Weiss awoke to the emptiness of Ruby's bed. Not that waking up in an empty bed was odd per say. Only that Ruby almost routinely woke after her, and when she did wake up earlier, she'd made it a habit to stay until Weiss had awoken as well.
So as she sat up and surveyed the empty room, the emptiness of Ruby missing was making her at least slightly uneasy. She could tell Ruby had been gone for a while since the bed beside her was cool save the part where she'd been sleeping. Her night gown that she'd given Ruby for the previous night lay across the corner post of the bed, telling Weiss that wherever Ruby had gone, she'd needed to get dressed.
Weiss looked at the time on her scroll to find it only reading nine thirty in the morning, which surprised her since she'd assumed it was much later already for Ruby to have left before she'd awoken. By her math, she would have had to leave at least half an hour previously.
Weiss rubbed what sleep remained in her eyes out and started the trek down to the kitchen. Most mornings Blake was already up and cooking Yang breakfast. Weiss would have put her money on Ruby being on the kitchen to wait for food like her sister since it was often enough she complained about a lack of snacking food.
Weiss walked out of the room and down the stairs, the gloom in the hall somewhat comforting in comparison to the usual brightness of the sun reflecting off the snow outside.
Upon entering the kitchen, she found it abandoned. Weiss was about to continue her search for her girlfriend when her stomach let out a quiet growl. Weiss turned around in the doorway and returned to the fridge. If she started cooking, Ruby was sure to show up. After all, the one thing she could say about both of the sisters was they possessed an undeniable attraction to the smell of cooking.
Weiss selected a pair of pans and pulled a package of bacon and a carton of eggs from the fridge. She set both pans on the stove and started cooking. She'd never actually made bacon before but she knew the concept, so it couldn't be that difficult. She cracked an egg once the bacon started to sizzle and started making scrambled eggs.
After she'd almost finished the eggs, the bacon started hissing and the bubbling fat in the pan started spitting little bits of burning oil out, catching her by surprise as the first tiny droplet landed on the back of her arm.
Weiss yelped more from surprise than pain as her aura quickly absorbed most of the burn, leaving her with only a small splotch of skin that felt warmer than the surrounding area.
Weiss took the eggs off the element and stepped away as more little droplets of oil splashed out of the pan, only a couple drops finding their way to her cheek and right foot. Weiss quickly started looking through the cupboard for something to cover the pan with and was surprised when Blake stepped into the room. Quickly, as if she had known the situation before she'd even entered, she stepped past Weiss, her clothing acting as a shield from the burning grease.
She opened a cupboard and pulled a mesh shield out and placed it over the pan, stopping the burning oil from escaping.
"Your first time making bacon?" Blake asked as Weiss stood and went to the sink to get a dish rag to wipe where she'd been hit with the splashing liquid.
"Yes. Thank you for helping, by the way." Weiss said as she passed the cloth to Blake who wiped a couple drops from her hand. "How did you know where to find that?"
"Yang had me make bacon the first two mornings we were here." She said with a grin. "I told her if she wanted me to make it again, she'd better think of something to repay me with. She hasn't done anything noteworthy, so no bacon."
Weiss found herself smiling a little at the antics of her teammates. "You'd think Yang would take something like that seriously."
"Yeah, I thought she would too." Blake admitted. "Maybe you should ask her about it."
"Why?" Weiss asked, confused at the deferral.
"Because she's coming down the stairs right now. She probably smelled the meat and woke up." Blake laughed. Weiss's slight frown was all the info she needed to know what Weiss's intentions had been. "But I'm guessing you're making this for another member of our team."
"You would be correct." Weiss said with a nod. Blake remained silent until Yang walked in to the room.
"No, it's not for you." She said as Yang opened her mouth to comment on the smell.
"What? But I thought you finally gave in and decided to make your favorite partner some delicious bacon again!" Yang groaned as Blake moved away from the stove.
"Actually, Weiss was making it for Ruby." Blake stated as she took a seat. "And if you don't mind, can I have these eggs before they get cold?"
"Oh, sure. I'll just make more." Weiss nodded while she pulled out a small stack of plates. Blake took the entire first batch and started eating silently.
"I would ask but…" Yang trailed off, looking up at Weiss with what must have passed as her version of puppy dog eyes. Weiss found that the look on Yang had absolutely no effect on her, which made her realize it was only ever Ruby that could pull something like that and get away with it.
