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It was cold. Outside. It was cold outside.
Blake was about halfway through her usual trek back from the library to her dorm room. She had been studying for her finals all day. It was her first semester of college. She had to do well, no exceptions.
There was snow falling, though nothing quite like it had been a few days ago, thankfully. She had traveled to many different places with her parents growing up, but the cold was something that she didn't get to experience often. Her parents had tended to plan more lively and tropic vacation destinations. She was ready to get her finals over and done with so she could go home for winter break.
Having grown up in Menagerie, she wasn't nearly as accustomed to the chilled weather of Vale as her dorm mate, Weiss Schnee. She had grown up in the harsh and frigid land of Atlas. Ironic, since it seemed like the weather had rubbed off on her personality.
It had taken some time, but eventually they started to find common ground and find ways to tolerate one another throughout the semester. Turned out that they had similar work ethic and academic prowess. Weiss was just a little more up tight about certain things than Blake was.
But it had never deterred Blake from trying to find time to spend with her roommate. Something about Weiss' tenacity and defiance was like a lure, always dragging Blake back in. So naturally, they had developed some odd form of friendship that worked for them. And considering the two of them had moved to different continents to go to school, and knew no one, they had become reliant on one another.
Finally, Blake makes it back to their dorm and steps through the doorway, out of the snow and into the heated lobby before hopping into the elevator to go up to the fifth floor. She shivers and the remaining snow falls from her shoulders before stepping out into the empty hallway.
Their room was at the very end of the hall, on the left side. The light is shining from under the door, letting her know that Weiss is home. She can hear what sounds like music through the door. Blake does the two quick courtesy knocks before she uses her key and opens the door. But what she sees is not at all what she expects.
Well, not entirely. Weiss is sitting at her desk studying. Blake can see that she has her headphones on. So she may not be able to hear her, since she didn't stir when Blake entered the room.
What is most shocking is that it wasn't music that Blake was hearing through the door. Weiss was singing along to whatever she was listening to through her headphones. And Blake was entranced.
Her voice was so pure and it seemed like it belonged in the air more than the wind. She hadn't ever heard Weiss sing before. It didn't need music. It was self sustaining and full.
Carefully, Blake takes off her jacket and hangs it on the back of her closet door and rubs her hands up and down both arms, not sure if the goosebumps she has are from the cold, or the melodic voice of her roommate. Slowly, she pulls out the chair in front of her own desk and sits down, watching Weiss as she goes about her studying, all while she continues to sing.
She doesn't know how long she sits there, or how many songs Weiss sings through, but Blake listens on in silence. Eventually, Weiss turns to the side and notices Blake is there.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you were here already." Weiss begins to frantically pack up her papers and books.
"No, no it's okay."
"I'm so embarrassed. I was singing so loudly and I'm sure that was the last thing you were wanting to hear while trying to study for finals." Weiss stands up from her chair and begins preoccupying herself by cleaning up and organizing little things across her side of the room.
"You, you have a very nice voice. It's really good, actually."
"I used to take lessons when I was younger. But my parents decided I needed to focus on academics."
"Feel free to sing as much as you want. I am more than willing to listen any time."
Weiss can tell that Blake is sincere, as she turns away from her to unpack her own bag and put away her books. Blake had been a good friend. She didn't know how she would've survived the 'college experience' without her. She didn't even know how to make instant noodles. Blake had been a life saver.
"You want to have dinner with me?" Weiss' question shakes Blake from her methodical unpacking.
"W-what?" Blake appears flustered. "Dinner? Um, when?" She clears her throat.
"Well, it is dinner time now, and the cafeteria is going to close in like an hour, so if we want to eat on campus we probably need to go."
Of course. Weiss meant to literally eat dinner. On campus, using the meal plan that is part of their tuition.
"Oh yeah, sure. We can go whenever you're ready."
"Then I guess we should go now. I'm ready." Weiss grabs her keys and student ID and prances her way out of the door, and waits for Blake in the hallway.
"Hey Weiss?" Blake mumbles as she pulls their door shut and turns around to lock it behind.
"Yes?"
"You have a lovely voice." The crimson blush isn't missed by Blake just before Weiss turns around and begins trotting her way down the hallway towards the elevator.
"Thank you." As soon as Blake takes her place next to her in the elevator, Weiss leans over to nudge her shoulder, making them both smile.
—
"Are you sure that this establishment is really where we need to be?"
"Weiss, its a dive bar. The purpose is for it to be… dive-y."
"Somehow that isn't very reassuring." Even with her very outward show of concern, she blindly follows Blake into the bar.
"You could've stayed home." Blake spins around to face her, already a little tipsy from the pregaming shots they took before they even left the dorm.
