposed to say?

"So... What's your name?" Soulmate blond asked. That… solved problems.

"Blake."

The two girl froze and Yang pulled a scrunchie off her left wrist. "Is this you?" She asked.

"Yeah, yeah that's me." Blake agreed, seeing her handwriting.

"I'm, I'm Yang, Ruby's sist-"

"YOU'RE SOULMATES?" Ruby shouted, immediately drawing the attention of everyone in the room. Blake felt herself flush but Yang seemed used to it.

"Don't you realise some of us are trying to sleep?" The Schnee stalked over and Blake sighed.

It had started out such a nice night too.