Weiss cautiously rested her arms over Blake's shoulders. She might be blushing hotter than red Dust, but she felt... she felt... she was too busy suppressing the inclination to pet Blake's ears to figure out how she felt exactly. Nervous and thrilled and sort of confused all at once. But in a good way. Mostly. Shyness snuck up on her all of a sudden and she took her arms from around Blake.
"I think..." she started, not quite sure where she was going. She cast about the room for a subject, and found one on the desk near the door, "I think the food Pyrrha brought us is getting cold."
Blake's purr died down, replaced with a thoughtful hum. "Probably," she said, loosening her hold on Weiss a fraction, but making no real effort to move.
Weiss was stuck. She bit back a whine- then, straightening up- Hold it. I'm Weiss Schnee- I can handle anything. I can handle this. I can more than handle this. It's Blake, for Dust's sake, and she's- we're- I'm- it's fine. It's fine. It's... nice, even.
Still at a loss of what to do with her hands, she glanced down at Blake's Faunus ears. She looked back up at the soup across the room (which no one really cared about at this juncture anyway), and then back down again, clearing her throat a little. "Um, Blake?"
"Hmm?" Those aforementioned ears twisted towards Weiss, zeroing in on the sound of her voice.
"If we're not going to eat, and we're going to stay here like this..." Weiss stalled and took a different tack, "That is, my arms are getting kind of tired, so if it's not offensive to you or demeaning at all... do you mind if I...?"
With one hand, she very gently, very briefly brushed just the very tip of Blake's ear.
Anticipation burned through Blake's veins in that instant, a white-hot flash ignited by such a light touch, though the lingering heat was tempered by the soft words echoing in her head. Awkwardly worded though the request may have been, the level of courtesy and respect Weiss was trying to show made Blake's heart swell with an emotion she couldn't quite place. It was everything she could have asked for.
Silently steeling herself, Blake nodded. "O-of course," she stuttered, foiling her attempt to avoid sounding too eager, "Please."
Alright, Weiss, you can do this, the heiress coached herself along, not quite tucking Blake's head under her chin in case she could hear how fast her heart was beating. Given her family's standing, she was painfully aware that something like, oh, petting her Faunus girlfriend's ears could go south faster than a walk in Forever Fall. Fixing things with Blake would be a lot harder than tangling with a few Ursa majors. So, holding her breath, she touched the velvet fur lining one of Blake's cat ears, being careful of the feather-soft guard hairs at its front as she ran her finger and thumb along its edge.
The sensation was heavenly, but also... ticklish. Somehow, Blake stifled a giggle and managed a pleased hum instead.
Weiss gave a short, breathless sort of laugh and took her hand away. It shook a little, and she quickly hid it in a fistful of blanket as she pulled back from Blake. "I-I'm done now. Thank you."
Blake made a small noise of disappointment and pulled back a bit to smirk up at Weiss through her eyelashes, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the light blush dusting her cheeks, "Already?"
"Look, it's been a long day, and I haven't eaten, and I'm just..." scared to move so fast? No, Weiss paused in trying to climb out of Blake's lap. Well, maybe she was a little bit skittish of this sort of thing, but never mind. Squaring her shoulders a bit, she tried again, "I just think we should be careful not to neglect our other duties. Like studying, and mealtimes."
"Oh?" Blake reluctantly released Weiss from her arms to give her an easy escape route should she want it, letting her hands slide down to rest on the other girl's hips. "Then, what about my duty to lavish my girlfriend with attention?" she asked with a perfectly serious expression, quietly pleased at how well lightly modified lines from her novels seemed to fit in nearly any situation.
Several seconds passed before Weiss realized her mouth was hanging open. She snapped it shut and crossed her arms. "Blake."
"Yes?" came the easy reply, curiosity lifting Blake's brows just a fraction.
The late afternoon light fell across the rug, giving the room a ruddy tinge. Weiss mustered a glare, "Do you know how many times people hug me over the course of just about any given week?"
Blake tilted her head, studying the way the sunset played against Weiss's hair, the white strands soaking up streaks of red and gold. She was quite aware that her sensibilities towards physical contact had probably been influenced somewhat by her partner's absolute lack of the concept of personal space, but... touch that didn't involve the harsh sting of battle was also something she'd sorely missed during her days with the White Fang. Finding it again at Beacon had been a blessing.
Looking up at Weiss now, Blake realized she could only wonder at the heiress's history with affection - mere guesses based off of a vague and probably biased understanding of her upbringing. "...Not enough?"
