Disclaimer: All characters belong to Rooster Teeth Productions
Co-Authored with ToxicExotic
Hot and Cold
Things had been pretty quiet over the past three days. Other than a couple of minor Grimm attacks, there really hadn't been much trouble. Blake suspected that was mostly due to Ruby's father, Tai. The man was always awake and out of the house hours before anyone awoke, and the one time she had watched him leave, she had seen him dispatch the few creatures in the garden with frightening efficiency. He had taken out three Beowolves and an Ursa in a matter of seconds with barely any effort and without drawing his weapon. From what she had seen in his training during the day, and from the one time Yang had decided to pick a fight with him, he was much like Ren in that he was very proficient with aura techniques. Blake had seen Tai literally send an aura copy of himself to deliver a punch to his daughter's gut that sent her flying, and she was pretty sure that wasn't his semblance. Not that she had any idea what that was either.
With Tai handling the Grimm, they had actually been able to relax properly for what felt like the first time all week. It had taken a little time for the sisters to cheer up, in fact they had spent most of the day following the funeral away from the house together, but they seemed to have started to bounce back from losing a friend. To anyone who wasn't a huntress, it might have seemed cold that it only took two days, but Blake knew it was because the girls felt they needed to, if they were to continue their work. After the sisters had returned from their trip though, Ruby had clearly been trying to spend a little more time with her. It was something Blake was never going to complain about.
"Blake?"
"Huh?" Blake looked up at her girlfriend, the silver eyes gazing at her curiously. "Sorry, zoned out. What do you want?"
"Hmmm, hit me." Ruby replied uncertainly.
She placed a card face up on Ruby's others, the bright red seven making the girl's total add up to twenty-five. A quiet "Aww man." escaped the girl's lips and Blake felt a smile pull at her own. They had been sitting on Ruby's bed for the last hour and a half, and Blake had been trying to teach her how to play blackjack. While she had picked up the basic rules rather quickly, as Blake had decided against teaching her how to split just yet, the reaper still struggled with what numbers she should hit on or not.
"The less players there are, the lower you can stay," Blake chuckled and scooped up the cards. "Since there are going to be more high cards in the deck."
"Gotcha," Ruby said with an eager nod as she dealt out the cards again.
"Hey, Rubes," said a voice from the hallway. "Dad's going to the shop. You want anything?"
"Cookies," Ruby replied before Yang was even in sight. "Oh! And some soda."
"'Kay. You want anything, Bl…" Yang's works stopped as her fuzzy head of blonde hair appeared in the doorway. Her eyes flickered between them, sat cross legged on the bed and the cards in Blake's hands, and a mischievous grin spread from ear to ear. "What'chu two doing?" she said in a suggestive tone.
"Blake is teaching me how to play blackjack," Ruby replied, clearly oblivious to Yang's tone and smile as she was looking intently at her cards, which added up to fourteen.
"Oh really?" Blake heard the quiet chuckle that left her partner's throat. "Betting anything… interesting?"
"Nope," she replied coolly, determined not to let Ruby get teased and have the peaceful mood broken. "Just teaching her. And can you ask Tai to pick me up some of those scampi chips, please?"
With a purposely side eye to the blonde, that seemed to be understood, Yang let out a sigh and Blake heard her mutter the words "No fun." Grinning to herself, she thought it was over, but Yang next words as she left confused her a little. "Anyway, it's a little cold in here too, so I'm turning the heat on."
It confused her because Yang was always warm. Even when it was raining outside, the blonde would be out in her tank top training. The same was true for Coco. Putting it aside as something the blonde was likely doing for Velvet, Blake returned to the game with a shake of her head. Looking at her own cards, she saw that she had seventeen, and knew Ruby would likely ask for another card. Sure enough Ruby asked for another and Blake place a six on the pile. Giving one to herself, she was lucky enough to get a four and Ruby let out a loud groan.
"That was totally unfair!"
