Falling in love, Weiss discovers, rather inconveniently in the middle of a fight, is a lot like wielding a weapon.
There's the push and the pull, the drawing blood and taking of it. Weiss is rather inclined to think of it as a violent, bloody dance — the way she's almost constantly tripping over her own feet trying to follow her partner when she has no idea what her next move will be. Then, of course, there's the fact that whoever she's dancing with is equally as clumsy as she happens to be, which Ruby definitely is.
"Thank me later," she quips, after she's done saving the idiot's ass for the millionth time in her life. And then it hits her right in the chest, not a Grimm's blow, not a weapon, and worse that Cinder's fiery spear that had impaled her a couple days ago — this is affection. Not the kind she feels for Yang or Blake or any of their other friends, it's the kind that turns her inside out whenever she so much as sees a malevolent force heading towards Ruby. The kind that automatically reaches out to touch Ruby when she's near, that draws her eyes, unbidden to search her out in a fight.
Ruby catches her a while later, holding onto her hand as she hangs off a moving train, and Weiss can do nothing other than blink back at her — at her bright eyes, and her hair whipping around in the wind. She then proceeds to whisk them both to between two train carriages, in a flurry of red. When Weiss tries to step away, to catch her breath, she finds she's stuck to the ground, or more accurately, entangled with Ruby. They've got their arms wrapped tight around each other, and with every movement, strands of Ruby's hair land onto her face. Weiss doesn't know it then, but all of her molecules have indeed just been rearranged. She has a feeling that stupid thing in her chest has been put back together to form Ruby's name instead.
It's almost offensive how easily she feels the cold when she's supposed to be the Ice-Queen. Yang would say something stupid about her not having a thick skin because she grew up in the literal lap of luxury (and she would be right, but that's beside the point) and Blake would probably punch her in her arm, but thankfully, nobody's noticed yet. So she stands in the corner of the porch, looking out at the rapidly falling snow outside the creepy house.
"You're cold," Ruby murmurs when she sidles up to her.
Of course. Of course Ruby sees. "Everyone's cold," Weiss says back.
Ruby shrugs, gently reaches for her hands, her eyes on Weiss' the entire time. Is this okay, she seems to be asking, and Weiss, helpless, can only nod.
Ruby covers Weiss' hands with her own, raises it to her face and like it's a secret, breathes warm air into their cupped palms. She's no longer looking right at Weiss, instead focusing her attention onto their hands, and Weiss, like any other time she's lucky enough to get to stare at Ruby freely, takes this opportunity to do so. The cold in her bones has instead been replaced with warmth — Ruby warmth, the particular shade that she can only find around Ruby — and even the tremendous crash of Qrow and Jaune breaking down the door registers to her as though coming from far, far away.
Ruby blows one last gust of warm air into their hands before they make their way inside. She doesn't let go, though. Weiss realizes she didn't want her to, anyways.
There are around ten people in the house besides the three people who actually live there, and not enough beds. It's a logistical nightmare.
"Or," Nora says, smirking in a very wink-wink-nudge-nudge way while she side-eyes Ren, "it's an opportunity."
Ren colors, fiddles with his collar until he's sunk half into it. They're all polite enough to look away; the sight of Ren, embarrassed is physically painful to witness.
"We'll — we'll manage, won't we?" Ruby pipes up, smiling brightly, and Weiss sees them all smile back in reflex. Sometimes she wonders if she's the only one Ruby can twist around her little finger — other times she is reminded that she just has that effect on people. Why else would they follow her to the ends of the planet? When Ruby talks, people believe.
(When Ruby talks, Weiss physically feels her heart careening out of control, skidding into a blind curve with no idea what lying ahead. On and on and on, like Ruby's running up ahead and Weiss follows, with just her voice for company)
They end up cramped in two rooms — Maria gets the bed in the guest room, in honor of her being practically a fossil, a fact that gets Yang's ears boxed when she says it aloud. Oscar, Jaune, Nora and Ren plant mattresses on the free space on the floor and are snoring in fifteen minutes. Qrow claims he won't sleep much, and finds a rocking chair that he pulls close to the window, and he sits there, swigging rum ominously every once in a while. The rest of them decide to concede the couch in the living room to Ruby, who looks the most exhausted. And when Weiss gets up because she can't sleep, she sees Blake and Yang snoozing next to each other, their hands loosely held close to Blake's chest.
"Can't sleep either, huh?" she hears from somewhere beside her when she goes out to the porch, and whirls around, only to see Terra sitting in the corner. Adrian is perched on her lap, watching the soft snow drizzling outside.