"Once," Weiss pointed her index finger right under Blake's nose, "Counting Ruby's one armed half-hugs and Yang's misguided attempts as a half each, all totaling to no more than five seconds cumulatively. Now," she recrossed her arms, scowling, "are you aware of exactly how many times you have hugged me over these past twelve hours?"
Not enough. Not enough was definitely the correct answer to that question. But, rather than repeat herself and look even more lovesick than she already did, Blake took a stab an an actual count, her eyes tracking up and to the left as she traced through the day's events. After a solid ten seconds, Blake's attention returned to Weiss. "Three?"
"Plus sleeping in the same bed with me, and this," Weiss motioned to Blake's hands, still on her hips, "I think that more than qualifies as 'lavishing'. And while I'm not exactly complaining, I'm also... well..." she fumbled crossly for words, huffing as she settled on, "... I'm out of practice."
After a fleeting look of surprise, Blake's lips slowly quirked upwards into a half-smile and she dipped her head a bit, looking down at the rumpled sheets. "Me too." She stole a glance at the bowls of untouched soup sitting on the desk by the door, finally dropping her hands to the bed behind her as she leaned back a bit, "Want to eat dinner?"
Weiss slid off the bed to her feet, straightening her shirt and skirt in an effort to gather her dignity. "Yes, that would be nice."
The soup was stone cold.
"Ugh," Weiss pulled a face and dropped her spoon back into the bowl. Cafeteria soup was barely tolerable piping hot. Cold, it was like drinking extra-thick dishwater, minus most of the soap.
"Let's wait till Yang comes back." She was her microwave for the next thirteen days, after all. Weiss abandoned the unfortunate meal on Blake's desk and turned to organize her own desk instead. Her things were still all over the floor from her frantic search for her pros and cons list the previous morning. She yanked open a drawer and started sorting notebooks and office supplies into it. "I can't believe she's gotten detention again."
Blake looked up from collecting the books scattered across the floor that had once held up Yang's bunk. "At least it wasn't for pranks this time." She frowned at a heavy indentation marring the center of an otherwise fairly nice hardback cover, one of the unfortunate books that had been at the top of a stack. "Though, I think an entire week is a new record for her."
"Speaking of pranks," Weiss leveled a stack of returned homework assignments on the top of her desk. She glanced over at Blake and then primly back down at her work, "I think we owe Yang one."
Before she could continue that line of conversation, there was a knock at the door.
Blake, her eyes having lit up at Weiss's suggestion, carefully set her towering stack of books on the floor and offered the heiress a sly wink on her way to answer the door.
It opened before she could get to it.
"Ahh, okay, watch the ribs would ya?"
Yang stumbled through, supported by Ruby on one side and Pyrrha on the other. The brawler looked as though she'd gone through a meat grinder.
Blake glanced at the clock, stepping aside as the trio made their way to Yang's desk. "That was a short detention."
"That Goodwitch is a slavedriver," Yang slipped out of Pyrrha and Ruby's grasp and flopped into her chair, planting her face on the desk's cool wood top, utterly spent. "What a fighter though," she heaved, still catching her breath, "New favorite teacher."
"I've never seen anyone so thrilled to be so thoroughly defeated by a professor," Pyrrha crossed her arms, equal parts confused and amused.
"Uh..." Ruby looked up from patting her sister's head to the collapsed bed, to the stack of books, and then to Blake and Weiss, "so are you guys okay?"
"Yes, we're fine," Weiss refused to think about how fine they were. Remembering how Blake snuggled up to her, purring against her neck, made her feel completely overwhelmed. But nice. Sort of, at least, in a one-hundred-percent totally excellent kind of way, not counting being so nervous she was light-headed. But she wasn't thinking about that.
Why is experiencing more than one emotion at a time so exhausting? Weiss set her jaw and focused on being hungry instead. She picked up the two abandoned bowls of cold soup and marched them to Yang's desk, "Yang, heat these up."
The brawler squinted, cross-eyed from how close the bowls were set to her face. "Seriously? Have I not suffered enough today?"
"No." Blake answered from her position leaning against the collapsed beds, squinting at a light testing prod to the painful lump on the back of her head. With her partner to thank for several severe blows to her and Weiss's dignity, Blake found nothing but fairness in demanding recompense from the wily blonde. Even Yang's last resort, full-intensity puppy dog eyes, had no effect as the Faunus stone-faced her partner and moved to stand beside Weiss. "No you haven't."
"Uggghhhh, traitor." Accepting her fate, Yang lazily reached for the bowls without moving her head from the desk. She threw a haphazard burst of heat into the soup all at once.
