Welcome to Chapter 12! This one took a little longer than usual because it's my first time actually writing something like this. Do forgive me.
Ruby ducked, watching the weapon fly past where her head had been moments before. As Weiss began to withdraw her rapier, she jumped forward, moving past her arm and between the heiress and Myrtenaster.
"Another point for me!" she declared, resting the blade of Crescent Rose against the back of Weiss's neck to emphasize her point.
"At least your speed is still annoyingly fast," Weiss grumbled, returning her weapon to its proper place around her waist.
"As Penny would say, I'm 'Combat Ready'!" Ruby said proudly, folding up her darling. Then, the look in her eyes changed to one of worry as she made eye contact with Weiss. "Are you sure you'll be alright, Weiss?"
"I'll be fine," Weiss replied with an exasperated sigh; this was the twelfth time Ruby had asked the same question since Weiss had started fighting with her right hand thanks to her left being in a cast. "I'm a lot more used to fighting with my right hand now."
"But-" Ruby began, but Weiss silenced her with a flick on the forehead.
"No 'buts', Ruby Rose," she said, unleashing her trump card – the commanding tone that won her any argument with Ruby, even when the latter was in the right. Someone (she suspected Yang) had named it 'The Schnee', much to Weiss's chagrin. "Besides, what would you do without me? What would you do if you get captured by the enemy or get in some other trouble because of your clumsiness?"
"I won't get caught…" Ruby mumbled under her breath, bowing her head in embarrassment.
"And where do you find the evidence to support that claim?" Weiss asked, putting her hands on her hip.
"Okay, I get it," Ruby conceded, just as Weiss knew she would. "You're coming along! But don't overdo it, alright?"
"I don't need you to worry about me, you dolt," Weiss said, flicking her forehead again. "I'm Weiss Schnee after all. You just worry about yourself so that you can reduce my workload."
"Yes ma'am…" Ruby whined, rubbing her forehead. "If I had a bump every time you flicked my forehead, my forehead would be twice its normal size by now…"
"What's it matter?" Weiss said offhandedly. "I'd still like it."
The world went silent for what felt like several centuries as Ruby spun around and looked at her partner in open surprise. Weiss, on the other hand, looking equally shocked at her own words, stared into the distance with wide eyes as her face grew redder with each passing second.
"Er… Weiss?" Ruby prompted nervously. "Did you just…?"
"N-no, I did not!" Weiss retorted, defiantly refusing to meet Ruby's eyes. The temperature of their surroundings had mysteriously skyrocketed out of nowhere, making her face burn uncomfortably. "I-I meant that I'd still like flicking it, that's all!"
"Really?" Ruby asked, blushing a little herself.
"O-of course!" Weiss crossed her arms in front of her chest. "What on Remnant could I possibly be talking about, you dolt?"
"Aww," Ruby pouted. The sight of her face made Weiss's heart skip a beat. She hated it when Ruby used her cuteness as a trump card against her; such WMDs should be made illegal. "I was so happy for a moment there…"
"W-wh-" Weiss began, her blushing levels going over a certain four digit number. She was about to launch a flustered reply when Pyrrha walked in, wiping her eyes with an arm.
"Oh, sorry," the ace of Team JNPR said hastily as she looked up, noticing Ruby and Weiss for the first time. "I-I didn't see you guys there."
"What's wrong, Pyrrha?" Ruby asked, walking over to her. Weiss heaved a small sigh of relief before joining her leader. "Why're you crying?"
"I… got some dirt in my eye," Pyrrha lied. It was a terrible lie, but Ruby – being the worst liar in both teams combined – did not catch on immediately. Weiss, however, saw through it instantly. "I was sparring with Jaune and he swiped up some dirt to obstruct my vision. Some just entered my eye by accident."
"Come on then," Weiss said. "I'll take you to the nearby stream. Ruby, you go back first. Help me prepare the ingredients for dinner," she added, just as her leader was about to say something, probably about coming along.
"Alright," Ruby nodded. "You two be careful."
"You be careful," Weiss replied, rolling her eyes. "I don't want you hurting yourself on the knife again."
"It was only that one time!" Ruby complained as the white-haired heiress dragged Pyrrha away by the wrist.
"So, what did the goof do this time?"
Pyrrha jumped at the question, but did not attempt to lie her way out of it as she washed her face by the stream.
"When I woke up in Cardin's hideout, Jaune was there," she began slowly, sitting down on the grass. Weiss's glyphs kept them safe from detection, allowing her to speak her mind. "I was so glad to see him safe then that I… I kissed him."
Weiss's eyes widened for a moment, but she did her best to hide that expression. Sitting down next to Pyrrha, she let her former idol continue speaking.
