Yang's trip back to the clinic was short. She threw a reassuring smile and wave to Cyan, who was passing out soup to the injured in the small waiting area at the front, then pushed her way into the kitchen and deposited the heap of linens beside the sink. With that accomplished, she went to check on Weiss. A hand to the heiress's forehead brought a frown to her face. Still cold. This girl was officially a black hole for heat.
Fatigue finally caught up to her in a sudden rush, hitting like a brick wall, but Yang managed to keep herself standing by bracing herself on the edge of Weiss's cot. A quick glance around the room revealed not a single spot left to lie down. Even her own cot, she'd given to an elderly couple. Amethyst eyes traveled back town to the heiress's sleeping form, curled up on her side. Well... Weiss needed warmth, and she needed sleep...
With a quiet yawn, Yang lifted the wool blanket draped over Weiss and slid down to lie beside her. Two birds with one stone, right? Maybe Weiss would even appreciate the efficiency of it all. ...Or she would wake up and kill her.
Too tired to worry about any potential wrath she may wake to, Yang shifted so she was at least partially under the blanket, pulling the heiress into a hug and lightly resting her chin atop the smaller girl's head. The cot creaked under their combined weight, but Weiss was just small enough that they could both fit if they kept close.
The brawler shut her eyes, willing sleep to find her quickly.
Before it could, Weiss shifted in Yang's arms, trying to prop herself up on her elbow. She was still too low on energy, however, so she just rested her head on the pillow, her forehead against Yang's shoulder as she gathered strength.
"Did you go somewhere?" she mumbled when she could.
A disgruntled murmur was the brawler's initial response. She had been so close - she could still feel the fleeting embrace of sleep slipping away from the edges of her consciousness, but Weiss's voice had pulled her squarely into wakefulness. Yang let out a small resigned sigh.
"What, you miss me already?" The tail end of her quip rose into another yawn, and she kept her eyes shut, not wanting to think. Sadly, she knew Weiss wouldn't stop until she got an answer, so she saved Weiss the effort of asking, keeping her voice just above a whisper and giving the most basic response she could muster in her sleepy haze.
"We went next door..." and found more Grimm, and killed them, but it was too late anyway. The neighbors were dead - violently so. Bits and pieces and blood and bone and... Yang couldn't suppress the heavy shudder brought about by the fresh memory. She'd managed to keep her cool in front of Curtis, but... How many more houses would they find exactly like that one?
The sheer unyielding weight of guilt strained the brawler's voice when she tried to retreat from the bleak tangent her thoughts had traveled down. "We brought back... blankets."
"Mm," Weiss was hazy with sleep. Her fingers curled around the bottom edge of Yang's shirt and she held on as if her tired grip would ensure that Yang would stay and share warmth for a while.
Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall, and the front door shut. The other folks in the clinic murmured welcome-backs as Curtis tramped in, his jacket shedding snow. Their conversation was too quiet to reach the cots, but soon Cyan approached, bowl in hand.
"Yang, I'm sorry to keep you up, but I thought I heard Weiss a minute ago. She needs to eat."
With one, long, heavy sigh, Yang finally opened her eyes to smile up at Cyan. She pushed herself onto her elbow but found herself prevented from fully rising into a sitting position by the gentle tug of Weiss's grip on her shirt. The brawler all but melted at the sight. Weiss was really cuddly when she was delirious.
"Hey now, I'm not going anywhere," she half-whispered through a smirk, her hands easily covering the heiress's own, prying them loose so she could sit up properly. "But c'mon, you heard the lady," Yang pulled Weiss up into a sitting position as well, keeping an arm around her shoulders for stability, "it's chow time!"
"I'm tired," Weiss grumbled, trying to turn and lay back down. It was cold outside the blankets and the shoulder of her shirt was still torn. She tugged at it, feeling practically indecent.
A sharp clang and a bark of muffled pain sounded from Curtis's side of the kitchen. Cyan handed Yang the bowl of warm broth, excusing herself.
Yang tried to glance around Cyan's retreating form to see what was going on, but an insistent pressure on her shoulder caught her attention first. She looked down to find Weiss shoving against her. The smaller girl seemed to be exerting as much force as she could (which was about as much as a week-old kitten), trying to push them both back down to the cot. The brawler grinned, holding the broth out and away in case Weiss tried to flail as she leaned close to whisper in her ear, "It's sweet that you wanna sleep with me and all, but you really need to eat first."