The soup caught fire.
"Uh." Yang watched, bewildered, as half of the contents evaporated in a violent burst of steam before she finally found the wherewithal to let go. The half-filled bowls of liquid that remained bubbled and roiled, still boiling from excessive latent heat. "Oops..."
"...Do you normally set liquids aflame?" Pyrrha asked out of genuine curiosity, having taken two steps back to avoid getting scalded.
"Hey man, fine control of a semblance as awesome and hardcore as mine is super hard, even when I'm not totally half-dead. So uh, here you go I guess!" Yang shoved the steaming bowls back towards Weiss.
"Hmph," Weiss scowled at the soup and turned to Blake, plucking a generic Beacon coffee mug from the mess on Yang's desk, "I'm thinking tea would go well enough with this. What do you think? And if it gets too hot or boiled off into oblivion we can just try again," she placed the mug firmly on the desk. "and again. And again."
Ruby, who'd been watching with all the wariness of a ref at a kids' soccer match where one team was actually all beowolves, stepped in between her antagonistic team members, "Let's maybe rest a while first? I mean, you were sick and welcome back to the room by the way and-"
"Ruby," Blake placed a hand on her team leader's shoulder, "Would you like some hot chocolate? We could heat some up for you."
"Oh I see how it is! Trying to turn my own sister against me now are you Belladonna?" Yang finally mustered enough will to lift her head from the desk, pushing herself up to lean back in her chair, "Well it isn't going to work, right sis?!"
Blake's eyes sparkled, "Maybe we could warm up some cookies?"
"Welllll..." Ruby bit her lip.
"If she has enough energy to complain, she definitely has enough energy to make hot chocolate," Weiss oh-so-helpfully pointed out. "Or cookies. Maybe both, even."
"... hot chocolate is pretty great..." Ruby conceded, shooting Yang an apologetic look.
"Noooooo, you fiends, corrupting my one and only little sister to the dark side!" Yang put her hands to her face, leaning so far backwards over her chair the tips of her hair brushed the floor.
Weiss no longer cared that she'd be giving up the reheating tea plan. She clapped her hands together before Yang could muster further protest, "Hot chocolate it is. Pyrrha, are you interested? You'll have to bring a cup."
Pyrrha stifled a giggle, stepping forward to place a sympathetic hand on Yang's shoulder. "I believe I'll pass." She smiled down at Yang to find the brawler peeking up at her through her fingers, grateful surprise etched in those wide amethyst eyes. "But, I'll ask the rest of my team if they're interested. Nora and Jaune are quite fond of sweet drinks."
"Aw man," Yang's arms dropped to her sides, her posture going as slack as her defeated expression "Even you?"
"I'm sorry," Pyrrha gave the brawler's shoulder a parting pat before skirting around the rest of team RWBY with a polite nod. "Enjoy your hot chocolate."
"Oh, we will," Blake showed a few teeth in her smile as Pyrrha left.
Eleven hot chocolates later (seriously, Weiss could have given Nora a medal, especially if it would help prevent her from going through her belongings next time. But you couldn't expect such things from a force of nature, so she settled for smug happiness at Yang's misfortune), the dorm room was empty except for Team RWBY. Weiss's desk lamp lit most of her and Ruby's half of the room.
The team leader extraordinaire had already crashed and changed into pajamas and lay passed out on her bunk in a tangle of blankets.
Weiss finished putting all her papers and paperclips and scissors, first aid gear and sewing equipment, all back into her desk and sat poring over one of her planners, assessing how easy it would be to catch up after the past weekend's lack of studying.
The other half of the room flickered under the low glow of Yang's semblance as she stood on Blake's bunk and strained to hold her own bed aloft. Blake made sure to take her sweet time wandering between the stacks of books on her bedposts, checking and rechecking each tome to make absolutely sure they all reached an even height and were positioned perfectly to balance an entire bed - certainly not because she was enjoying watching her utterly exhausted partner suffer through her extended retribution.
"You uh... you good yet Blakey?"
"Almost." Blake nudged one of the stacks a centimeter to the left, leaning close to inspect and subsequently remove a small speck of dust from the topmost book's cover.
"Can you... I dunno maybe speed things up a bit? This thing is getting heavy," Yang grimaced, her arms beginning to shake.
"Yes, I was made well aware of your bunk's weight when it tried to crush us." Blake lightly tapped the next stack of books, testing its balance.