"I just couldn't control myself," Pyrrha went on, hugging her knees a little tighter to her chest. "Before I realized it, our lips were already touching. I'm sorry, Weiss."
"Why're you apologizing to me?" Weiss asked. "It's not as if Jaune and I are going out."
"I know," Pyrrha replied. "But I kissed him knowing full well that he already likes someone else and not me. You know who that person is, right?"
"Considering how subtle his advances are," Weiss said sarcastically. "Yes, I have some notion. But said love interest has no intention of ever going out with him, so you shouldn't feel bad about it. Besides, he hasn't even confessed or anything, so I don't see why you should feel guilty about letting him know how you feel."
"It just doesn't feel right," Pyrrha said. "Not when he's preoccupied with someone else…"
Pyrrha left the rest of her thoughts unsaid, but Weiss understood. After experiencing that torture chamber, it was difficult to believe in thoughts like 'maybe tomorrow would be better'. Pyrrha, having kept silent about her feelings for Jaune back at Beacon, had lost the restraint she once possessed in the uncertainty of what tomorrow might bring. However, in the end, she still could not bring herself to get in Jaune's way. As long as Jaune's affection for Weiss was not resolved, she could not move forward herself.
"So he… rejected you?" Weiss asked, breaking the pregnant silence.
"No," Pyrrha replied dryly. "I told him that I didn't know what I was doing at the time, and asked him to forget about it…"
"And he believed it?" Weiss asked incredulously. When Pyrrha said nothing, she sighed. "For crying out loud…"
"Jaune will be Jaune, I guess," Pyrrha said with a bitter smile, shrugging her shoulders. Instead of speaking, however, Weiss moved next to her and put her arms around her. "Erm… Weiss?"
"I picked it up from my dolt of a leader," Weiss replied, going a little red in the face; Ruby may be comfortable with doing this every time, but the heiress was by no means the same. "Does it make you feel better?"
Pyrrha closed her eyes silently, relishing the gentle warmth from the white-haired princess. At her own request, her teammates had kept their distance, even if she ended up regretting it afterward. It left her to her own thoughts, but it ultimately made her feel more distant as well. When was the last time Nora – or anyone, for that matter – had embraced her like this?
"Yes, it does," she said at last. "Thank you, Weiss."
"This is strictly between us, okay?" Weiss asked nervously, moving her hands away. "All the Dust in the world won't be able to wipe the grin off Ruby's face once she knows."
"Understood," Pyrrha replied, chuckling. Even though it did nothing for her situation, the talk and hug did manage to lift her spirits a little. "You know, for a supposed 'snow angel', you're actually pretty warm, aren't you?"
"I'm going to kill Jaune," Weiss hissed menacingly; she had never quite gotten over Jaune giving her that nickname back during their time at Beacon.
"Guess we both have troublesome and airheaded love interests, huh?" Pyrrha asked, laughing.
"Yeah, I gue-" Weiss paused mid-sentence, detecting something wrong in Pyrrha's sentence. "Wait; what's 'we both' supposed to mean?"
"Who knows?" Pyrrha asked, imitating Nora's goofy manner of acting ignorant before dashing back towards the hideout.
Weiss would eventually give chase. After she managed to calm her flustered, blushing expression first, that was.
"Oww!" Ruby whined, trying and failing to yank her hand away from Weiss's iron grip. "Be gentler, Weiss! You're supposed to be the graceful one!"
"You hush," Weiss ordered, dabbing the alcohol pad onto Ruby's finger with significantly less strength than before nonetheless. "You brought this on yourself."
Ruby pouted. Weiss tried telling her to stop it, but that expression was too adorable that her voice died at her throat. Such lethal weapons should be banned forever, or someday she might melt for real.
"What were my instructions, Ruby?" Weiss asked. The whole Lighthouse was empty save the two of them, owing to the fact that no one else wanted to listen in on the heiress lecture her team leader. It gave them privacy, but it also made Weiss's presence much more overwhelming.
"To prepare the ingredients…" Ruby mumbled. Her ears were still ringing from that ten minute scolding, and she dreaded the fact that Weiss was definitely going to continue; she was only given temporary reprieve because Weiss had prioritized her treatment.
"So how did that end up with you scalding two of your fingers, cutting another two and then blowing up our stove?" Weiss asked sternly.
"It's not actually a stove; it's a table with circular dents to hold the Dust for burn- Oww!" Ruby broke off mid-retort, succumbing to the force Weiss put into the alcohol pad pressing against the cut in her finger. "I-I didn't know how to light it so I poked around! I didn't expect it to blow up with just a pinch of gunpowder!"
"That's why I said to 'prepare the ingredients', not 'cook in my place', you dolt," Weiss sighed, moving on to the other finger. "Although from the state of your fingers, I shouldn't be tasking you with that either."