"First, because you tried to use puppy dog eyes, no." Weiss said and Yang slammed her face down into the counter, her hair flooding around her face making it look like a golden pile of fine string sitting on the counter. "Next, because I was going to offer regardlessly, would you like some breakfast Yang?"
Yang's head snapped up, a look of disbelief plastered on her face. "Who are you and what have you done to the Ice Queen?"
"Careful I don't purposely burn everything I give you." Weiss replied with the usual venom that she used when anyone except Ruby and her sister called her by a nickname.
"There's the heiress we know and love!" Yang cheered as she sat back into her chair.
"That's right." Weiss replied, turning back to the stove to check on the bacon. "Did you want any of this, Blake?"
"No thank you. I'm not a fan of pork." Blake replied as she continued her eggs.
"I'll take her share!" Yang spoke up quickly before Weiss could even open her mouth.
"I don't doubt that at all." Weiss sighed as she looked out the two doorways in the room. No Ruby.
"What's up?" Yang asked, her tone calmer and gentler as if someone had flipped a switch in the fighter's head.
"Do you know where Ruby's gone to?" Weiss asked as she carefully removed the cover from the bacon and flipped the pieces before adding fresh pieces to the space in the pan that had opened as they shrunk.
"No clue. Doesn't she normally wake up after you?" Yang asked.
"She was gone this morning. My scroll didn't have a message and she didn't leave anything that I'd find." Weiss listed off. Normally she would have been more concerned, but they were in Ruby's house. The one place no one would expect her to be. Not to mention that she was fairly certain she'd cuddled with Ruby most of the night.
"Did you try sending her a message?" Yang asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Well…" Weiss felt like hitting herself as she replaced the guard on the pan and started to make a plate of eggs for Yang.
"You didn't did you?" Yang asked as her grin stretched across her face.
"I didn't want to bother her. If she'd wanted me to know where she went, she would have given me a message." Weiss said as if that had been her reasoning. Really, she had still been waking up so she wasn't thinking properly.
"Then there's no problem, is there?" Yang asked with her smirk holding strong on her face. For a long while, the only sound in the room was Weiss chopping at the scrambled eggs as they finished cooking and the sizzle of bacon as it shrunk into its finished form.
"I really hate you sometimes." Weiss stated as she filled a plate with eggs and bacon before she set it down in front of Yang.
"If you weren't already dating Ruby, I'd kiss you." Yang replied in jest as she scooped up a fork full of the fresh food and shoveled it into her mouth. "This is really good."
"Thank you, and if I weren't dating Ruby and you kissed me, I'd probably run you through with the first object I could find." Weiss stated simply, knowing that Yang loved the back and forth they often participated in even if it wasn't always friendly.
"Just not with the spatula, okay? I might have a bit of trouble getting that one out." Yang replied with a wink indicating her understanding.
Weiss turned back to get her own breakfast started. Ruby still hadn't shown up so she figured she must not be hungry. Though it was odd for her to miss the opportunity to eat. She shrugged it off as she finished the last of the bacon and moved the pan to the counter to cool. Her eggs weren't far behind.
She only took two pieces of the bacon before she placed what was remaining on Yang's plate. Yang's eyes went wide as the recently cleansed plate turned suddenly full of bacon. Those wide eyes looked up at Weiss, and that feeling that she was looking at a puppy came back full force, reminding her of Ruby's absence.
"Just eat it or it'll go in the trash." Weiss said before turning to her own food. Yang didn't object and started crunching the slightly crispy bacon an entire strip at a time.
It didn't take long for her to finish and take her and Blake's dishes to the sink to start washing. When she finished, she started on the now cool frying pans and finished with Weiss's plate when Weiss had finished her breakfast. Weiss started to leave the room, intending on going up to her shared room to find her scroll and ask Ruby where she was, when Yang's voice stopped her.
"Weiss? Just for future reference if you don't want to make it look like you slept with Ruby, don't wear her pajamas, okay?" Yang said, her voice toned into the big sister tone she took when dealing with Ruby's issues. The fact she was using it towards her, threw Weiss off balance.
"Um… okay?" Weiss answered, tripping over the comeback she would have normally used had Yang's voice not been so uncharacteristically caring.