Weiss smiles at her, feeling a little awkward about the entire thing. Shrugs. "Shouldn't he be... asleep?" A quick glance at the clock confirms her suspicions. It's almost one.
Terra chuckles. "He conked out at seven. He wakes up in the middle of the night at least once. This — this helps him go back to sleep. Plus," she pauses to bend a little and deposit a tiny kiss on top of his tiny head, "it's one of the few minutes I get to spend with him in the day."
Weiss thinks of her own childhood, of nightmares and staying up all night terrified, because there was no way, absolutely no way she was allowed to wake her parents up for any reason besides imminent death. The Schnee estate was vast, confusing and filled with entirely too many showpieces no one would ever use, full of winding staircases that lead nowhere close to comfort.
This house is tiny and full of love. Every dent on the couch talks of tickle fights and places someone was so happy that they bounced their way into almost breaking it; the lower parts of the walls are scribbled over with crayons and blue hearts and stick figures of smiling people. She thinks back to dinner when Oscar and Nora burned whatever pie abomination they were supposed to be baking and then they'd all crammed into that tiny space to try to salvage it, and Weiss could've sworn even the tiny gaps between them were overflowing with love.
(This is a house someone would want to walk into at the end of the day. A place of shelter. A home)
"Jaune did mention you, you know?" Terra says, after a while, and Weiss is startled out of her train of thought. "In his letters to Saphron when you kids were at Beacon. He was particularly effusive in his description of you."
"Oh dear lord," she says, burying her face in her hands because that phase of her life seems so far, far away now. "I'm so glad he got over it. Not before singing an awful made-up song on his guitar, though."
Terra laughs, softly, and Weiss notices that Adrian's fallen asleep against her chest, his head resting on the arm she's moved awkwardly to brace him.
"Saph worries about him," Terra says. "He makes sure to text her updates, but she can tell when he's left a lot out. He'll text her something like roadtrip and she knows to translate it to we're on the run and have no idea where our next meal is coming from. He's her only brother and kinda the baby of the family. And she... she frets."
"And when she worries, you worry," Weiss completes.
When Terra looks up at her next, it is with all of her emotions plain on her face to see. Weiss reads consternation, affection, helpless desperation and blinding, blinding love before she bites at her lip and wipes it clean. Nods.
Weiss goes back inside a couple of minutes after they do, Adrian's head hanging off his mother's shoulder as they make their way to his room. When she walks in, she catches a glimpse of Qrow, snoring with a blanket now thrown across his torso, and movement off the corner of her eye. Oscar gives her a boyish grin, holds up a finger to his lips, before he disappears back to the guest room. She climbs over Yang and Blake, and finds her way, inexplicably, to Ruby's side.
At some point in the night, Ruby had apparently kicked off her sheets and they now lay half-thrown over her legs. Weiss kneels at her head, looks on. At her impossibly young features, and her mouth that has fallen open, and the few strands of hair that are strewn across her forehead. Weiss wants to kiss the spot where they meet, wants to kiss the tiny freckle just beside her nose, her snoring mouth. She flushes, and balls her hands up into tight, wanting fists.
When the urge passes (passes in a way that thirst in the desert passes, always there beneath the surface, just pushed back down enough so one can concentrate on more important things), she pulls the sheets up over her body, and tucks the ends, carefully over her shoulders. Her fingers wander, unprompted, to Ruby's face, where they trace the path of her hair, and brush it away. Once. Twice.
And Ruby stirs beneath her hand, and then is staring at her, wide-eyed. There is no fanfare to how she wakes up, no protracted sigh or stretching. Weiss guesses it's a product of their on-the-run lives — when there is no time to breathe, one gets used to waking and sleeping easily. In the end there they are, with Weiss kneeling next to Ruby, their faces shrouded in moonlight, staring at each other.
"I'm sorry I woke you up," she whispers, after a beat. Her hand is still resting on Ruby's face. When she moves to bring it back, Ruby stirs. Her hand comes up to cover Weiss', keeping it there.
"It's okay," Ruby whispers back, still holding her goddamned hand close to her face. Weiss can feel her breath tripping all over itself, like it's not sure what to do in such close proximity. It's almost intimate, she imagines, the both of them with their heads huddled together. If she leaned forward a smidge, their foreheads would touch. A head tilt — and here the thought makes her feel hot all over — and they would be kissing.
(The distance suddenly feels almost awfully unbearable to her)
Ruby's still staring up at her, her eyes still wide and serious. When it all becomes too much, Weiss moves her hand to cover her eyes.
