Work Text:
Blake’s numb fingers slipped through the heavy black wool of their cloak. The whisper of sensation returned to the frozen digits as they brushed against the row of small glass vials, faint warmth registering as little more than absence of bone-chilling cold.
“Just in case,” Weiss had said before departing, handing Blake several loose vials packed with red dust and an empty clip instead of the usual pre-loaded variety pack. The faunus hadn’t put much thought into the words at the time, too distracted by the gentle press of cold lips that accompanied them. The real gratitude had come later, during the end-of-semester mission that happened to coincide with Vale’s unseasonably dramatic introduction to winter.
Bitter cold and scattered snow showers had been forecasted. The gusts had not been. Forever Fall seemed to fight the weather at every turn, stubborn red leaves clinging to thinning branches even as they frosted over, but the relentless wind stirred those that had given up. The air was full of snow and the discarded remnants of a season abruptly cut short. Nearly two feet of the stuff prevented easy movement, each step a hard-won victory against the ground and the air that seemed intent on pushing Blake back the way they had come. Leaves danced along the surface, sometimes confused for rose petals as the faunus attempted to track the other three members of their team in the storm.
There were no footprints to follow, as anything small enough to be human was quickly covered up. This had prevented Blake from following Yang’s boots once the storm picked up unexpectedly – not that the brawler had been particularly easy to follow even before then, insisting on ducking behind every ice-blasted tree and hurling snowballs that their partner was highly motivated to dodge. A few shots had been returned, of course. Blake was hardly immune from Yang’s antics, especially now, following so closely after the series of confessions that had brought both of them even closer. She had bemoaned Weiss’s absence, laughing while shouting to the wind that their snow angel (the possessive had brought color to Blake’s cheeks faster than the cold could) was probably “hiding some serious snowball skills under that too-cool-to-care attitude.”
Alas, Oobleck had called for a split just before the wind had picked up, with the idea that Blake and Yang would break off to de-ice the CCT support tower located just south of their route to the damaged control center. Blake wondered if the three of them had managed to stay together, and if they had somehow found it. They had given up on finding the support tower and had begun looking for Yang when the storm had proven to be too much of a navigational challenge. Large disturbances in the snow were carefully noted and avoided; there would be no more encounters with Grimm than were strictly necessary. Not in this weather.
Blake stopped walking for a moment, reaching for the black scarf that protected the lower half of their face from the worst of the cold. It had been rather poorly knitted by Yang during a short-lived flirtation with a hobby that ultimately proved to be “somehow even more boring than Port’s class,” but despite the frequent dropped stitches and irregular shape, the yarn seemed to thrum with their partner’s warmth. Blake knew it was probably just their imagination, but either way, the garment served its purpose. They lowered it, bracing against the frigid air that invaded their nose with a deep sniff of a passing gust. It was hard to detect any scent beyond ice, soaked wood, and the fading odor of pollen.
A frustrated sigh fell from Blake’s lips before the scarf moved back into place, golden eyes squinting against the blanket of white that surrounded them on all sides. Faunus vision acuity served little purpose here; even the trees twenty feet in front of them were partially obscured, gray pillars with barely discernable edges. The illumination of their scroll’s screen came into focus as Blake pulled it from a cloak pocket and squinted at the top left corner, where the words “LOW SIGNAL” glared up at them in red letters. The device was immediately re-pocketed to prevent any damage from the snowfall.
It had been nearly an hour since Blake had last seen Yang, and they had managed to feel little genuine concern about that fact until now. But the temperature had plummeted from teeth-chattering chill to sweat-freezing hellscape, and the air they breathed was starting to burn on the way down. The binder that pressed their chest tightly beneath many layers of clothing was becoming a problem. It had been fine when they had put it on that morning, but hours of trudging through heavy snow in frigid air made their breathing feel labored. It would have to come off soon to give Blake’s tired lungs a break. Preferably somewhere warm.
After another few minutes of painstakingly slow travel in the direction best approximated as “east,” Blake lowered the scarf again and stopped suddenly while inhaling. The faint scent of wintergreen seemed out of place here, and the faunus knew very well what Weiss’s body wash smelled like. Traveling face-first into the wind had certainly been unpleasant, but assuming the scent was real and not just a product of their frozen brain, it might have just proved to be the most effective way to locate the rest of the team. Blake reluctantly kept the scarf down around their neck, testing the air periodically while stepping through the thick snow.