"I got lucky." Blake chuckled honestly and pulled the cards back in.
"You! You're doing that counting cards thing," Ruby said accusingly, her silver eyes squinted suspiciously but with no real belief behind them.
"I mean… I do know how to," Blake admitted, having been taught by Ilia who was a master at subterfuge. "But I promise I'm not. Here," she shuffled the deck with a smile at her girlfriend. "See, now I don't know what is where."
"Hmm," The reaper hummed playfully. "I'll believe you… for now."
Blake grinned at the girl and dealt the cards out again. It was nice just relaxing and doing something mindless for a while. So often their lives was training and fighting, a seemingly never ending rotation that left very little time between the coursework and classes and missions. Even on Patch, they had been been on edge due to the constant Grimm attacks. That had been her life before Beacon too. So to just sit on the bed and blow off some steam, like an average teenager, was an experience she had learned to enjoy in the months since leaving her former colleagues. The fact that Ruby was who she was spending her time with now, just made those moments all the better.
As time passed and more hands were dealt, the girl was slowly getting better. She was making better calls in regards to when she should stay or when she should hit, and Blake even began to teach her how to split; though the first time she had done it, she'd failed to tell the girl before hand and got accused of cheating. It had been fun watching Ruby bumble over the mistake, the girl as cute as ever, and though she had thought the heat was simply from laughing at her girlfriend's blush. She quickly realised though from the thin sweat on Ruby's brow that the heating Yang had turned on had finally started to warm the house, and Blake sat in her jacket, quickly began to start sweltering.
"Hmmm…" Ruby hummed, staring at her three cards for a couple of seconds and deciding if it was worth it to hit on sixteen when Blake had nineteen. "Hit me." Blake laid down the card and let out a ground as she saw it was a five. "HA! TWENTY-ONE!" The girl cried victoriously.
"You haven't won yet," she smirked. She knew it was risky to draw again, and she really should have just let the game end so she could take her jacket off to cool down a little, but she wanted to keep her winning streak. Unfortunately, her luck had run out and the card she laid down was queen.
"Ha, no more winning streak for you." Ruby said happily and punched the air as she stuck out her tongue.
"Lasted a while though, but you won fair and square." She chuckled at Ruby's excitement for having won a single hand.
However, since the hand was over, Blake could finally remove her jacket. Her only intention had been to cool off a little due to the heat of the room, and she had completely failed to consider the connotations of doing it at that specific moment. So as she pulled her zipper down and pulled the jacket over her shoulders, she heard a squeal and looked up to see Ruby blushing a bright red and hiding her eyes with her cloak.
"Ahhhhhh! What'reyoudoing?"
The realisation clicked immediately and Blake felt her cheeks flush. Ruby had just won a hand, her first hand, and Blake had chosen that moment to remove an article of clothing. Obviously the redheaded reaper had gotten the wrong impression, and the mere fact that Ruby thought Blake would reward her winning a hand with the discarding of clothes was something she needed a second to process. However, once Blake did, she decided that it was something she should quickly set about correcting. Even if she did think the flustering was incredibly cute.
"I didn… that wasn…" Blake let out a sigh and rolled her eyes at her own inability to vocalise such an easy clarification. "I was just hot."
"O-Oh!" Ruby breathed shyly, slowly letting the sides of her cloak drop to reveal her extremely pink cheeks. "S-Sorry."
"It's fine," Blake said with a sigh of relief as she reached out to take the cards back. As she shuffled them again, she felt curiosity burn within her and had to ask. "Did you really think I would do that?"
"N-No… Uhh… Maybe I'm just hot too," Ruby chuckled nervously and wiped away the sweat with her forearm while detaching her cloak with her other hand and placing it aside. Even then, with six months of knowing her, seeing Ruby without her cloak was still a weird sight.