Ruby's lips curve up in a sleepy smile. "What?"
"Stop," she says, flustered, "stop looking at me."
"But I like looking at you," Ruby tells her, sounding amused and Weiss is one hundred percent sure she is going to die tonight.
(She doesn't mean it she doesn't mean it she doesn't mean it she doesn't — then — she means it in a different way than what you're hoping for so shut up shut up shut up)
"Shut up," she says, finally, then adds. "Dunce."
Ruby giggles, then her mouth stretches open into the hugest yawn ever. Weiss laughs, boops her nose, because she simply must.
"Sleep, okay?" she says, one last time. Then, without thinking too much about it, she leans down and presses her lips to Ruby's forehead.
She's not sure, but Ruby looks a little like she's blushing. She blinks a few times, then says: "Now I will."
Weiss' mattress is just below the couch. Five minutes after she lies down on it, she feels Ruby's hand travel down and rest on her head. It is to the continuous motion of her hand through Weiss' hair that sleep finally takes her when it does.
Winter is all angles and bones. Not just physically, but also in the way she carries herself. She is sharp edges and words that cut easily. Weiss knows it's not just her — the Schnee family tends to make knives out of people and then set them upon the rest of the world to hurt and maim. Weiss knows that better than anyone else, knows that some blades draw blood unwillingly.
Also knows that Winter is trying her very best to change.
But her posture is still ramrod straight, refusal to relax written into every single one of her cells. They've all split up after their celebration for their newest promotion to Huntsmen and Huntresses: Yang and Blake having disappeared on a trip to explore the city, Ren, Nora and Jaune off to gorge on Atlesian delicacies, and they'd left Oscar practicing sparring with Ruby. Winter had dropped in to invite her out to a celebratory dinner at Atlas' finest dining establishment, and so here they were, sitting awkwardly in front of each other, eating whatever was on their plates.
Weiss wonders if Winter would die of shock if she dared to reach over and steal one of the dumplings on her plate. The Weiss of two years ago wouldn't even have entertained the thought.
Today, she thinks about it maybe five seconds before picking one up and shoving it into her mouth.
Winter's eyebrows are arched. "You know Father would disapprove of the declination of your table manners."
"Good thing I don't care, then," she replies, flippantly. "Do you?"
Winter rolls her eyes, takes a sip of her wine. "You're my sister, Weiss. You could take half my liver and I'd only call you a boob. Or something equivalent."
That's how Winter Schnee loves. In casual gestures, in standing behind Weiss, ready to sacrifice herself at a moment's notice. It is not the unwavering, adoring devotion of Yang and Ruby — Yang wouldn't even entertain the thought of a potential hurt coming her sister's way, jumping into action to save her before she even asks. Winter, however, needs to make sure Weiss can take care of herself, only hanging back in case things get too dire.
She smacks her hand with the chopsticks when Weiss reaches for another one. "I offered up a liver, you go looking for my heart? Behave, Weiss."
It makes her laugh.
And it's this foreign... ease, for lack of a better word, that has Weiss' tongue loose enough for her to shoot Hey, Winter, you ever been in love before an hour later, when they're walking back to the military complex.
Her sister seems to be choking on thin air — she coughs and squawks and makes all sorts of undignified noises, before smacking Weiss on her head to make her stop laughing.
"I'm sorry," Weiss says, when that hysterical bout is over. "Just wanted to see the look on your face. You don't, you don't have to answer that if it's too personal."
"Imbecile," Winter mutters, but she turns to face her anyway. They're almost at the building that has their apartment, and they stop almost simultaneously, standing in front of each other and trying very hard to avoid looking into each other's eyes.
Winter hesitates, then speaks again. "Really want to know?"
Oh. Wow. Okay. "Yes," she nods, trying to look casual about the whole thing.
"Once," Winter tells her, running her hands through her perfectly coiffed hair in a very uncharacteristic move. "Before I joined the military."
"And what happened?" Weiss asks, after a prolonged pause.
Winter's smile is both sad and amused. "Father found out about her. What do you think?"
And she doesn't know if it's the easily dropped pronoun, or the way she can still read the utter loneliness in her sister's eyes, but Weiss finds herself taking a step forward and wrapping Winter up in a hug.
(Winter is all angles and bones)
And stiff limbs. "What," her sister says, hesitantly, "Weiss, what are you doing?"
"Hugging you."
"We don't do that," comes the prim response.
"We also don't steal food off of each other's plates, Winter," she replies, easily, still acutely conscious of the way Winter is just pressed against her stiffly. "As far as major changes go, I personally wouldn't mind seeing a lot more of this."