“Weiss!” they called out, but the wind tore the name into pieces and scattered it with the autumn leaves.
It took another several minutes of following the strengthening odor before Blake saw the glyph, an incandescent blue snowflake flickering distantly in the thick haze. Relief flooded freezing limbs as they took off in the direction of the symbol, leaving behind a pair of deep trenches.
It took another few minutes to locate the source – searching for a white figure in a blizzard was no easy task – but when Blake was close enough to reach out a hand, Weiss responded in kind and pulled them closer.
The jacket that she wore was heavier than her bolero, but thin enough that looking at it made Blake shiver. She had traded the combat skirt for pants and appeared even shorter than normal with the snow up to her knees and bootless heals. Her scarf was pulled up beneath a hood, much the same as Blake’s, leaving only enough room for a pair of blue eyes to soften with relief. In the moment that they spent catching their breath, Blake noticed that the falling snow didn’t settle on her at all.
“Are you okay?” Weiss asked loudly over the roar of the wind.
Blake nodded. “Fine. Need to make some adjustments,” they said with a thump against their chest. “Where are Ruby and the professor?”
Blake didn’t even need to hear the words come out of Weiss’s mouth before reading “I told that dolt to not go charging ahead like a Boarbatusk, but how about you try to control her when she gets excited over the first snow of the season” in her eyes. “Oobleck’s no better, glued to his thermos to ‘regulate internal body temperature.’”
“I lost Yang a similar way,” Blake reported. “Did you find the control center?”
Weiss shook her head. “I found shelter instead. Follow me.”
Blake held onto the small, cold hand that slipped into their grip and squeezed gently. They stepped into the spaces Weiss left behind, following as closely as possible to benefit from the foot of distance that the snow gave her as it whipped by. Still, progress was slow against the wind, and a particularly large gust nearly toppled both of them more than once. This prompted a frustrated yell of “what dolt named this place Forever Fall!?” from Weiss before they finally arrived at the shelter she’d referred to. The metal door was obvious against the nondescript rocks piled around it that might have effectively concealed the entrance, had the surface of the door not been recently cleared of the layer of frost that made everything look like everything else.
Stepping inside, Blake was immediately greeted with a temperature difference of roughly twenty degrees. They let out a sigh of relief that immediately felt premature when their eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness enough to make out the shapes of discarded boxes at the back of the otherwise empty room.
“Weiss?” they asked softly, “how did you find this place?”
“I felt something suspiciously smooth when I was using the rocks as a wind break. It turned out to be the door.” The explanation was accompanied by a thump and a muttered curse. “Dust, I can’t see a thing in here! Do you still have one of the vials I gave you?”
Slowly, Blake reached into their cloak and removed one of the warm cylinders, placing it in Weiss’s outstretched hand while considering how to explain where exactly they had ended up. They decided on the direct approach. “This hideout was created by the White Fang. It used to be temporary storage for dust crates stolen off the train that runs through here.” In fact, Blake had a pretty good idea of where that track was in relation to the hideout, not that the tracks would be easy to find in the storm.
“Oh.” They watched Weiss’s face carefully. She looked at Blake with surprise, but the faunus was reasonably sure it was too dark for her eyes to read their intentionally blank expression. “Well, I doubt the White Fang is running heists in this weather, so they shouldn’t mind too much if we borrow it for a little while, yes?” she finally said in a sensible tone, and Blake relaxed. She was likely correct, but that didn’t mean they should stick around too long. “Can you look around for something to burn?”
Blake shrugged off their cloak, letting the ice-laden garment fall unceremoniously to the floor. Gambol Shroud was placed on top of it with much greater care before they moved towards the crates. There was just enough light to make out the outline of a very familiar snowflake emblazoned on the side of the closest one. Blake tried not to think about it, shoving the empty metal container off of the wooden pallet beneath. “This should help,” they called back before lifting the pallet, grunting audibly as the binder constricted when they bent over.
Weiss frowned and accepted the offering. “I’ll get a fire going while you get comfortable.”
“Thanks,” Blake breathed while starting to remove layers. “The cold isn’t doing my lungs any favors. I don’t know how you can stand to be out in just that jacket, even with your Semblance.”