"And if Ruby left her scroll in her room, she's still in the house, so don't worry." Yang continued as if she could read Weiss's mind of her intention.
"Right." Weiss made her leave. She couldn't figure out how Yang had come to care about her, but in contrast to the rude pranks she often pulled earlier that year, it was a bit of a relief that they'd moved past the baiting and hostility to at least establish a tentative friendship for Ruby's sake.
She went up to her room and as had been predicted, Ruby had left her scroll not on the night table, but on the dresser next to her door. According to Yang, that meant Ruby was still in the house, so Weiss settled back into the bed. Her feet were cold from the floor so she pulled the covers up and decided that while Ruby was out she might as well watch the movie they'd watched the previous night to see if she actually cared for it or if it was just the fact that she'd watched it with Ruby that she liked.
Two and a half hours later, Weiss could honestly say that Ruby hadn't had as big an impact on her perception as she'd originally thought. The movie, while unnecessarily violent at times with its blatant ignorance of general physics at others, was actually quite satisfying. Even the humor that was introduced such as trucks carrying propellants not blowing up and one carrying feather pillows going up in a massive fireball managed to make her grin as the heroes looked at each other and cheered while stating that they hadn't seen that coming.
Weiss looked up the rest of the series to find that only one of the main characters seemed to carry over from one movie to the next. The one she'd watched with Ruby, he'd played opposite a fox faunus whereas in the others he played opposite a rotund police officer, something that looked like a high ranking military official, and someone whose body musculature looked oddly similar to Jaune's.
She resisted the urge to watch any of them and instead decided to download the two she found most interesting, namely the one with the rotund police officer and the not Jaune. She put her scroll down on the night table and yawned. She hadn't exactly had much down time over the holiday and just lazing around in bed was making her tired. She checked the time which read just after noon. She normally would be eating lunch around this time, but she found the breakfast she had was sufficient enough to leave her still satisfied.
With nothing else to do since Ruby was probably back to her usual pastime of maintaining her scythe, Weiss slipped farther down under the covers and buried her face in the pillow. She knew she was blushing as she slowly inhaled the scent Ruby had left behind, regardless of how clean the sheets were. It was the smell that was simply absorbed by sleeping in the same bed every single day for years on end.
But regardless of how perverted her actions made her look, Weiss enjoyed the scent of Ruby that normally accompanied her everywhere. Except now that Ruby was off doing whatever she was doing, Weiss had to settle for the cool sheets that only retained the faintly reminiscent trace of the girl she loved more than her responsibility as the heiress to the most wealthy family on the planet.
Her smile grew as she took in the observation she'd made. She loved Ruby. Not just in the normal sense of the word. Not just because of that feeling of attraction most would probably base their relationship on. And not just the friendship they'd developed.
No, Weiss knew she'd do anything, give anything for Ruby to stay by her side. Even if she was a dolt at times. Even when her cravings for sugar became downright unbearable to deal with. And even when she did something wrong with the right intentions. There was very little Ruby could do wrong in her eyes, and maybe that was why she could tolerate Yang, why she'd gotten used to the blond rather than just shut her out. Maybe a love similar to that was what had driven Yang to treat her as if she was also her sister. It was a grounding thought that Yang considered her worth such treatment just because she made Ruby happy.
But no, that wasn't it. Yang knew that she might be unwillingly ripped out of their lives. Was it pity that drove Yang to support her? Or was it her faith?
Did Yang believe so strongly that she could get out of her marriage? Or maybe that's just how she thought. Always against the odds. It would make sense considering her semblance made her the most dangerous when she was about to go down. The thought confused Weiss and she felt no trouble letting it go. Whatever the reason, at least at that moment, she had a family. She had Ruby and Yang. She was fairly certain she had the support of their father, and Blake might as well have been another sister the way they were now able to get along. Then there was her legitimate sister. Winter was for all intents and purposes, caught between her two lives. One wanted nothing but to stay with Ruby, free, and the other had the duty to uphold the Schnee family name.
But regardless, the warm feeling of being cared about by so many people at once made her smile just as much as she had the previous evening after she'd gotten the all clear from Taiyang to continue dating Ruby. She nuzzled her face deeper into the pillow and sighed as she relaxed even further into the warm covers. Ruby's bed really was more comfortable than she'd expected it to be.