"And let you have fun celebrating our imminent graduation without me?" Weiss quirks an eyebrow, completely unamused. But the shots are starting to hit, so she blinks her eyes a little more slowly than she intended. "We only have a month left. And then we are free of this place."
"Free? It's a college, not a prison." Blake tilts her head to the side a little, somewhat amused by Weiss' description. "I hope I wasn't a bad cellmate." Blake kind of sputters out a laugh at her own joke, making Weiss roll her eyes.
"Maybe prison wouldn't be so bad if you were there." Weiss strolls past her, making her way towards the bar. "What do you want?" Weiss all but yells towards Blake, over the loud music.
"Uh, whiskey is fine." Blake takes some money out of her wallet and shoves it in Weiss' pocket, knowing she won't take it voluntarily.
"Would you just let me buy you a drink?"
"Would you?"
"Point taken." Weiss pays the bartender and hands Blake her drink, they cheers and Blake takes the shot in a single swallow and sets the empty glass on the bar, turning to order their next one. "Keep doing that and we are going to have to crawl back to the dorm."
"Don't think you can keep up?"
"You know better than that."
"We will see how you feel in an hour."
"I will be feeling fantastic, I'm sure." Weiss leans up against Blake's shoulder. Once they have the next two rounds of drinks in their hands, they make their way through the bar to find a table top to sit at along the wall. "Why exactly did you pick this place anyways? We could've gone to any of the usual spots."
"This place has karaoke."
"Absolutely not." Weiss breaks eye contact and sticks her nose in the air. "I am not singing in front of all of these strangers."
"Why not? You will never see them again."
"It's not about that. I never know what to sing. And I'm not sure there is enough alcohol in this bar to get me up on that stage."
"Drink this." Blake slides Weiss' second drink over towards her and hops off her stool and trots back over towards the bar, returning in a few minutes with more drinks.
"Are you, are you trying to kill us?"
"If I pick the song, will you do it?" Maybe if they were sober Weiss would've fought harder. But over the years, those golden eyes had garnered enough power to instantly demolish any will power she had.
Weiss breathes out a heavy sigh, though it is lost in the loud music playing. She waits for whoever was finishing up their current song, poorly she might add, before she indulges Blake.
"P-Pick a song." Blake's eyes light up.
"Yeah?" She places her hands palm side down on the table in excitement.
"Yes." Weiss downs another drink. "Don't pick anything crazy."
"So no opera?"
"Not tonight. I'm too tipsy for that."
"How about that song you were singing the other day in the car?"
"Make sure they have it available. I will go prepare."
"Prepare?" Blake looks at her quizzically.
"My, my voice is an instrument. You don't just sit down in a concert chair and play a symphony."
"Weiss, it's a pop song, not a concerto."
"It is still a performance." She hops off her stool and makes her way towards the stage, making sure the employee manning the karaoke equipment has everything set correctly for her.
When Weiss prepares to sing, Blake takes the opportunity to sip her drink and slide her stool over to the side of the table so she can lean her back against the wall.
But just like every other time she has ever heard Weiss sing, she feels like she is never truly ready to hear her voice. It's a different form of perfection each time.
For however long the song lasts, Blake watches her as she is completely captivated. Everything else that surrounds them fades away and Blake feels that familiar chill radiate over her skin until the song ends and she notices a familiar look of mild confusion on Weiss' face as she tries to figure out how to get down from the stage.
As gracefully and quickly as she can, Blake all but topples off of her bar stool and makes her way to the edge and reaches her hand up so Weiss can grab it and jump the few feet down to the ground.
"You did so great. Your voice was p-perfect." As Weiss listens to Blake sing her slightly slurred and more than tipsy praises, she can't help but keep her focus on how brightly Blake's eyes seem to glow, even in the low lighting of the bar. "You should've just been famous. You should be on tour."
"Don't be ridiculous. Let's go get one last drink and then we need to go home."
Roughly half an hour later, Weiss follows closely behind Blake as she stumbles her way back to their dorm room. Blake tries her best to remain as quiet as possible, not wanting to ruin their pristine record with a noise violation in their last semester. She nearly makes it, only to trip and slam into the wall as she steps out of the elevator, which makes Weiss work a little too hard to suppress a giggle.
Finally, they make it back to their door. Blake leans sideways against the door for support as she watches Weiss, who is incredibly focused and still pretty tipsy as she tries to get the key into the lock to open the door.
As soon as she hears the lock click, the door swings open inward and Blake immediately loses her balance and tumbles through the opening. Luckily, Weiss is able to reach out and grab onto Blake's arm so that she doesn't fall to the floor or hurt herself. But pulling backwards on her arm to prevent the fall brings them a lot closer than arms distance in their small dorm room.
"Thanks." Blake breathes out the word heavily, her breath still laced with the scent of whiskey as she looks up, her voice much quieter this time when she speaks. "I know I've told you a million times, but I think I could listen to you sing every day for the rest of my life."