Loud ‘snaps’ filled the room as Weiss broke the pallet into smaller pieces and started arranging the wood on the concrete floor. Blake could just make out the ghost of a smile on her lips. “I know you’re all surprised, but storms worse than this have already hit Atlas this season, I’m sure. You get used to it.”
“Mm hmm.” Blake remained unconvinced as they pulled a sweater over their head. It tickled their ears on the way up and left them shivering in just a t-shirt. “I see why you left.”
“Oh, of course. The constant pressure to be inhumanly perfect had nothing to do with it. Really, I came to Vale because I was a little chilly,” Weiss deadpanned. A gentle glow filled the room, casting her face in soft orange light as she scattered the contents of the vial on top of the arrangement of wood.
Blake waited until the dust had ignited before scooting closer to the small flames, grateful for the added heat source as they pulled off their t-shirt. The binder came next after a beat of hesitation. Changing with teammates in the room was hardly a new experience, but it felt different now. Weiss’s eyes seemed fixed on the wood. Practicality won over, and the subsequent exhale felt almost magical. They closed their eyes as it became a blissful sigh.
“I’m getting you a better binder for Christmas,” Weiss declared, and the eyes opened to find her frowning at the fabric in their hand. “You need one that’ll actually move with you and not slow you down in combat.”
Despite the discomfort and cold, a smile broke out on Blake’s face. They had been too nervous, at first, to explain to their teammates why exactly taking off the bow meant that the hair to go with it, why the binder had to replace it, and why they didn’t want to be called ‘she’ anymore. Disguise had been the obvious, easy excuse, and the first they’d tried to float. And it was true that the less likely it was for the White Fang to recognize them, the better.
They had resisted explaining in full for an entire, strained week, afraid of creating more distance from their teammates. From Weiss. But Yang had been understanding enough of the drive to remake a body into its desired image, so insistent that nothing had to change between them, that Blake had felt inspired enough to tell the others. Ruby had been similarly quick on the uptake.
Weiss had been cautiously supportive, yet uncharacteristically quiet around Blake. They had worried until a stammered question had elicited a deep blush and a highly flustered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just didn’t want to say it wrong!” It had been an adjustment, certainly, but not one difficult enough to halt the growing connection between them. Especially not with Yang around to lead by example and help diffuse the occasional argument.
But hearing the offer from Weiss, Blake felt another piece of the small remaining hesitation they held about getting close to the Schnee heiress fall away.
“I would really appreciate that.”
Blue eyes met Blake’s, mirroring their smile before the t-shirt went back on, followed by the sweater. They deliberated for another moment before moving to Weiss’s side, gaze drawn back to the fire as their head came to rest on her shoulder. A cold hand carefully set Myrtenaster aside before moving to tangle lazily in the patch of short black hair between feline ears.
“Yang is better at cuddling for warmth than I am,” she said, but Blake heard the faintest hint of laughter in her voice.
“Mm,” Blake muttered in half-hearted disagreement. She wasn’t wrong, but they weren’t about to admit it. “You’re still a tropical vacation compared to what’s out there,” they purred, arms circling the heiress’s narrow waist, pulling her in for a better angle to nuzzle her neck.
“Well, that’s hardly saying much,” Weiss fussed, but the tilt of her head to allow Blake’s lips easy access contradicted her feigned disinterest.
“No?” Blake murmured into the pale skin that warmed slightly wherever their breath touched. “I suppose it’s not. You’re more like a gentle frost, really. Enchanting, elegant, and surprisingly quick to melt,” they added with a gentle kiss. “But people who don’t know better might look out of the window and only say ‘it’s cold,’ instead of noticing the way the light makes all of the leaves sparkle.”
Blake heard Weiss’s breathing hitch. “I…well…”
Her speechlessness made the faunus’s lips twitch in amusement against her neck.
“Did you get that from one of your books?” she finally managed to say.
Blake couldn’t contain their soft laughter. “Is it working?”
Weiss landed the most half-hearted slap ever on Blake’s knee, but they caught the hand before she pulled away. This prompted cool lips to meet theirs in a sweet kiss that let Weiss settle even further into Blake’s embrace. The hand that had been absently stroking their hair moved to brush along their cheek, a loving gesture that stirred warmth in Blake’s chest.
“Thank you,” they breathed when she pulled away.
“For what?”
For finding me in the snow. For lighting the fire, they wanted to say. For taking the time to understand. For showing me that I was right to leave the White Fang. For reminding me that humans are capable of changing.
“For everything.”