Winter's arms come up, finally and hang loosely off her shoulders. As far as hugs go, it's not the most comfortable one.
(As far as hugs go, it's one of the best Weiss has ever had)
And that's' the moment, she becomes aware of movement from somewhere up high. Winter's back is facing the building, so she's in the perfect position to tilt her head up and see—
(What in God's name?)
Oscar, Jaune, Nora, Ruby, Blake and Yang and crammed into the same window, peeking out at them, and appear to be giggling furiously. Ren, thankfully, seems to have enough dignity to not stoop to the level of these utter pains in her ass.
"What the—"
"Weiss?" Winter asks, still awkwardly hugging her. "Something wrong?"
She laughs. "Depends on what you define as wrong," she says, and disentangles, so Winter can turn around and see for herself.
"Oh dear."
A chorus comes sailing from above. "Hi, Officer Winter!" they all say, and then disperse, laughing madly. Only Ruby remains in the end, waving at them shyly.
Winter, to her utter surprise (and really, it shouldn't have been. If the evening had taught her anything, it was that she didn't give her sister enough credit), waves back. When she turns back to Weiss, she's even smiling a little.
"I like that one," she tells her, eyes glinting with what Weiss can only define as mirth.
"Everyone likes her," Weiss replies, shrugging.
"Do you?" Winter's eyebrows are raised, and Weiss cannot help dropping her gaze, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of her neck. Winter's hand falls on her hair, ruffles it up a little.
Her parting words are Be careful, you boob. Weiss pretends not to understand.
Blake and Yang are easy to figure out. Even Weiss, who has a general tendency of being clueless in these matters, can see the way Blake kind of — withers, when Yang isn't around. There's a light in her eyes that's only visible when Yang's close to her, a subtle confidence in her shoulders that says Yeah, I'm good now. Blake and Yang carry their love in their bodies, always moulding themselves to the other's relative position. Weiss is sure even they don't realize it yet, the way they always seem to come together when they're in the same room, this unconscious meeting of opposite poles that ends in relief. They're tangled hands, arms resting around shoulders, feet nudging each other, eventually leading up to secret smiles in team meetings.
Sometimes, Weiss is sick of the whole thing.
Oftentimes, Weiss wants them to be happy so, so much that she fights the urge to push them into a room together for two hours.
"They'll be back soon, you know?" she tells Blake, who hasn't moved from the window since they finally made contact with the rest of the team. Blake whirls around, relaxes, then accepts the coffee Weiss is holding out to her.
"Thanks," Blake says. "I just—"
"I know, I know. You worry."
"I just," she says, tugs at her hair with her free hand, "I just, I don't know how anyone does it. Stay away, I mean, I — it's like I can't breathe properly when I don't see her."
And Weiss has done it once, a long time ago, although the magnitude of her feelings wasn't known to her back then. Back when her father had locked her up in an ivory tower and she had no idea what Blake or Yang or Ruby were doing, if they were even alright. But you still stayed up all night, wondering if Ruby was okay, if she had eaten, if she was thinking about Weiss.
She imagines having to leave Ruby for a moment now, and the melancholy that washes over her almost brings her to her knees.
"Some hypocrite you are," she says, teasing Blake gently, "with all the find yourself schtick you gave Nora earlier."
She laughs, and Weiss finds herself hoping it's taken her mind off of Yang for at least a little while.
"I like your brother," she says, then. "He's adorable."
"Can you say that to him, please?" Weiss begs her. "And can I please be in the room when you do so?"
There's another moment of levity. "Hey," she starts, frowning a little. "Do you know where he is right now? Haven't seen either him or my mother after the whole Grimm debacle."
"I last saw him with Ruby," Blake says. "I think he's... quite taken to her, actually."
Weiss sighs. "Of course."
(Ruby is the pied piper, after all. Everyone would follow her to the ends of the planet)
(Weiss? Weiss would walk with her beyond it)
Blake grins at her.
"What?"
"Oh, I don't know," she says, mischievously. "Seems he's not the only Schnee who's quite taken with her."
(Blake deserves the massive bump running headlong into the glyph Weiss conjures up in the next second. No doubts about that)
The end of the world comes after the night before the end of the world.
Like a protracted moment of utter calm before the cacophony starts, they all comes together, and eventually split up to the places that give them the most peace. Weiss takes a tour of the house once. Her mother's sleeping on a chair next to Whitley's bed; Weiss covers her with a blanket before she moves on. Jaune and Oscar are sitting guard over Penny, next to Ren, who has squeezed himself in beside Nora. Yang smiles at her warmly when she comes upon her and Blake in another room. Blake's fallen asleep with her head resting on Yang's lap. She wanders around for a little while more, until she finally comes upon Ruby in her bedroom.