"I hate you," Weiss slumped back against the pillows, brushing her hair out of her face with an unsteady hand. Dust, she was cold. She shivered and inched down farther under the covers, snuggling closer to Yang. "As soon as someone brings me an electric blanket, I'm having you replaced."
"Yeah yeah, I love you too," Yang let loose with a gentle wave of warmth as she pushed at Weiss's lips with the edge of the bowl, "now shut up and drink so we can go back to sleep."
Weiss growled and took a swallow. The broth was thin, laced with an herb that left a bitter taste in her mouth.
"There. Good night." the heiress turned away from Yang, pulling the blanket up a bit.
"Oh for the love of -Weiss, really." Yang slipped her arm around Weiss's shoulders and pulled her right back up, tightening her grip to keep the unruly heiress in place. She rolled her eyes at the ice-blue scowl being sent her way. This was almost worse than trying to feed Ruby medicine. "I'm flattered you would prefer to stay bedridden with me forever, but seriously, drink the soup. All of it. Do you want to get better or not?"
"I'm just not hungry," Weiss's growl was much closer to a whine as she strained against Yang's hold, "Stop crushing me."
"Uh huh." Yang let up on her grip only the slightest fraction, just in case she really was crushing the smaller girl. "And when was the last time you ate, huh? I'm guessing it was before you lost about, oh, what was it... half your body weight in blood?"
"That's physically impossible. And I had tea," Weiss wasn't sure exactly when that had been, since it had been dark ever since she'd first woken up. She pushed at Yang's arm to get more space.
"Yyyeeeaaah, pretty sure that was a whopping one sip as well. You know, before you oh so gracefully knocked the rest of it onto the cot," the brawler held the bowl right in front of Weiss's face, pouring just enough heat into the broth to make it steam with what she hoped was an enticing warmth, "Come on~ it'll warm you up~"
"Fine. Fine," Weiss heaved a long suffering sigh. She was dishearteningly worn out from shoving at Yang's arm. "Just let me hold it."
Expertly suppressing a small cheer of victory, Yang started to lower the bowl to Weiss's outstretched hands, but lifted a skeptical eyebrow at the slight shivering of the heiress's arms. There already wasn't much food to go around - they couldn't afford another spill.
Determined to make sure this girl got at least one semi-decent meal in her, Yang snaked the hand resting on Weiss's exposed shoulder all the way down her outstretched arm, finally brushing the backs of heiress's shaking fingertips. Operating on a very open interpretation of Weiss's valiant-yet-foolhardy request to hold her own soup, Yang placed the bowl into her hands, quickly covering and supporting them with her own. "Okay then," she brought the bowl, hands and all, up to Weiss's lips once more, "drink up."
The heiress took two swallows this time. Small swallows. The soup was very warm, and Yang was warm, and it was hard to keep her head up.
The soft glow of the fire in the open stove cast a low orange glow over the room. By the time it got to the far wall, it was full of shadows. She thought of Ruby, of the last time she'd seen her, when the younger girl had leapt from the belfry wall to go get Jack. Her red cloak was always patterned in light and shadow. Crimson and dark. Images flickered through her mind. Red eyes and black wings. Blood on her coat and hands, slick, dark by glyph-light. Stained black snow and icy, numbing cold.
Weiss was too tired to sort it all out. Yang was so warm. Her arm around her to steady her was solid and real. She couldn't remember the last time someone had held her this way. She closed her eyes and let Yang guide the bowl to her mouth, but she didn't drink anymore.
Yang was already tilting the bowl, but stopped when soup began to trickle down Weiss's face. She pulled back to get a better view, finding those familiar glaring ice-blue eyes had vanished behind heavy eyelids.
"Hey," Yang set the soup aside, "Weiss?" she used using her newly freed hand to brush the dribbles of liquid from the other girl's lips, quirking an eyebrow when the heiress didn't so much as flinch at the touch. Her brows then drew together in a frown when a light shake of Weiss's shoulders garnered no response. "You know, falling asleep while sitting up is one-hundred percent cheating."
Another span of silence followed. Either Weiss really was asleep, or she was faking masterfully. ...Or she had passed out. Either way, Yang was too tired to fight her mutual desire for a bit of shut-eye. "All right, okay," she sighed at last, flopping back onto the cot with Weiss in tow, "You win." Yang reached down to pulled the quilt up over them both and shut her eyes, focusing on Weiss's light, even breaths ghosting across her neck, "But you're finishing that soup when you wake up."
It was the fourth or fifth day by anyone's reckoning when the sounds of the wind howling in the eaves stopped.
