In the morning, Weiss woke up to the pleasant warmth of someone on the bed next to her.
Someone on the bed... she blinked to clear her vision and looked and immediately shifted into crisis mode.
The person next to her was Blake. That wasn't so bad- she'd technically slept in the same bed with Blake before. There was the catnip incident, of course, and a couple of times after that all completely due to circumstances beyond her control. This time, she'd been holding Blake's hand in her sleep. In fact, she was holding Blake's hand currently. Their fingers were intertwined, which meant there was absolutely no way she could un-hold Blake's hand without waking her up.
That wasn't the real problem, though. Not really.
The real problem was that Blake was right next to her, and she was warm, and asleep, and her dark hair was a mess (though her bow was still intact), and she was beautiful. On a list of things she would like to be doing at that instant, kissing Blake was very, very near the top. (Possibly it was at the top.)
Weiss, however, hadn't showered in three days. She hadn't brushed her teeth in three days, unless some mislead and soon-to-be-eviscerated soul did it for her while she was unconscious on drugs and aura enhancers.
On the plus side, her stomach felt fine. A lot less stabbed, anyway. Maybe a little sore, but that hardly mattered. No, what mattered right now was deciding whether to get up, rouse the staff, and demand to be released in order to take care of her personal hygiene... or to stay snuggled up, holding hands with Blake in the hospital bed for a few more minutes.
I could blame it on the drugs, Weiss weighed the option in case someone came in. Her shoulder was pressed right up to Blake's. I could pretend to be asleep.
The monitors beside the bed might give her away. In fact, they would definitely give her away if they were registering her current heart rate.
Blake twitched in her sleep, dark brows pinching together just slightly, as if trying to comprehend the slight acceleration in tempo of the light beeps coming from the monitors. Despite her tendency to wake at the slightest change in the environment, two full nights of sleep deprivation refused to relinquish its hold so easily, allowing only Blake's most basic levels of consciousness to activate, and even then, only for a fleeting moment.
But in that moment, the heat-seeking Faunus sensed warmth beside her.
A light instinctive squeeze of Weiss's hand was her only warning before Blake rolled towards her, snaking an arm around the heiress's waist and pulling her close enough for her to bury her face in the crook of her neck.
Dust dust dust dust, Weiss kind of tried to pull her hand away but also sort of maybe just let Blake breathe against her neck. She brought her free arm over to hug Blake back- no. To shake Blake's shoulder so she would wake up. Definitely that- but was brought up short by the IV.
"Ouch!" she pulled back at the jerk of the needle in her arm. The apparatus beside the bed clattered as it resettled.
That woke Blake, and she was up in an instant, hovering just above Weiss on all fours and shielding her from... absolutely nothing?
Blake blinked a few times, pulled back just enough to run a hand over her face, her brain struggling to shift gears towards wakefulness after having been torn from an unexpectedly deep sleep. "...Weiss?"
Beneath the Faunus, Weiss opened her mouth but couldn't come up with a single word to say so she shut it again. Her face was just a couple shades shy of fire-engine red.
Blake blinked a few times more, trying to figure out why Weiss looked so flushed, overwhelmed - had the medication been too much? Was something wrong? She placed her hand on Weiss's forehead to find it burning hot, in stark contrast to the cool sheets covering them. The cool bed sheets... of the hospital bed... that they were both on... together... at the same time...
Blake flew back, leaving an after-image in her wake in her haste to remove herself from Weiss's personal space. "Good- uh- good morning," she stumbled over her words, but was saved from further verbal embarrassment by the sound of voices coming from just outside the door.
"It's fine, it's fine, just ease it open and look, if they're asleep we'll just have to be super quiet."
"If you say so."
The door inched open, a pair of bright green eyes peering through the crack. They widened in recognition upon meeting confused amber, the door swinging open shortly thereafter. "They are both awake!"
"Oh good, I figured Weiss would be up," Yang and Pyrrha shuffled through the doorway, both in their running clothes. At least - that's the best guess Blake could hazard, what with the larger-than-life bouquet they held between them obscuring most of them from view. "You're a surprise though, Blakey! Welcome to the world of early risers! Weiss, you're such a good influence on her."
Weiss looked from Yang and Pyrrha and the comically large bunch of flowers to the bag of whatever liquid medication was apparently still pumping through her IV to be giving her such vivid hallucinations.
... except the bag was empty. There wasn't even any left in the tubing-in fact, a little bit of blood had backed up into the clear tube near where the IV was in her arm. Weiss scooted away from the jungle of a bouquet, "What on earth-?"