Nevertheless, Blake dealt the cards out again and they both quickly put the incident behind them. However, even after a couple of hands, the image of Ruby being flustered remained in her mind, and Blake found herself looking up from her cards frequently to glance at her girlfriend; except she didn't seem to be the only one. More often than not she would be met with silver eyes staring at her and after a couple of times, the looks began to linger and cause smiles to etch themselves on her face.
It took Ruby another ten minutes to win another hand, ten minutes of the flustered look printed into her mind and the constant looks, and its was those things she blamed her next action on. As Ruby got excited about her win with a nineteen point hand, a devilish idea came to Blake and she subtly hooked her finger into one of her purple socks and pulled it off. The effect was immediate and Ruby's eyes shot open, the bright silver orbs staring at her accusingly again as her pale skin grew a fierce red.
"H-Hey! Th-That was on purpose that time."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Blake grinned, enjoying just how much more Ruby was flustering. She of course wasn't going to take it too far, but she flicked the sock at the girl and gave her a wink.
That seemed to be the final straw and Ruby's face turned scarlet. "You tease!" She gasped and Blake caught the very first petal with the corner of her eye.
She had learned from their little food fight in the forest, and immediately prepared herself. As Ruby burst into petals and launched herself straight at her, Blake used her own semblance to push herself backwards. The only thing Ruby's hand caught was the wisp of air the shadow left behind as it dissipated, and with the dexterity born from years of training, Blake wrapped her legs around Ruby's waist as she fell back. Her hand planted itself on the floor and she transitioned into a backwards handspring that ended with Ruby trapped beneath her knees on the floor.
"Gotta be faster than that." She laughed as she looked down at her girlfriend.
Despite being pinned, Ruby was laughing too; her silver eyes alive and alight with joy. From her position, the girl had never looked more beautiful. Her face was still flushed from the earlier teasing, but her skin was flawless and accented the shining silver of her eyes. Her hair, while short, was splayed out around her. Strands of red-tipped hair stuck to her sweaty forehead and covered the cream floor around her, the black making it look like melted chocolate he been spilled everywhere.
Before she knew it, her eyes were trailing downwards over the girl's supple neck, the t-shirt that had bunch up around her breasts and exposed a small portion of her stomach that was flat and toned. Her heart rate picked up as her mind quickly caught up to their precarious position. She was, by the very definition of the words, straddling and ogling her body. Those were two things they were most certainly more than their relationships was ready for, so as hard as it was to pull her eyes away, which turned out to be very hard, she gazed away and slowly rose to her feet.
Though Ruby's eyes were still rather happy, she seemed to have noticed the shift in Blake's mood and slowly sat up.
"Sorry," Blake said, offering a hand out to help the girl to her feet. "I shouldn't have teased you."
"Huh? Why?" Ruby asked as her brow furrowed in confusion. "It's not like you were going to take your top off or something. R-Right?"
"N-No," Blake replied and rubbed her arm. She knew she definitely wouldn't have gone that far. "But… Wasn't it too far?"
"I didn't mind." Ruby shrugged. "I mean…" She took a step forward. "... I know I got a little flustered, but I knew you were just playing."
Blake let out a sigh of relief. As she did, Ruby wrapped her arms around her waist and the scent of strawberries drifted up to her nose. The scent was relaxing, and Blake let herself lean into it and return the hug. "I'm sorry. I'm just trying not to mess this up." She confessed.
"You're not," Ruby smiled up gently, her silver eyes full of happiness again. "I was laughing for a reason."
"I guess," Blake groaned at her own stupidity.
As she looked down and wrapped her arms around the reaper, she felt a coy smile pull at her lips. Letting out a breath, she let herself just take in the girl before her and forget what had just happened, but as she was clearing her head, she saw Ruby reach up and was pleasantly surprised as a kiss was placed on her. Though they tended to be softer and more testing, she liked when Ruby initiated them as it reassured her that she wasn't alone in wanting the affection. So after a second, she closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the feeling of Ruby's warm lips on her own.