"Looks like it's over," Curtis announced, a hand braced on the railing as he climbed down the steep stairs. Despite the circles under his eyes from days of transporting food and caring for the wounded, he was grinning. "Good to know the sun's still there."
The townsfolk managed to laugh, some of them, and even cheer, but they knew heaps of snow wouldn't do much to deter the Grimm should any of the flying types get the notion to attack again. They were still somewhat house-bound, cramped, miserable. And where could they go anyway? Their own homes had most likely been destroyed. Cyan wrapped her arms around Curt's neck as he brought the news to the kitchen.
Weiss groaned, half asleep on the cot as the noise of people talking spread to her side of the kitchen. She'd woken a few more times, endured Yang's encouragement to eat and drink, and had at one point allowed Cyan to use melted snow to help her get the dried blood out of her hair. Her loss of blood in general had taken a severe toll, however, and recuperating from it would take time.
She buried her face in Yang's shirt, temporarily abandoning her issues with personal space in favor of the heat of her teammate's semblance.
Fortunately for Weiss, there was no longer any awful smell to deal with, as Yang had stolen away the evening prior to melt a bit of snow and clean herself up under threat of dismemberment. It wasn't quite the hot shower Yang was still craving, but it had worked well enough to appease Weiss's overly refined sense of smell. She'd stolen the idea after watching Cyan use the same trick to wash out Weiss's hair.
To say it was silky wouldn't be quite right, but the once-again-white tresses were certainly soft beneath the brawler's hands as she idly ran her fingertips across the heiress's scalp. She took extra care to be gentle, and though she assumed her touch was merely being tolerated thanks to delirium, (blood loss seemed to keep Weiss from threatening to dismember her too often) she hoped it was actually calming her somewhat. After all, these were the same tried and true soothing methods she'd used whenever Ruby was sick.
Ruby.
Yang left her eyes shut, listening over the low murmur of the townspeople for any sound of the driving, relentless snow that had split their team... but there was nothing. They were right, the storm was gone, and with it, the buffer she'd had against the trepidation that now settled in her gut. Without the blizzard to hold them at bay, either Ruby and Blake would return... or they wouldn't.
A wild urge to get up, head out into the snow-blanketed town and search pulled the brawler's eyes right back open. She could do it. She could find them. She'd always healed quickly, and even if she was only maybe 80% at the moment, she felt more than well enough to march straight out that door and... leave the clinic defenseless...
Yang dropped her plan as quickly as it had come to mind. If Grimm came gallivanting back into town to clean up while she was out, it would be another disaster to add to her already miserable track record for this trip. And yet... the urge to at least try still lingered.
Amethyst eyes drifted over to the boarded window, quietly regarding the wall of white that had settled outside. Blake would tell her she was being irrational, remind her that her first duty as a huntress was to protect the people. And Ruby... her little sister would probably never forgive her if she let anything happen to Weiss.
A small smile worked its way across Yang's face when she pulled back slightly to look down at Weiss wrapped up in her arms, only for Weiss to follow, keeping her face pressed against the brawler's sternum, where the bulk of her heat radiated from. She never in a million years would have guessed that anyone so prickly could be such a cuddlebug. And her face was so peaceful when she wasn't trying to glare holes through you...
But Yang knew better. It didn't matter how sweet the heiress seemed as she dozed - she was an absolute pill of a patient when she was awake. She had Ruby beat by a stubborn mile and then some. Still, Weiss had taken care of all of them through much worse, and a Xiao Long always repaid her debts.
Now, if she remembered correctly, Weiss was just about due for another round of soup, new and improved with herbs, spices, and hearty chunks of the enormous stash of potatoes Curtis had found next door.
"Hey," she extracted her hand from Weiss's hair and brought it around to lightly pinch the cool, scarred cheek buried in her shirt, "guess what time it is~"
Weiss brought one arm up to shove at Yang's hand. She shifted to hide her face, her grumble muffled against the pillow.
Yang's eyes rolled, and she glanced over to Cyan for a bit of help, raising a brow at the sight of her hanging off of Curtis with a wide smile. "Hey Weiss," she prodded the half-sleeping girl's temple, trying to draw her attention away from drowsy warmth and soft downy pillows, "you think they're related or something?"
When Weiss, of course, did not respond, Yang leaned a bit closer, resting unassuming fingertips on her side. "Don't think I won't tickle you if you aren't up in the next 30 seconds."
"I'm awake. Stop touching me," the heiress curled herself smaller into Yang and tugged the covers up.