Ruby, without a way to counter that argument, merely sulked. She waited patiently (albeit she still struggled to stay still) for Weiss to finish disinfecting and washing the wound, before putting on the plaster. When she was finally done, Ruby practically jumped out of the bed.
"For crying out loud," Weiss groaned. "We've got a big operation tomorrow, so save that energy. Geez…"
"There's a storm coming, Weiss," Ruby said gravely. "We'd best prepare ourselves for the worst."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Weiss asked, suddenly going on full alert.
"I don't know," Ruby admitted, utterly obliterating the tense mood. "I just heard that phrase a lot in movies I watched with Yang in the past, so I thought it'd be cool to say it. It sounds epic, right?"
"Ruby Rose!" Weiss bellowed in a mixture of shock and anger. She could not decide which weighed more right now, and she did not care. "Don't you ever scare me like that again!"
"Eep!" Ruby squeaked. "I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean it like that, Weiss!"
You guys are all I have left.
Those words, echoing ominously in Ruby's ears, brought her sharply back to reality. Weiss had already lost everyone else; even the mere thought of losing someone now was unbearable for her. What was she thinking, saying those words on impulse just because they sounded cool? Had she not outgrown those things?
Unsure of what to do, Ruby fidgeted on the spot for a few seconds while Weiss stared at the ground, her expression unreadable. Running out of ideas, the fearless leader of Team RWBY walked forward and put her arms around her partner.
"We won't lose, Weiss," she whispered reassuringly. "We've faced worse before, and we've always emerged victorious, right? No one's going to die anymore, Weiss. No one's going to leave you. I won't leave you."
"… You promise?"
Ruby almost did not register that question. Sure, Weiss had become more honest with herself and others over the days spent in the Lighthouse, but Ruby had not expected this. She had not expected that Weiss – that confident, graceful and powerful heiress – would ask a question filled with uncertainty, fear and weakness. A question directed at Ruby herself.
"I promise," she replied, closing her eyes as she felt Weiss's arms around her waist, returning the hug. They just stayed like that for a few silent minutes, and then finally released each other.
"I-if you tell anyone, I'll freeze you," Weiss threatened, her face going redder than Ruby's cloak. "Then I'm confiscating Crescent Rose for a month."
"Yikes," Ruby replied, but she was smiling cheekily at that empty threat. "I guess I better be careful, then."
"Dolt," Weiss muttered under her breath. "S-stop staring at me!"
"But it's not every day I get to see you blush," Ruby said, causing Weiss to grimace weakly and her blush to deepen. "I ought to take a picture-"
"I'm going to dismantle that weapon of yours," Weiss snapped, flicking Ruby's forehead. "A-and I told you: stop looking."
"But I don't know where else to look~" Ruby complained. Teasing Weiss had never been so fun before; she wondered why she did not do this more often.
"A-anyway!" Weiss said, regaining some of her composure. "I-I'm not done lecturing you for your fiasco in the kitchen yet! S-so close your eyes!"
"Why do I-" Ruby began, but Weiss gave her a glare that could pierce metal, so she kept quiet and obeyed. She braced herself for another flick or possibly a karate chop, when-
A soft sensation caressed her forehead. If her eyes had not burst open on instinct, Ruby would definitely have not believed the source to be Weiss's lips.
"Don't hurt yourself again, you dolt," Weiss finished. "Some of us worry, you know."
Ruby's eyes could not go any wider, so she gave up trying. She was out of things to say, cheeky or otherwise. She wondered if she should pinch her own cheeks to know if this was a dream, but a part of herself told her that if it was, she should not be stupid and wake up from it yet.
"D-did the message get across?" Weiss asked, looking uncannily embarrassed.
"Um…" Ruby was still in a bit of a daze. "One more time, please?"
"… You dolt," Weiss muttered. Before she could say anything else, however, Ruby had already closed her eyes expectantly. With a hesitant glance towards the entrance of the tunnel, Weiss took a deep breath and leaned forward.
When their lips met, it took all of Ruby's efforts to keep her burning cheeks from overheating.
She had made her a promise. She promised that they would always be there, and that she would never have to lose anyone ever again.
She did not want to lose anyone. She did not care about her image, her wealth or her possessions if it meant that she could have those she loved by her sides. Clinging on to Ruby's words, Weiss felt at ease for the first time since leaving Beacon. Even if this moment was fleeting, she was going to make sure every fraction of a second lasted an eternity.
In the flickering glow cast by the few candles in the space, she held her close, wishing that this warmth would never disappear.
I'm glad that unlike a certain blonde dunce, someone is honest with their feelings.
Pretty much ended up being pure shipping here. More fighting will come next chapter, though personally I don't view the fighting as the main focus of this story. Hopefully it'll become clearer as the story moves on.
Anyway, see you next chapter!