However, unlike the other times, she felt Ruby take a step backwards and pull her along. The steps were slow at first, clearly just trying to get her to follow; but once Blake showed she understood, they became a little more purposeful. It wasn't until she felt herself suddenly leaning forward that she realised that Ruby had led her to the bed and sat down. Blake was unsure at first, the position feeling a little intimate, but Ruby was still kissing her. And not just that, she was still leaning back. As much as she knew she should have, Blake couldn't find it in her to break the kiss that was sending warmth rushing through her body, and soon found herself climbing onto the bed to maintain the contact.
Once again she was technically straddling her girlfriend, but this time their hands were on each other and Blake could taste the breakfast the girl had that morning. But that position didn't last long. A pressure on her left side where Ruby's hand was told her that Ruby hadn't finished yet, and more than happy to let Ruby explore how she wanted, Blake obeyed and let her girlfriend guide her onto her side.
She felt cold playing cards press against her back where her shirt had ridden up, but other than that, the position felt a lot more comfortable. Her reservations quickly faded and they continued their make-out session for a little while, though never even used more than just their lips, but Blake enjoyed it all the same. However, eventually Ruby let out a contented hum and finally pulled back.
Her eyes slowly opened to see Ruby smiling happily at her. "See? I feel comfortable with you, Blake. If it's too far, I'll let you know."
Giving the girl a short nod, Blake let her head rest against the bed and brought a hand up to run it through Ruby's hair as she gazed happily into the beautiful silver orbs. Happiness slowly over took her at the pure serenity of the situation, and she soon found herself smiling too.
"Okay." She breathed and twirled a lock of hair around her finger.
Ruby gave her another smile that caused Blake's stomach to erupt into butterflies. She felt the girl's hand digging around her waist and quickly looked down to see Ruby gathering the cards. "So, can we go again?"
"Blackjack? Or making out?" Blake grinned, feeling her playfulness return a little after Ruby's reassurance. "I'm good with either."
"Blackjack." Ruby chuckled, but looked up for a moment with a mischievous grin of her own. "But it would be more fun if we had something to bet."
"Hmm," Blake replied and sat up to help Ruby collect the cards. "I'm absolutely okay with that."
Once all the cards were collected, Blake made to cross her legs and prepared to deal them out, but since Ruby was still laying on her side, she quickly decided to lay back down next to her. She stuck out her tongue and pulled her legs up to remove her other sock, as wearing only one was starting to feel weird, and began to deal the cards into the small space between them. It didn't take long for them to begin enjoying the game again, and with the kisses that were given to the winner of each hand, Blake quickly found herself enjoying that feeling of being normal again.
"OI, LOVEBIRDS!" Yang yelled up the stairs, making Ruby jump a little and rip the corner of her comic book. "Come get your stuff."
"Aww dammit," Ruby pouted while pushing the torn paper back together. "I was really liking this one."
"You can get Sicily to fix it when we get back to Beacon," Blake consoled her with a smile, putting her own book aside and nudging the brooding redhead off of her so that she could get up. "Her semblance is rather handy."
"She said she's gonna charge me next time," Ruby said dully and gave up trying to put the page back together.
Struggling to suppress a smirk at the fact Ruby had convinced the kindly third year to fix her stuff so much that the older girl would start charging for it, Blake slipped off of the bed and made her way to the door. "Be back in a minute." She called back and left the room.
The past two hours had been amazing. After the little awkwardness, the two had enjoyed themselves with the simple card game for a while, and their rule of the winner getting to kiss the other had been more than enough of an excuse for them to keep going for nearly an hour. Over that hour, the rule slowly evolved until they landed on there being a time limit of two seconds, with each hand they won doubling the time. However, Ruby had gotten pretty good at her calls and their wins were quickly evened out. Blake did cheat once though, and counted the cards for a five win-streak that allowed her thirty-two seconds of blissful making out; but she would never tell Ruby that.