"Yeah sure, stop touching me she says," amusement sparkled in Yang's eyes, "That's pretty hard to do with you trying to push your face through my chest." She slipped her arm beneath Weiss's layered barrier of quilts and blankets, pushing aside a single earring to rest her hand on the heiress's neck, just beneath her ear. "Fifteen seconds, Weiss."
Weiss bridled at this touch, jerking up to throw off Yang's hand. She rubbed her eyes, snapping, "I'm awake."
By now Cyan and Curtis were getting back to business. The young woman delivered a good-sized bowl of warm soup to Yang and Weiss.
"Well, good morning," she said, briefly inspecting Weiss's shoulder and Yang's bruises. "Feeling better?"
Yang pushed herself into a sitting position, accepting the bowl from Cyan with a wide smile and snaking an arm around Weiss's waist to maintain a source of heat for her. "Loads better." With a quick look across the room at the clinic's resident doctor gently tending to an old man's broken arm, curiosity finally got the better of her and Yang lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, which really wasn't necessary considering the low murmur of discussion that had spread through the clinic with the storm's end. "So, Cyan, I've been meaning to ask... you and Curtis live here at the clinic and he's... your..." her shoulders lifted in time with her eyebrows in a questioning shrug.
"... partner?" Cyan completed the statement, brow furrowed. Not quite sure of what Yang was looking for, she supplied another term, "Husband?"
Amethyst eyes shifted between Cyan and Curtis, the girl's bright youthful face and demeanor a stark contrast to the doctor's worry-lined countenance. Slowly, Yang nodded. "Ohhhh okay. You like those older, mature types huh?" The brawler winked, "I get it."
Cyan's now empty hands sought her skirt pockets. She blushed deeply at the subject, "Can I get you anything before I go check on everyone upstairs?"
Weiss, not really wanting anything but sleep, shifted her shoulders to communicate her discomfort to Yang while simultaneously not making any real effort to get away.
"Yeah, can you get this one some manners?" Yang smiled as she tried to offer the bowl of soup to Weiss, only to meet drowsy indifference. "Wwweeeeiiiisssss," she mimicked Ruby's habit of drawing out the heiress's name, watching elegant white brows furrow more and more deeply the longer the solitary syllable was stretched into infinity, "C'mon, don't waste the hard work Cyan put in to making this delicious meal for youuuu."
"Actually, earplugs would be nice," Weiss held a hand up between her mouth and the bowl Yang was trying to push on her, "Or a blood transfusion."
"If we were equipped to give you one, we would," Cyan laid a gentle hand on Weiss's forehead, testing her temperature. "You'll just have to wait till your body takes care of it. In the meantime, you really should eat."
The heiress gave a wordless whine, sinking down in Yang's arms.
"You heard the lady!" With a thankful wink to Cyan, Yang pressed the bowl into Weiss's hands, happy that the scowling girl had gained back at least enough strength to hold it on her own. "Just think, the sooner you get better, the sooner you'll be free of my clutches," she gave the heiress a light squeeze around her middle.
"Don't treat me like a child," Weiss made to toss her hair, but her earlier snap at Yang had taken a lot of energy, so the gesture left much to be desired. Besides, she was hungry, vaguely. Not that she was going to admit that after her rude awakening. She took a spoonful of broth and blew on it for an unnecessarily long amount of time in order to get on Yang's nerves as much as possible.
Yang squinted in annoyance, but eventually slouched forward to make silly faces at one of the smaller children across the room that was staring at them.
Not long after that, a series of odd thumps sounded from above. Curtis and Cyan hadn't been back downstairs yet. Yang spared a quizzical glance at Weiss.
"Someone's out on the roof, maybe," an older woman with stitches on her brow informed the little boy in her lap.
Yang stopped making faces at once and sprang upright at the suggestion, nearly knocking into Weiss's spoon as she all but leaped off of the bed. Excitement rolled off of her in waves of heat, and she gripped the heiress's forearm a little too tightly, beaming a megawatt smile directly into ice blue eyes. "It's gotta be Ruby and Blake."
"Just go and see," Weiss balanced the bowl with her free hand as she leaned closer to Yang under the pressure of her grip, "Ouch. You don't have to break my arm."
"Right, sorry," Yang released Weiss and patted her arm, looking apologetic for all of one second before her smile returned full force and she left to head up the stairs.
A/N: Who could it beeeeee? ? I would write more but Fiercesomest is staring impatiently at me, waiting for me to post the chapte- oh actually she just went to bed. PARTY TIME- I kid. But yes, tune in next time!
HUGS,
Defenestrator