Weiss’s answering look of yearning turned into a slight frown when two scrolls went off simultaneously, but she still reached for hers immediately. “Oh, is there signal now?”
Blake quickly silenced theirs before leaning back onto Weiss’s shoulder, just in time to see Ruby’s face light up on the screen.
“Weiss! There you are!” their leader waved, relief clear in their expression. “Oh! And hi Blake!”
“Hey, Ruby,” Blake replied.
“Are you still with Oobleck?” Weiss asked.
“Doctor Oobleck,” corrected an offscreen voice before the screen shifted to include their professor. “We managed to reach the control center and get things under…well…control. I assume the fact that I am currently speaking to you means that you’ve managed to fix the CCT support tower, yes?”
Blake exchanged confused glances with Weiss. “Uhh…no. Yang and I got separated in the storm,” they explained, leaving out the part about snowball fights. “We did find shelter near the train tracks, though.”
Oobleck nodded. “Good to hear! I’m afraid we might be forced to wait in our respective locations until the weather clears up, but I’m not happy about Miss Xiao Long being out in – ”
His words were cut off by the sound of wind roaring into a microphone as Yang joined the call, splitting the screen’s image to reveal her face and the heavy hood she wore to protect her hair from the worst of the storm.
“Hello? Are you guys there?” her voice was barely distinguishable over the noise.
“Yang!” the other three greeted in unison. Relief cleared the tension Blake hadn’t realized they’d been carrying in their shoulders ever since the pair had gotten separated.
“Oh good, it worked. That tower needed more than a little de-icing, it got pummeled pretty bad. Might wanna send someone out to give it a real fix when the storm passes, doc.”
“Doctor.”
Ruby’s scroll quickly switched back to her own face. “Yang, are you alright? Do you have some place to ride it out?”
Yang’s face disappeared for a second, replaced with a gust loud enough to make Weiss jump before she reappeared. “Boy, wouldn’t that be great!” she groaned by way of answer.
Blake bit down on their lip and held out a hand, signaling Weiss to pass the scroll. “Doctor Oobleck, Weiss and I should be just west of the train tracks, somewhere south of the bridge,” they reported.
“Hmm,” the professor thought for a brief moment. “That should put you…south-southwest of the tower, if I’m not mistaken.”
“If you follow that direction, I can meet you outside,” Weiss interjected. “Watch for my glyphs?”
Yang grinned, tossing a wink at the screen. “Will do.” Her end of the call disconnected.
“I’ll see you guys soon! Try to stay warm!” Ruby said before hanging up as well.
Weiss set the scroll aside and picked up her jacket before turning back to Blake with a tired sigh.
The faunus reached out an empathetic hand, brushing stray white hair from her face. “Remember, we get a break soon,” they reminded.
“I know,” she said, pulling away from their touch and standing up to shoulder her jacket. “Which means I’m running out of time to tell my father that I’m not going back to Atlas for the holidays.”
Blake’s eyebrows lifted at the words. “You’re not going home?”
“I am home,” Weiss insisted. Blake’s ears perked up at that, but she seemed to think better of it. “Well, alright, at the moment I’m stranded in the middle of a forest during a blizzard, but you get the idea.” She pulled her hood up and replaced the scarf before turning back to Blake, and the bit of skin visible below her eyes colored as she added, “Besides, I wouldn’t leave you here while Ruby and Yang go back to Patch.”
Blake stood up, letting their gratitude seep into the kiss that they gave in response before Weiss pulled away, determination in her eyes.
“I’ll go get our girl.”
There was the possessive again. Blake could have sworn the room felt a little warmer.
---
When the door opened again about a half hour later, Blake looked up, one hand on Gambol Shroud out of habit.
“Honey, I’m home!”
Blake’s grip relaxed immediately. Then Yang stepped into the glow of the firelight, and it tightened again as their jaw fell open.
Weiss’s choice of winter apparel was nothing compared to Yang’s. The heavy coat she had been wearing earlier had been downgraded to hood, hanging off of the brawler’s head to cover all of her hair. This left only a sleeveless orange muscle shirt damp from melted snow as her torso’s protection against the elements. Steam rolled off of the pink skin of her big arms, and this time Blake was almost certain the temperature increase was not just their imagination.
“Careful, they’re about to scold you for wearing nothing in a blizzard,” Weiss said to Yang when she caught Blake’s expression.