There had been a moment where Blake had been beside herself with laughter as Ruby tried to copy her earlier teasing and slip her socks off after a win, but as she was both inexperienced and wearing knee-high socks, she had struggled a little in her attempts to be alluring. Ruby had pouted for a minute, but Blake knew she was only playing and a couple of teasing kisses had returned the reaper to her former mood. After that, the pretense of the game had faded away and they'd spent a couple of minutes just cuddling and enjoying themselves, before they each decided to retrieve a book and quietly read to themselves.
The time had been so nice in fact, that even as she made her way downstairs and heard Coco laughing loudly in the front room, she missed the silence of their seclusion.
"Blake. How you going?" Velvet smiled as she laid across the couch, her head on Coco's lap as the team leader ran a finger tenderly along the long rabbit ears. She'd known quite a few rabbit Faunus in her time and knew that their ears were rather sensitive, so much so that they often hated them being touched; however, Velvet clearly didn't mind Coco doing it. "Yang is in the kitchen."
"Fine thanks." She replied and moved over to the other room. "Glad to finally get some rest."
"I know what you mean." The girl chuckled.
"Speak for yourselves," Coco scoffed. "Tai keeps stealing all my kills. I'm gonna get rusty at this rate."
"Please, you're fine. Besides, I didn't hear you complaining when you were able to spend an extra hour in bed this morning."
"Yeah well, I hate mornings."
"We know," Blake grinned at the girl who had once growled at them all to shut up after staying over and being woken at nine in the morning on a Saturday. "Anyway, I'm gonna get my stuff and head back up. Later."
The two girls gave a small wave and Blake continued on to the kitchen, where Yang and Tai were tossing food to each other. Over the past few days that Tai had been back, she had noticed that the two had a rather good relationship. It was rare for them to not crack jokes together whenever they were in the same room, and the two of them just exuded an easy aura around them. That friendliness didn't seem to extend to their sparring though.
She had watched them practise the day before, and Tai was ruthless. She knew he was the one who trained Yang how to fight, but he made Yang seem like a novice; though Blake supposed they all were compared to him. However that didn't mean seeing the man floor Yang with a beautifully executed roundhouse kick to the face, and then using an aura punch to force her aura into the red, wasn't a terrifying sight.
"Hey, Kiddo." Tai greeted her with his nickname for all of them and a bright smile that lit up his features. Though in his forties, the man still looked rather young and was quite handsome. "Scampi chips aaaaare…" He looked across from Yang to a far away bag. "... in that one. I think. Dummy here packed them."
"Hey!" The blonde said indignantly. "If I let you pack them then you would have put the eggs under the milk."
"What can I say, I like my eggs scrambled."
The grin on his face brought one to Blake's too. Just like with Yang and Ruby, it was very easy to relax around the man. "I didn't know you went too?" She said to her partner and moved over to the indicated bag and saw that both hers and Ruby's stuff was inside.
"Needed a walk." Yang shrugged dismissively, and motioned for the milk, that was also in the same bag as the chips. Blake pulled it out and handed it to Yang, only for her to toss it over her shoulder to Tai who caught it without looking. "What're you and Rubes doing?"
"Just reading," Blake replied nonchalantly as Tai closed the fridge and threw on empty, scrunched up bag at his daughter before leaving the room.
"Really? Just reading?" Yang asked disbelievingly and looked her up and down. "Didn't realise you had to take off clothes to read. Get a little hot up there, did it?"
The knowing tone in the blonde's voice solved Blake's earlier confusion about why Yang was putting the heating on, and she gave the girl an unamused look. "You did that on purpose?"
"Maybe," Yang chuckled and opened a protein bar. "Thought I would spice things up a little since you two insist on staying locked up in the bedroom all day."
"Well stop! Please." Blake replied firmly, looking her partner in the eye. "I don't want Ruby making those moves because something has been done to make her more tempted. I want them to be done because that's what she knows she wants."
"Alright," Yang replied with her hand up in the air. "Have you at least talked about that stuff? You've seemed a little less stressed lately."
