Work Text:
Weiss was drifting, falling. Those final moments in the space between as they battled Cinder kept going through her mind, including… Penny’s death. Weiss knew that Jaune had done the only thing he really could, but it still hurt, losing a friend for the second time. She hadn’t really gotten to know Penny before her first death, but after they’d arrive in Atlas, Weiss had come to know and, yes, love the strange, awkward, adorable robot girl. In her own way, Penny had always been more human than a lot of other people Weiss had known.
The falling sensation began to fade. First to return was scent. Wherever she was, it smelled like… Plants, flowers, a forest? Saltwater, the ocean? Yes, she could hear waves, faintly in the distance. She was on her back, she could feel something underneath her. Not smooth, rough, but not in a hard way. Dirt, grass, a forest floor? Okay, she was lying on her back in a forest, somewhere near a beach.
Time to take stock of her physical condition, then. She hurt, but that was to be expected. The battle against Neo and Cinder had been intense, depleting Weiss’s aura more than ever before in Weiss’s life. Well, if she hurt, that meant she was alive. Or at least Weiss was fairly certain that the dead didn’t feel pain. And that was when Weiss noticed the most unexpected sensation of all.
A gentle pressure on her lips, almost hesitant, as if the other party was terrified. Someone was kissing Weiss Schnee on the lips.
It wasn’t the first time. Her family’s wealth and privilege had always attracted others to her. Some of them had been more acceptable than others, some of those she had agreed to go on dates with, and on one of those she had consented to a kiss. Just one. Unfortunately, that kiss had been a mistake. He’d leaped to the vastly unwarranted assumption’ that their date had gone so exceedingly well that she was willing to give up being a Huntress and marry him. The idiot had been boasting about it to his friends before Weiss had been in bed that night. Weiss had been furious. And yes, she had gone too far in publicly humiliating him. So it was probably best to be a little more gentle with her would-be Romeo. Not only because Weiss was trying to be nicer but they presumably knew where she was, and where Weiss could obtain such basic human necessities as food, water, shelter, and coffee.
So she opened her eyes to find not Romeo but Juliet. Leaning over Weiss was her partner and team leader, Ruby Rose, an embarrassed blush spreading across her face. “Weiss, um, you’re awake, wow, hey, how’s it going? Are you okay? What happened after I fell?”
“You… kissed me,” Weiss murmured in surprise, lifting a hand to her lips. “It was you.”
Ruby backed away nervously. “Uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Weiss sat up gingerly, her eyes narrowing as she turned to look at her friend. “I know being kissed when I feel it, Ruby. And I don’t see anyone else around, wherever this is.” Sure enough, they were in a small jungle clearing. Or at least Weiss assumed so, never having actually been in a jungle before.
“J-just pretend it never happened, okay? I got a little carried away when I found you, that’s all.” Ruby looked away, not facing Weiss.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ruby. I want to-” But then she was gone, disappearing in a red blur, leaving a scattering of rose petals fluttering to the jungle floor.
“Ruby, wait!” Weiss yelled, reaching after where she thought Ruby had gone. She sighed. “Impossible girl.”With a grimace, Weiss forced herself to her feet and set off after her teammate.
With nothing else to do but stagger blindly through the jungle, Weiss found her mind coming back time and again to how she felt about Ruby. When they’d first met, Weiss had taken the younger girl four a child who’d been admitted early to Beacon on the headmaster’s whim. But then she’d seen how hard Ruby had been working. Not just at the training side of being a Huntress, but at being a leader. Ruby had shown a heart and a determination that Weiss had come to admire.
But on top of that… Weiss hadn’t had a lot of friends growing up. Looking back, it was no great leap of psychology to guess that the lack of affection from her father and her mother’s gradual decline had left Weiss with difficulty forming friendships. After they’d met, Ruby had gone out of her way to include Weiss in team activities, doing her best to keep the heiress from working too hard. And unexpectedly, first Ruby, Blake, and Yang, then Team JNPR, and a few others, had become Weiss’s friends, the first real friends Weiss had ever had.
“Oof!” Weiss pitched forward, laying herself out on the path. Well, it wasn’t much of a path, a game trail, maybe. But it was something, sort of, and at least marginally better than wandering at random. In her distraction, she’d caught her foot on an exposed tree root and tripped.
“Are you okay, Weiss?” Ruby’s voice came from within the trees.
“Yes, I’m fine you d-” Too late, Weiss’s brain caught up with her temper. “I tripped, my ankle hurts, I think I may have twisted it. Come help me up.”
Ruby came zipping around from behind a tree, skidding to a halt when she saw Weiss with her hands raised, ready to grab her. “I’ve got you now, Ruby!” Weiss yelled, diving for her partner.
All she got was a face-full of dirt as Ruby used her Semblance to dodge away again.
Weiss wasn’t sure how long this went on. The sun was starting to sink below the horizon by the time Weiss stumbled out of the jungle toward the beach. She was mostly wanting to soak her aching feet in the ocean but she spied a familiar figure huddled by the waterline with her knees up against her chest.
The white-haired girl dropped down next to her partner, pulling off her boots and massaging her ankle. “I’m sorry.”
“F’r what?”
“Chasing you. I should have known it was a sensitive subject and waited before talking to you.”
Ruby grunted. “Didn’t expect that.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“You being nice about it. Figured you’d be mad.”