"You got me," Yang shrugged, searching for any space on the floor to set the flowers. Blake tried to help by rolling up her sleeping bag.
"Yatsuhashi and Fox stopped us on our way back from our morning run... and handed us these," Pyrrha explained as best she could from between a patch of sunflower stems. "They are for Weiss, along with get-well wishes from their whole team."
"Looked way smaller when Yatsuhashi was carrying it," Yang grumbled, moving with Pyrrha to set the garden-sized bundle on the floor space Blake had cleared for them. "Thanks. Oh and Weiss, thank you so much for getting stabbed by the way. Like, we dodged a serious bullet thanks to that."
"Excuse me?" Having moved to the other side of Weiss's bed, Blake leveled her fiercest glare at Yang... which of course had no effect at all, ever.
"You know those 'board games' with team CFVY Ruby was going on about?" Yang continued without missing a beat, "Apparently that meant strip poker. Like, the card game. That involves betting. And stripping. And poker faces. Poker faces that Ruby does not have."
"It seems Ruby challenged Coco to a team duel, and that was the game chosen," Pyrrha elaborated, an amused tilt to her smile.
"Yeah I've got no idea what's going on there." Yang ran a hand through her hair, brows furrowed partway between worry and confusion.
Blake's guard rose. Her eyes darted to Weiss and back. Was Ruby aware of what team CFVY had done to Weiss? Was Yang?
"It's likely just a schoolgirl crush," Pyrrha suggested, earning a look of quiet surprise from Blake.
"A what?" Yang's head whipped around so fast her hair followed through in a lovely golden arc.
Blake saw her chance and smirked. "I can see it. A young freshman enamored with the cool upperclassman... A classic."
"She does have a distinct fascination with Coco's weapon." Pyrrha agreed, putting a hand to her chin in thought.
Yang's mouth had dropped open in horror. "Oh no. No. Not Coco. Of all the people she could- okay so I've gotta go talk to my little sister and save her from eternal corruption right now bye guys!" Yang's last few words came in a rush, trailing after her mad dash out the door.
Weiss exchanged a look with Blake. She was still getting over the part where Coco tried to rope Ruby Rose into a game of strip poker. Did Ruby even know what strip poker was? The fencer cleared her throat, "Well. This is kind of completely unnecessary considering I'm about to be discharged, but I suppose it was the least they could do to show some concern after-" Oh, right, Pyrrha didn't know about the guilt-trip drinking game session. Dust, how many times had Blake seen her intoxicated/drugged his week? She flushed, "-after... all this time. That they've known us. Where's the nurse? Is anyone coming to discharge me?"
Pyrrha's curious expression faded at the mention of a nurse. "One of the nurses was looking at your charts before we came in. Does this mean you're feeling healthier?"
Than when I had a cane sword protruding from my stomach? Weiss gave a strained smile, gripping the bedsheets near her middle, "Yes, much."
The doorknob turned, and of all people Nora came bursting through in a track suit that matched Pyrrha's, but had its sleeves rolled up to the elbows and knees and had been decorated haphazardly with pink duct tape.
"I have sports drinks!" she announced, holding a black and green can of some kind of sugar-packed beverage overhead. Another three cans jostled in her arms as she paused, looking back and forth, "Wait, where's Yang? Are we done jogging already? Ugh, finally. Jogging is so boring," belatedly, she greeted the room's initial occupants, "Hi Weiss and Blake! Are you guys coming to breakfast? It's pancake daaaaay~"
The last bit was offered as if the force of pancakes alone could lure Weiss from a hospital bed. The heiress pinched the bridge of her nose, opting to let Blake field this one.
Blake paused, gears visibly working until something clicked into place. She folded her arms, expression perfectly stoic as she answered, "Sorry Nora, but this morning Weiss will be eating a special breakfast, handmade by myself."
"I had no idea you knew how to cook," Pyrrha said with an easy smile.
"There are many things you don't know about me," Blake lifted her chin a fraction and side eyed her classmate.
"I see." Though the red headed warrior was clearly holding back a giggle at this point, she managed to crack a grin at Nora. "Well then, I suppose that means more pancakes for us."
"Right, and more together time for them. Sounds like a good plan," Nora nodded in total understanding, shaking her sports drink. She turned brightly to the door, "You're still missing out. Anyway, see you guys later!"