"We have," She said with a nod and pulled a bag of chips from the bag and opened them. "We have an agreement. Which is…"
"I know, none of my business," The blonde finished with a small laugh. "At least you talked though."
"Mhm," Blake hummed and ate a few chips, the delicious taste of scampi filling her mouth. "Speaking of talking, you and Tai are much closer than I would have thought? Especially after what you told me about growing up."
"Huh?" Yang looked at her confused for a second, but the confusion quickly passed and a smile formed on her face "Oh yeah, that's all water under the bridge. I think beating the shit out of each other for six years helped us work out our issues." She shrugged.
"Doesn't exactly sound like the most healthy way of doing things."
"Maybe not, but it worked for us."
Blake couldn't argue with that as the two definitely seemed close. It was also true that everyone was different, and what worked for some, didn't work for others; and vice-versa. She was glad to know that relationship was fixed though, as she could still remember the pain in Yang's voice when she'd talked about the man shutting down after his wife's death. Pouring herself a glass of water, as the only issue with her fish-flavoured chips was that they were a little dry, she took a small sip and let out a relieved breath. Nearly four hours of hanging out with Ruby had made Blake forget just how long it had been since she had a drink.
"So what are you, Velv… Owww!"
Blake was cut off as her ears picked up a sharp noise that instantly gave her a headache. "Blake?" She heard Yang asked as she brought up an arm to cover her cat ears in an attempt to block out the sound that was growing increasingly louder. "What's wro… Huh? What's tha…"
"WEISS IS HERE!" The excited shout came from upstairs, immediately followed by the sound of heavy footsteps sprinting down the stairs. What sounded like a thud of two people colliding came from the front room, and a couple of seconds later, Ruby arrived with a wide smile on her face and a scroll in her hand. "WEISS IS HERE!"
"We heard you," Yang replied shortly, her hand coming up to point at Blake's ears. Ruby's face dropped slightly and worry flashed across her eyes. "Tell her to hurry up and land so whatever is hurting Blake stops."
"R-Right," Ruby replied quickly and moved the Scroll up to her ear to relay the message to Weiss, who was likely on a call with her.
As the sound grew louder and Ruby frantically talked to Weiss while exiting the room, Blake and Yang followed her. Velvet was also holding her ears as they walked into the living room and Coco had a less than pleased look on her face. Before either could say a word, they all made for the front door and exited the house. Sure enough, a shining, silver ship was approaching.
It's body was thin like a javelin, and four wings protruded to keep it stable, blue banners hanging off them and streaming behind it. Blake knew it was one of the Schnee's personal airships as she had last seen one when Winter had visited Weiss during the tournament. However, as it drew closer, the ship made a sharp right turn and began to steer away from the house. At the same time, a large white figure flew out the back and continued towards them. Despite the sound finally fading and the pain going away, Blake felt herself tense as what she recognised as a Queen Lancer flew towards them.
The others noticed it too and Coco began to unfold her handbag, only to put it away just as fast as Yang's hand came out to stop her. Sure enough, as the thing got closer, they all saw a figure standing atop it with her sword drawn. After its altitude lowered, they could clearly make out Weiss wearing the outfit Blake knew had been lovingly name Snowpea. However, as it neared the ground, the giant wasp began to flicker, and nearly eight meters off the dirt, completely disappear. Weiss barely had time to catch herself with a glyph, but she did, and after a graceful front flip, she landed perfectly on the ground in front of them wearing a smug look.
"You totally fuc…"
"What the hell was that noise?" Coco cut Yang's mockery off with a growl and stepped forward, only for Yang hand to tighten around her wrist as the blonde gave her a firm look.
"My apologies," Weiss said quickly, her smug face falling at the sight of the very obviously annoyed second year. "I had no idea my father had one of those installed in our ships. I ordered my pilot to turn away the second Ruby told me Blake was in pain." The heiress' face hardened. "And trust me when I say that I shall be reporting it to my sister the moment I have a chance. I'm sorry it hurt you two."