"Why is it," Weiss says, "that most of the time I meet you, I have to tell you to go to sleep?"
Ruby turns, smiles at her, but the smile is fractured in places. Weiss takes a step forward, closer.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
"Nothing, nothing, I," Ruby takes a deep breath, looks around. "I can't believe you lived here."
Weiss lets her change the topic. "What's so unbelievable about that?"
"Just doesn't look like you, that's all."
"That's because I don't exactly belong here."
"Where do you belong then?" Ruby asks, looking right at her.
With you. "With all of you," she says. It's true. "Blake and Yang. And Jaune and Nora and Ren and Oscar. And even — that stupid alcoholic uncle of yours. And—"
"—and?" she asks, a lopsided grin on her face.
"And you."
Ruby sighs, steps forward so they're in each other's personal space.
"Weiss," she says once, quietly.
Weiss closes her eyes, takes a step forward of her own, blindly, feeling Ruby's steadying hands on her shoulders, her back, her hair. She feels a hand carefully moving against the scrunchie holding her hair together.
"Can I?"
She nods, feels her hair pulls free. Ruby helps detangle it, the braid, and ends with tender hands, smiles.
"I like your hair," she says, then makes a soft sound in her throat, urgent, wanting. "Weiss."
"Yes, Ruby?"
"Weiss, Weiss, Weiss," Ruby says, again, and now her forehead is tipped against Weiss'.
"What, darling?" Weiss murmurs, and feels Ruby's shuddering breath in response. There's a small, desperate kiss pressed to her hair, then her forehead, and amusingly enough, her nose.
"Weiss, I have to tell you—"
"—wait!" she says, not moving. It's not like she could. A Grimm could be standing in the room right now and it couldn't draw her away from Ruby. She touches Ruby's cheek gently, feels Ruby sigh and sink into her palm. "Please — please don't say what you're about to."
(A part of her, the stupid, hopeful part knows what it is and craves it, dreads it, mourns it already)
"And what am I about to say?" Ruby asks, her eyes burning with something Weiss can't find the words to define.
"Something incriminating, I fear."
"You fear?"
"Yes. But I also — I hope."
"Then let me say it," Ruby implores. She removes her arms from around Weiss, grabs her hands and raises them to her lips. Kisses her knuckles carefully. "Weiss, you know already. You must know."
"I do, sweetheart, I do," she says, resting her head against Ruby's collarbone. The two of them have been circling each other in some dance that Weiss hasn't been able to pin down yet, have been hurtling, at alarming speeds towards unknown cliffs, and the same way that Ruby has to know that Weiss would split herself end to end for her, that if cut into pieces, Weiss would bleed for her happily, Weiss knows.
(All love is violence. She knows that better than anyone)
"Tell me," she starts, "tell me when there is peace."
"But there will never be peace!" Ruby says, and her voice cracks. Weiss raises her hand blindly to press at her cheek and feels the warm moisture sticking there.
She rises on her toes so they're level again. "There will be." Weiss would make sure of it. For Yang and Blake, who need time to get their fledgling love off the ground. For Ren and Nora and Jaune who have lost too many friends already. For Oscar, who deserves a chance to grow up and for Qrow, who deserves a chance to feel young again. For Penny and Maria and Pietro and her mother and Whitley and Winter.
For the girl she loves.
For Ruby.
When they kiss, Weiss thinks she's shattering into a million pieces, like she would never be the same again, even if reformed into someone who resembles Weiss Schnee on the surface. How could she, with the memory of the movement of Ruby's lips now imprinted on hers, her fingers tracking indelible marks through her hair — tomorrow, she will remember, a week later, she will remember, if somehow, she couldn't see Ruby for another thirty years, her skin would remind her, every day.
The end of the world comes before the day after the end of the world.
Weiss wakes up in the woods, empty handed. She wakes up, and thinks of Ren and Nora and Oscar, hopes they got to safety. Of her mom and Whitley and Winter. She thinks of Jaune who tried carrying her to the door. Of Yang who fell infinite miles into the void before Blake fell an equal distance to her knees, of finding Gambol Shroud and trying her very best to gather her courage to honor her teammates best.
Weiss wakes up in the woods, stumbles to her feet, looks around. There's water to be searched for, and sustenance to be gathered. She's got a long journey ahead of her, after all.
Ruby's waiting for her.