As the door swung shut behind the two cheerful, waving members of Team JNPR, Weiss quit sputtering protests and sighed, collapsing back in bed where she continued fighting the losing battle to control her blush. She aimed a glare she didn't really mean at Blake, "Could you possibly have come up with a more blatantly extravagant excuse?"
Blake smirked. "I did briefly consider using Weiss needs to wash her hair. Has that element of truth going for it."
"Ha ha," Weiss drew her very-much-in-need-of-washing hair over one shoulder, combing its few tangles out with her fingers, "Do you even know how to cook?"
"Of course I do," Blake waved a hand, skirting around the edge of the bed to examine the multitude of get well flowers. Did Velvet's teammates seriously think flowers would make up for the stunt they pulled? Granted, they were beautiful - there were more colors than teeth in a Beowolf's jaw - but she really wished she could have been there to throw the flowers right back into those boy's faces. "I can have a fresh fish from stream to plate in under thirty minutes."
"I'm fairly certain a raw fish on a tin plate doesn't count as 'cooking'," Weiss crossed her arms, smug in her teasing. "but you get points for resourcefulness."
"Oh, you have me on a scoring system now?" Blake tried not to look as interested as she was, investigating a strange gap in the bundle of flowers. She pulled out a tall, thin bottle made of pink glass, a decorative name written on it in a script Blake couldn't read - ancient Mistralian perhaps? - but the numbers, a small, elegant 2.3% printed near the edge of the label clearly marked it as very, very weak alcohol.
There was a sticky note attached to it, which she read aloud, "You might not remember, but this one was your favorite. Feel better. Kick as- er, butts. Love, CFVY," Blake raised both brows at Weiss.
Weiss looked like she could have snapped the bottle in two.
"Remind me to kill them," she gritted out, flushed and sliding a little farther down under the blankets.
"Consider it added to our list of romantic date ideas," Blake hid the bottle in the flowers once more. She shoved the flowers into the corner as best she could, trying to make a path for Weiss. When that failed, she shoved them under the bed, pushing Myrtenaster and Gambol Shroud into view in the process. "...Good enough."
"Speaking of... ideas, I suppose this throws a wrench in our plan to go to the fair," Weiss slipped a hand under the blankets and pressed it to her stomach, wincing. It didn't hurt, but it definitely twinged. Walking wasn't going to be particularly fun.
Blake's face fell a bit at that, but only for a second. "Well, the fair is running the whole weekend," she paused as a short elderly nurse quietly entered the room. They briefly exchanged smiles.
"Take it easy today, see how you feel tomorrow," Blake continued, watching the nurse take Weiss's readings. "In the meantime, I'll have to figure out a way around Goodwitch's mission to keep me on lockdown."
"She's still-" Weiss glanced at the nurse, not wanting her to overhead ill-will towards one of Beacon's professors, "I mean, she must have a good reason to want to keep you on campus, though, right?"
She sat up as straight as possible and tried to look extra-well so the little old lady would take the IV out of her arm and give her the okay to leave.
"That would be the optimistic assumption," Blake sighed.
Satisfied with the monitor's readings, the nurse cut into the break in conversation, gently taking hold of Weiss's arm and feeling around the tape holding down her IVs. "All right dear heart, let's get you disconnected. Hold still, now."
Weiss held still, but frowned. Blake looked so discouraged. If she could have seen her ears, they might have drooped. That was unacceptable.
"Well, maybe we should ask. Unless you already have," she couldn't help flinching as the IV and such was removed, "Ouch!"
"Sorry dear," the nurse wiped the area down with a cool antiseptic and covered it with an oversized waterproof bandaid. "There. All set. You'll be free to go as soon as the professor discharges you."
"You mean, professor Goodwitch?" Blake squinted when the nurse shrugged, exchanging a glance with Weiss. It seemed odd that it wouldn't be one of the doctors or nurses. Then again, some days it seemed like Goodwitch was in charge of everything but Ozpin.
A light knock came at the open door frame, and lo and behold, there, as if summoned by Blake's mere thought, stood Beacon's Headmaster. He was tall, dressed as ever in his stately jacket and emerald kerchief, his ever present coffee mug in hand. The fluorescent lighting gave his gray hair a touch more white as he greeted the room's occupants.
"Pardon me for showing up a bit early for visiting hours, Miss Belladonna, Miss Schnee," he stepped into the room. The look in his eyes as he tipped his head to look at the two girls over the tops of his spectacles was one of concern, "I've just been made aware of a matter I believe we should discuss."
A/N: Well, whenever Ozpin shows up it's either going to be really good, or really bad.
HUGS,
Defenestrator