“…I will do no such thing,” Blake replied automatically, watching the cascade of blonde hair that sprang out from the hood as Yang tipped her head back to let the coat fall behind her.
“I decided embracing it was the best way to go, I hardly feel cold anymore.”
Embrace me, Blake wanted to say, but couldn’t quite manage.
Thankfully, Weiss filled in the gap. “Now that you’re here, your services as space heater are required.”
“Oh, are they? Didn’t think snow angels ever got cold,” Yang teased.
“I don’t. I was referring to Blake,” she responded primly, taking her jacket off as if to prove a point. “But…of course, I wouldn’t say no,” she added a moment later, crossing her arms as her gaze fixated on the small stack of pallet wood next to the fire, and Blake had to turn away from the glow to conceal a grin.
Yang, on the other hand, guffawed as she plopped down on the floor next to Blake, who let out a soft purr when leaning against the arm that came to rest on their shoulders. They stretched out their left side as much as was possible given the space constraints to achieve maximum contact with her partner. Heat pulsed through their veins in time to a heartbeat that might have been theirs, or possibly Yang’s. They sighed blissfully when the brawler’s body vibrated in time with the words, “Come join us.”
Weiss settled into Yang’s opposite side, one hand coming to rest on her chest as she smiled at Blake. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you so happy about a mission going wrong,” the faunus commented.
The heiress hummed while pretending to consider for a moment. “Please define ‘wrong,’” she countered. “The tower is temporarily restored, the control center is taken care of, I saw a grand total of two Grimm in that storm, and I am now very comfortable, thank you very much.”
“See? Sometimes it’s actually fun when things don’t go according to plan. Just gotta roll with the punches. We might just make a freewheeler outta you yet, Schnee.”
“In order for things to not go according to plan, there has to be, you know…a plan,” said Weiss. “Though I certainly won’t complain when a deviating mission gives me cuddles instead of exploding trains.”
“Always a win,” Blake muttered into Yang’s chest, too busy wrapping their limbs around the brawler and stealing as much heat as the surface area of their body would allow.
“Hey.”
Yang’s voice had softened, and Blake looked up to see her locking eyes with Weiss. Watching the two of them watch each other was always a sight to behold. Yang could evoke the warmest smiles out of anyone, but never was this fact more noticeable than on Weiss’s face. The expression reached her eyes like the sun’s rays before Yang closed the distance and placed a feather-light kiss on her upturned lips.
“I’m going to miss you when I’m gone for break,” Yang admitted. “Both of you,” she added, turning to Blake, who lifted their body the extra few inches required to kiss their partner.
“We’ll miss you too,” they said with a hint of sadness in their voice.
“At least you’ll have Ren and Nora for company while Ruby and I are at home,” said Yang, elicited a look of mock horror from Weiss.
“Do you really think I’d leave them alone with only half of JNPR to talk to over Christmas?” she asked incredulously. “Really, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Seriously? I thought you had to go back to the North Pole and replenish your soul-sucking abilities in your family’s enormous ice mansion for the turn of the year, or something,” said Yang, wildly paraphrasing one of Weiss’s previous descriptions of what it was like to return to Atlas.
“I think I could probably achieve the same effect and save my father the cost of air fare by repeatedly hitting my head against a brick wall,” Weiss replied dryly. “Thankfully, I’ve elected to do neither and spend the time with Blake instead.”
“I’m flattered,” the faunus responded. “That brick wall thing sounded fun, too.”
“I think we can find a slightly more sensible way to celebrate. I’m open to suggestions, assuming the snow ever stops.”
Yang shrugged. “Well, if it doesn’t, just stay inside and cuddle and think about how much you miss being warm, by which of course I mean, hugging me.”
Weiss and Blake exchanged glances, nodding before simultaneously digging their elbows into the brawler’s sides, causing her to jump beneath them.
“Hey! You know I’m right!”
Blake knew, but certainly wouldn’t admit it, and the look on Weiss’s face told them she wouldn’t, either. In truth, they it would be a hard two weeks without the presence of their leader and teammate, but for the time being, all Blake wanted to do was lie with both of them and enjoy the beauty of an unexpected moment together.
They secretly hoped the snow wouldn’t stop anytime soon as they curled up by the glow of the fire and closed their eyes, tuning out all but the sounds of Yang’s gentle breathing and the feeling of a cold hand in their grip.