"Hey, it's not like I dropped the thing on you! You're the one that tied yourself to the - hey now, wait, stop, what are you doing-"
Blake paused halfway to setting the stack of books she'd taken from the bedpost down on the floor. "I figured I should go through these one more time. Make sure the right ones are-"
"Oh my god Blake please just put them back on the bedpost so I can set this down I'm going to drop this thing," Yang pleaded, her entire body shuddered with the effort it took to hold up the solid wood frame, spent as she was from her solid thrashing at detention and over an hour's worth of microwave duty.
"Hmm. I'm not sure. These books are pretty important. Weiss, what do you think?" Blake offered her girlfriend a lazy smile.
"I think I could go for another round of hot chocolate," Weiss flipped a slow page in her planner and turned so she could watch Yang suffer. "Or a nice, warm cup of tea. Perhaps with a side of abject apologies for all the misery we've been through these past few days."
"Seriously you guys have I not apologized enough?"
"No," Blake turned away, the stack of books still in hand as she took a step towards her desk.
"Okay okay wait, come back, jeeze, just put the books back for the love of-"
"You're not sounding very remorseful," the Faunus turned her head just enough to fix one amber eye on Yang.
"Okay fine I'm sorry and I am so very remorseful right now! Look at me I am just bleeding remorse!"
Blake shared a glance with Weiss, then turned back to take a good look at Yang. There wasn't a shred of remorse in her partner's expression. Granted, she was in the middle of trying to avoid being crushed by her own bed's weight, so it was hard to see much other than pain and torment in the brawler's grimace.
Rolling her eyes, Blake took pity on her partner and set the books back on the bedpost - also she really did want her bed back. After one last lingering inspection, she stepped back. "Good enough."
"Oh thank god," Yang heaved, slowly lowering her bed back into place and subsequently collapsing face-first onto Blake's sheets.
Blake calmly made her way over to Weiss to take her half-filled mug of tea, then went to set it on the overheated brawler's back. It began to boil in seconds.
"You two are ruthless and terrible and possibly evil," Yang whined, her voice muffled by the sheets.
"Flattery will get you nowhere," Blake patted her head with a smile, removing the nicely heated mug. "Now please get off my bed."
Muttering a few choice curses, Yang rolled off of her partner's bed and slunk away to the bathroom, bidding good night with a sleepy smile and wave.
Justice properly served for the time being, Blake returned to Weiss's side, offering her mug of reheated tea and a light nuzzle to her temple. "So," she gestured to the planner, "How do our chances look for making the fair this weekend?"
Weiss tolerated the affection, keeping a very, very tight rein on the part of her that wanted to be affectionate back. After all, she'd already petted Blake's ears today. She didn't want to chance overdoing things. So she simply took the mug, gripping it to steady herself.
"Provided it doesn't take long to puzzle through the notes Ruby took for me..." Honestly, did she have to take notes in comic book format? Weiss was moderately certain that the resourceful huntresses who settled Vale did not do so with bulging muscles and capes. Then again… Ruby's cape was hanging from her bed post. Weiss passed her hand over her face to wipe the image of buff, comic-book Ruby from her mind. "... everything should work out."
"That's wonderful," Blake leaned in a bit to look at the planner. She loved the flow of Weiss's handwriting. It was always so neat. Like a work of art. Fluid strokes almost as beautiful as the one who penned them. Checking herself before she wandered down an endlessly romantic tangent, the Faunus steered her thoughts back to more practical matters – like going to bed.
"I think I'm going to get some sleep." Blake placed a soft goodnight kiss to Weiss's cheek as she retreated to her side of the room to change.
"You... do that," Weiss hardly noticed that her response came a second or two late. She stopped her hand from moving of its own accord to touch the place Blake had kissed and instead buckled down, blushing, to get her work for tomorrow in order.
She did not feel the temptation to turn and see Blake changing. Not at all.
At least, she didn't act on the temptation, and that's what counted. Anyway, it wasn't like they hadn't shared this room (not to mention every locker room on Beacon's campus) in various states of dress before. It made absolutely no sense, getting flustered over it now.
Stop overthinking this, Weiss, she gathered up her folders with the requisite notes and homework and stowed them in a white over-the-shoulder bag. We're going to the fair this weekend, and it will be nice. And fun. End of story.
... still, maybe she would get changed in the restroom tonight.
A/N: Yeah sure Weiss, no temptation at all. Ssssuuuurrrreeee~
Also I want Ruby to take my notes for me forever - I would learn SO WELL with pictures, especially pictures of muscular ladies.
Hugs,
Defenestrator