Her crystal blue eyes flicked from Blake to Velvet, and Blake could see genuine remorse in them. Though Weiss certainly had her moments of vindictiveness, Blake knew the girl would never use such a cruel mechanism knowingly. So finally lowering her arms as the ship was finally out of range, she gave the heiress a smile and a subtle wave.
"We know that wasn't you," Velvet said and offered the same wave. "Right, Coco?"
"Y-Yeah," The girl said, her body having already visibly relaxed. "Sorry for overreacting."
"It's fine," Weiss nodded. "Its underst…"
"AHHHHH, WEEEEISSS!"
It seemed that Ruby had finally had enough of waiting for the conversation to die down. The loud squeal tore through the area and the area was suddenly filled with red as the girl burst into petal and shot straight at the smaller girl. Clearly not surprised in the slightest, Weiss spun her sword and a faint blue barrier appeared in front of her, a barrier that Ruby slammed straight into as she was unable to stop herself in time. The red reaper bounced off and landed on her butt, Weiss looking down at her with a raised eyebrow that was clearly an order for the girl to calm down. Blake could have said it wouldn't work, but she knew that Weiss was well aware of that fact. It was proven as the snow-haired girl gave a roll of her eyes after less than a second and the barrier faded. With a little more restraint, Ruby slammed into the girl and threw her arms around her stomach.
"I missed you so much!"
"It has only been a week, Ruby." Weiss sighed in return, though her arms came up to embrace the younger girl. "But yes… I supposed I may have missed you too."
"Looks like Snow Queen brought her heart with her this time," Yang chuckled as Weiss shot a glare in her direction. Sticking out her tongue, Yang let go off Coco's arm and shared a look with both her girlfriends. They clearly understood and made their way back into the house. "It really is good to see you again though."
"Thank you." Weiss replied and pulled at the back of Ruby's t-shirt, only to achieve nothing. "It's good to be back."
"How was Atlas?" Blake asked. Though she was happy that Weiss was back, and did really care for the girl, the two of them had never shared a particularly touchy relationship. "And what was that Lancer? You were struggling to summon a small sword just before you left."
"I was not struggling to summon anything," Weiss denied heatedly, pulling at her partner's shirt again. "Summoning isn't as hard when you don't have the pressure of having to do a performance against your will. But then again, my time in Atlas was better than I expected. Winter was on leave so I spend most of my time practicing with her. That lancer is something that had the audacity to attack me on my way to Atlas."
"Seems like its last mistake," Yang grinned.
"It most certainly was. But I can now use it to fly, so at least the vile thing's life had some use."
"Oum have mercy on JNPR when we fight them next," Blake chuckled.
The smug grin returned to Weiss face at the mention of the other team. "Yes, I too look forward to fighting Pyrrha again." She said deviously. Blake knew that Weiss' major goal for the year was beating the Mistralian, so it didn't surprise her that the heiress was eager to show off her new power. "I would also like to get inside and out of this cold. I may be from Atlas, but that doesn't mean I like freezing to death."
"Awww," Ruby whined, the first thing she had said since embracing the girl. "Can I hug you all the way there?"
"No!" At what was clearly Weiss ordering Ruby to stop hugging her, and stepped away for the heiress looking her up and down. "Ruby, Why are you not wearing socks out here? You will get sick. Your lips are already puffy."
Blake eyes flew open and her cheeks warmed as she looked away from Weiss. Unfortunately, her eyes found Yang's, whose eyebrows were raised and turning to look at her sister feet, her gaze travelling to the bare feet to the girl's back where the ever present cloak was conspicuously missing. Her eyes darted to the ground in case Yang's returned, though she also had a small smirk painted on her lips, but Yang wasn't the only one to notice something.