Weiss watches Blake's eyes intently as they follow Blake's hand as she reaches up to softly brush the loose strands of hair out of Weiss' face. She notices how even in her drunken state, Blake bites her lower lip in concentration as she takes the utmost care in her actions.
The only thing Weiss can think of is how badly she wants to lean up and kiss her. She wants to blame it on the alcohol pulsing through her veins, but even in a tipsy haze, she knows the truth. And so she does.
Blake tastes like whiskey too.
—
It was the end of summer. And every year the city where they lived held a huge festival. Complete with all the activities and foods and events that Weiss supposed were all normal things you would see at a fair.
Having grown up in the lofty confines of Atlas, it wasn't something she had become familiar with until she moved to Vale, and until she had met someone like Blake, who happened to love going to these kinds of places.
Normally, on her own, Weiss wouldn't be caught dead at this kind of place. Doing such frivolous things like playing carnival style games, walking around near a bunch of less than clean farm animals at the petting zoo, or strolling countless aisles of tents filled with local vendors.
But Blake wanted to go, so here she was. Her hand more often than not, holding tightly to Blake's as they wandered aimlessly for hours. Something about Blake was always able to take her anywhere.
"I can't believe you made me feed, and touch a goat." Weiss continues wiping her hand against the jeans that cover her thigh.
"You've already washed your hands like three times, Weiss. You don't have any more goat spit on them." Blake snickers under her breath in amusement. "And the baby goats are cute, not even you can deny it."
"Cute as they may look, they are still dirty." Weiss sticks her nose up slightly as they continue wandering down aisles, occasionally stopping to look at the items on some of the vendors' tables.
"I won't make you pet any more goats."
"You promise?"
"I promise." Blake nods in confirmation, watching as Weiss carefully admires the items on a table in the tent beside where they currently stand. "See something you like?"
"Other than you?" Weiss teases, as her eyes return back to the well crafted and handmade hair pins displayed nearby. "Just admiring the craftsmanship. They are very well made."
She picks up a few and turns them over in her hand. Blake notices that they look similar to the one that Weiss will still occasionally wear when her hair is up, or if they go somewhere nicer than usual. The vendor asks if there is anything she can help Weiss with, and she politely declines, setting the piece in her hand back in its resting place, wandering on towards the next booth.
"How much for the one that she was looking at?" Blake quickly asks the attendant.
"The one she was looking at?" She leans back and checks a sheet hanging from the back side of the table. "Sixty."
Blake hands the woman enough lien and she wraps the hair clip for her, which Blake places carefully in her bag. She thanks the woman and trots off to catch up with Weiss, who seems to be engaged in a conversation with a gentleman that was selling hand crafted leather bound journals.
"Blake look at these. The leather is bound to the journals by hand. Feel how soft they are." She hands a journal to Blake, who runs her fingertips over the cover.
"Oh wow."
"Do you want one?"
"They are really nice. But you don't need to spend any money on me." She places a kiss into Weiss' hair and walks a few steps over to the next vendor, trying to make it seem like she wasn't interested in the journal.
Truthfully, she thought they were fantastic. Blake would've bought four or five of them, but they were kind of pricey, so she didn't want Weiss spending that kind of money on her. She could just as easily buy a journal from the bookstore for a third of the cost. Weiss should spend that money on something for herself.
They continue wandering throughout the festival grounds as the sun begins to set. Blake finds them some greasy festival food to eat and they find a place to sit down to eat.
"Would you like to stay for the fireworks? Or are you wanting to go home?"
Having spent many hours at the festival already, Weiss nearly jumped at the opportunity to go home. She was tired of being outside. She had been hot and sweaty during the height of the day, and then she got goat spit on her, now the wind had ruffled her hair to the point of no return. But Weiss knows how much Blake was looking forward to the fireworks.
"Let's stay for the fireworks." Blake immediately perks up.
"Really? You sure?"
"I mean…" She rolls her eyes playfully. "We might as well, we've been here all day. What's another hour or two?" Initially, she thought she would have to beg Weiss to stay even longer so they could sit on the grass and watch them. So she is surprised when Weiss doesn't even put up a fight.
"You're the best." Blake stands up and leans over the table to press a kiss to her cheek, grinning wildly. "Let's find a good spot. It's starting to get dark so they should start soon."
They wander just outside of the festival grounds for a little while, but settle in just in time. Blake had found the perfect spot up on a hill under a small tree. The trunk was just wide enough for them both to lean back against, allowing them to sit side by side, Weiss resting her head on Blake's shoulder.
They continue watching the lights and activities of the festival grounds below them, waiting for the firework show to begin.
"Oh, before I forget, I got you something." Blake remembers, turning to rustle through her bag.