Weiss rolled her eyes. And her ankle. “Ruby… this might come as a surprise to you, but you and the rest of the team are my best friends. You especially. It’s… hard for me to stay mad at you. Though I do have a question for you when you’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“Did you mean it?”
Ruby blinked at Weiss, her mouth open. “Mean what?”
“That kiss.” Weiss cleared her throat. “That is, are you interested in me? Do you… like me?”
“Kinda.” Ruby looked away. “Stupid crush. Probably nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“I see.” Weiss winced. “And I am sorry about trying to trick you. But I really do think I twisted my ankle while I was chasing you. At least a little. Do you think you could wrap it for me?”
Afterward, Weiss sat on a log Ruby had dragged over for her. She had definitely twisted her ankle at some point and then chased a certain dolt around the jungle. Thankfully the first aid supplies they carried had included some mild painkillers.
Ruby tossed another chunk of wood on the fire before looking into the jungle. “Do you think the others are in there?”
“It’s possible. No, don’t sit there,” Weiss said as Ruby started to sit on the ground on the opposite side of the fire, as far from Weiss as she could get and still be near the fire. “Sit next to me. I promise I won’t bite. There, that’s better.” Weiss let Ruby get settled, then leaned into her.
“You know, I kind of envy you,” Weiss said, in as off-hand a manner as she could manage.
“You do?” Why?” Ruby asked, doing her best to ignore Weiss leaning against her.”
“It’s simple, really. Remember that time you invited me over to your dad’s house for a three-day weekend? And how surprised I was by how welcome he made me feel?”
Ruby laughed. “And how he told you to call him Tai, because ‘Mister Xiao Long’ made him feel old?”
“Yes.” Weiss smiled at the memory. Or it might have been the painkillers. “I couldn’t help but envy how obvious it was how much he cared about you and Yang. I… never had that, growing up. Not after I turned ten. Winter… was the only one I was close to, and even she was off at school. So I was jealous. At least at first. But… you and the rest of the team, you’re family to me, now.”
They sat there for a while, the green wood from the jungle popping and crackling as it burned, the wind thankfully carrying the smoke out toward the ocean. Finally Ruby relaxed, leaning into Weiss as much as Weiss was leaning into her. “I meant it.”
“Say again?”
Ruby winced. “The kiss. I, I did mean it. I kinda had a crush on you, back at Beacon. Couldn’t work up the courage to say anything. And when we met up again, back in Mistral, it kicked into overdrive. So when I found you lying there, I couldn’t help myself. Just a stupid crush, right? Don’t worry about it. I know you’re not interested.”
“Mm, I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Weiss, don’t-”
“Stop.” Weiss let the sharpness from her first days at Beacon slip back into her tone. “The only part I’m… annoyed about is being kissed unexpectedly. I find the idea of you being interested in me… curiously appealing. For once, I’m pretty certain you like me for myself, not my family’s name, or money.”
“If there’s anything of that left after Atlas fell,” Ruby said with a hollow laugh.
“Mother and Whitley saved what they could. And the SDC had operations across Remnant, so we should be okay.” Although Weiss was pretty sure at least some of the wealth was going to be paying for a legion of the finest divorce lawyers on Remnant. Jacques Schnee was going to be lucky if her mother left him with a Lien to his name. If she left him the family name he’d assumed at all.
“So I’m willing to trust. Trust you, trust your heart, and mine.”
“There’s no way, Weiss.”
Weiss reached over and put a finger on Ruby’s chin, turning her so they faced each other. “Trust me?” Ruby nodded, a bit warily. “Good.” And with that, Weiss leaned forward and kissed her.
This time was different. After a moment of surprise, Ruby’s lips opened to meet hers. It wasn’t some overblown movie kiss, not one of them trying to lay claim to the other or convince them or themselves of something. Instead, it was two hearts opening up to each other, and choosing trust.
Afterward, they pulled apart, their foreheads resting against each other. “Was that better?” Weiss asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Ruby said, no louder than Weiss’s question. “I kinda wanna do it again.”
“In time,” Weiss said with a quiet laugh. “I think we’ll call that our first official kiss. And it was much better than my first kiss.”
“Mine too,” Ruby laughed. “It was better with you awake.”
A twig snapped, and both of their heads spun toward the jungle. “I didn’t want to interrupt,” Blake said a bit loudly, “but Yang’s got feet like a Goliath.”
“It’s fine,” Weiss said a bit sharply, using that ‘fine’ that Ruby knew was nowhere near actually meaning fine. “Pull up a log, no sense spying on us from the jungle.”
“We totally were not spying on you,” Yang said as she tossed a log down right where Ruby had originally been about to sit. “And I also totally did not take a picture of you two kissing for possible teasing material later.”
“One you better damn send me that picture when I have a working scroll again, and two, what’s to tease us about? Can’t I kiss my girlfriend if I want to?” Weiss asked with a laugh.
Yang missed the log, dropping down hard on the sand next to it instead. “Girlfriend? When did that happen?”
“About five minutes ago,” her sister said, laughing as she hugged Weiss close and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
“Oh brother,” Yang said, shaking her head.
“Actually, before something or someone else tries to kill us, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say.” Blake cleared her throat. “Yang, you mean a lot to me. I, I think I love you. Will you, will you be my girlfriend?”
This time it was Ruby’s turn with her scroll, making sure to capture Yang’s reaction.