"Really?" Weiss asked, though scoffed would be a more accurate description of her reaction. "I was only gone for a week." her eyes flicked to the two girls, and she saw that Ruby had done almost the exact same as her, and Weiss was shaking her head. "At least you will be less annoying in your indecision now. Anyway, this is your home, Ruby, and you have a guest."
"O-Oh!" Ruby stuttered. "Right. Umm… I'll show you around."
The two girls walked past her and Blake caught Weiss throw her a small smirk before disappearing through the door. Once it closed though, Blake found herself in an awkward silence with her partner. As innocent as it had been, both of them knew that some small amount of stripping away clothes had taken place, and Blake wasn't too sure if Yang's words of being okay with them exploring further would stand. However, just as she was about to look up at her best friend and maybe apologise, she felt a hand on her shoulder and instead looked up to find herself staring into a pair of lilac eyes that held a little regret.
"Sorry..." Yang said before Blake could get a word out. "... If I made that happen a little too soon. You're right that you two should be finding that pace on your own."
Blake was slightly taken aback by the girl's words, but she quickly collected herself. "You're fine, it was just a little joke anyway."
"Regardless," Yang breathed and let her hand drop. "I'll stay out of it from now on."
They both maintained eye contact for a couple of seconds, but Blake gave her a small nod and a smile. "Thanks. But for what it's worth, you did help me realise I needed to talk to her."
"Hmm. One screw up, one good deed. Guess my karma is intact." The blonde grinned and slid her arm around Blake's shoulder as she began to walk towards the door.
Rolling her eyes at her partner, though she was happy that things had worked out well there, she walked into the house, only to be met with an aghast breath from the new arrival. With a confused glance at her partner, they walked into the front room to see Weiss slowly turning in space and inspecting the walls.
"Where is all the Christmas stuff?" She asked, her gaze landing accusingly on Yang. "It's in two days."
Yang and Ruby shared a look that said the two had obviously forgotten, and Blake didn't really blame them. As she had too.
"Uhhh… Me and Ruby are from a Mistralian family, Weiss," The girl replied. "We never really did Christmas. We're more of a Winter Solstice family."
"It's such a shame Vale doesn't have a festival for that," Velvet said from the couch. "It's one of the few things I actually like about Mistral's culture."
"And you didn't notice this?" Weiss asked, her ire turning onto Blake.
"Not really," She shrugged and sat down on one of the chairs. "Christmas is only really a thing in Atlas."
Weiss glared at her and straightened her back as her glare turned to them each in turn. Finally, after receiving a shrug from then all, her brow furrowed and she took a deep breath. "Well it is a thing here now too," She declared. "And we are all going shopping tomorrow."
The whole group let out a groan, but Weiss was no longer listening. As it was very clear they would not be spending the next day relaxing, Blake let out a sigh and reached out to take Ruby's hand. Once she found it, she gave a firm tug that caused the reaper fell into her lap and be captured by her embrace as a small giggle escaped the younger girl. If she was going to have to leave the warm house tomorrow, she was definitely going to spend as much time as she could cuddling up to her girlfriend first.
Raalm's Notes
So mainly some fluff and chill time this chapter :) Feels like its much needed after the last. Also, yaaaay, Weiss is back :P
Not really much for me to say though xD Mostly just wanted to touch on Blake's caution again and Ruby reassuring her things are fine. The more intimate setting allowed me to explore that a little and was really fun to write, so I hope you enjoyed. Here is where some things differ from what I'm used to writing though, namely Weiss' character and Yang/Tai's relationship. The are both rather different from my other story, so I hope they are good here :)
But that's it from me, I hope you all enjoyed this little fluff chapter :) Next chapter will be out on the 7th of February, and its a little longer than normal.
Oh, real quick. We should have another story coming out in a couple of days, so keep an eye out for that. As for a hint on the pairing... Both characters could leave a cold feeling in your throat.
Toxic's Notes
Hope you all enjoyed the chapter, the next one is a long one... Just like you have been wanting, Gun :P