She pulls out the small hair clip and begins looking for a place to nestle it into Weiss' hair.
"Blake! You didn't need to buy me anything. Those hair pins were so over priced."
"Yeah, but you really liked it. I could tell." Blake shrugs, thinking nothing of it. "And I know you bought that journal for me too, so now we are even." She hears Weiss scoff in the dark.
Blake feels Weiss reach her arm under her own and link their fingers together, pulling their hands over slightly, to rest in her lap as the fireworks begin.
She can tell that the loudness of the fireworks is somewhat jarring to Weiss, because she feels the grip on her hand tighten occasionally when one goes off.
"Did you know that the type of metal salt inside of the firework is what gives them the different colors?" Blake says as she rests her head against Weiss,' which is settled comfortably against her shoulder.
"I like the blue ones. The purple ones are pretty too." She runs her thumb over the side of Blake's hand, loosening her grip slightly as calmness begins to settle over her. "What makes those?"
"Um blue ones are copper salts. And the purple ones are a mix of copper and strontium. Strontium salts make red fireworks."
"They are all very pretty."
"So are you." Blake says it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, and Weiss knows there is a blush on her cheeks that the darkness is gracefully hiding.
Minutes pass as they continue watching the explosions in the sky. Knowing that she has become mesmerized by the exploding display in the sky above them, Blake shakes her gaze free and looks over to find Weiss looking at her.
She leans forward and presses a light kiss to her forehead before leaning back.
"Thank you for spending the day with me here. I know it's not really your favorite kind of place."
Without thinking, Weiss says the only thought that had come to her mind.
"I love you." Weiss is terrified, because she's never said it to anyone before.
And Blake doesn't know if her heart beat or the fireworks are louder. But an all too similar chill radiates through her as she hears her favorite voice say her new favorite words.
Blake echoes the words back truthfully before leaning in to kiss her again.
Suddenly, she forgets about the fireworks.
—
She hadn't wanted to do anything to celebrate. She was still trying to catch up from all the traveling from the holidays. But a birthday is a birthday, and Weiss had all but begged for them to do something to celebrate Blake's birthday.
So she had agreed to do a dinner together, just the two of them.
When they get home, Weiss quickly removes her coat and runs off towards their kitchen.
"Where are you rushing off to?"
"Just stay there, don't come in the kitchen." Weiss' insistence causes Blake to halt her steps. "Well, actually can you go sit on the couch and wait for me?"
"Sure?" Hesitation weaves heavily through Blake's voice as she takes off her jacket and makes her way to the living room.
She sits on the couch for another minute or two before she hears Weiss shuffling towards her from the kitchen.
"Can you close your eyes?"
"Do you want me to just shut them, or do I need to cover them with my hands?"
"Blake, just close your eyes."
"Okay. Eyes closed." She squeezes them closed a little tighter than she should, scrunching up her face, which makes Weiss roll her eyes.
Weiss sits the cake she had gotten for Blake on their coffee table and takes her seat next to Blake on the couch, grabbing her hand.
When she starts to sing 'Happy Birthday' to her, Blake's eyes flutter open in surprise, immediately drawn to the small cake in front of them.
Blake looks over to Weiss as she finishes singing the short song for her and she sees the fire from the candles flickering in her light blue eyes.
She nearly forgets about the cake, already missing the sound of Weiss' singing.
"You are just the best and most lovely thing about my life. You know that?"
"Because I got you a cake and sang you happy birthday, on your birthday?"
"That helps. But you are also just as amazing on all the other days that aren't my birthday. And you somehow manage to make them all feel special."
"I'm glad you feel that way, because you are stuck with me forever."
"I know. Wouldn't want to be stuck with anybody else." Blake whispers against Weiss' lips before kissing her.
It had been years at this point. More than a handful of birthdays. They had long since graduated from college and were already many years into the rest of their lives together.
But Blake had never grown tired of hearing her sing. Each and every time her voice would echo through Blake's ears, a chill would run through her and her skin would prickle with goosebumps.
Whether it was the low and even humming when Blake was sick, and Weiss was trying to soothe her so she could fall asleep, or when she would catch Weiss dancing through their apartment, headphones on and singing as she cleaned on Friday afternoons after work, Blake would always want to be there to listen.
She loved the feeling of the chills as they rippled over her skin and settled deep down into her soul.
They had started out as coincidental dorm mates. Learning how to make it through their freshman year of college. Adjusting to sharing the small amount of space they were given with one another.
And over time things had turned into quick brushes of hands, or clinging to the sleeves of shirts. Eventually, with bravery, it had transformed into a first kiss, catapulting them into a love that felt effortless.
It wasn't a life that she had expected. Nothing about Weiss had been that way. But she would gladly spend the rest of her days in this life, and as many birthdays as time would allow, with the woman who has a voice that changed her life.