Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Atlas was cold. A bone deep cold that kept Weiss’s back ramrod straight, for the fear that if she bent too far in any direction her spine would shatter in a flurry of frozen shards. In Atlas, Weiss never once dared to breathe deeply unless she stood atop a stage, singing to a crowd of faceless strangers. If she breathed too deep in that silent house, she feared the cracking of her ribcage would be the only sound to reverberate down empty hallways.

The air in Vale, however, is humid and warm. It makes her hair frizz unpleasantly by the end of the day and sometimes her many layers of clothing prove to be unbearable in the heat. The noise of Beacon is a constant low buzz at the base of her skull from morning to night– not even the crickets outside her window seem to even stop chittering. It’s infuriating and yet she loves it, even if she won’t admit it to herself in the light of day. 

Too bad, it seems, that Beacon has made her soft. Her back has begun to thaw and her breaths grow deeper, and she can feel her bones begin to weaken. There’s no other reason for the aching pain she feels radiate from her chest. She’s just being dramatic— being free from Atlas has made her too emotional. It’s all just in her head, a metaphorical pain.  

That is, of course, until she coughs up the first petal.

Who?

That’s the first question that comes to mind. Who could it be? She doesn’t love – she doesn’t even know if she’s capable of loving. Winter, perhaps? No, she knows her sister loves her back truly and fully, even if she has an awful way of showing it. Willow, maybe? No, no. Her mother loves her, she knows, even through the warped lens of the bottom of a bottle. 

It is certainly not Whitley or her Father. There is no love in her heart for either of them. She has not thawed nearly enough for that. 

She doesn’t love anyone at Beacon. Blake and Yang shoot distrustful glares her way and she responds in kind. Ruby is tolerable, at best, though she feels a begrudging kind of kinship forming with the hyperactive girl. Nothing close to love, though. Or at least, what she thinks love should feel like.

(She doesn’t actually know. To her, love is creeping into Winter’s bedroom after Father screams at her for interrupting an important investor meeting and her sister allowing her to crawl under the covers and hide, pressed against the body of the only person to ever protect her. To her, love is Klein’s eyes flashing red as he presses a cold towel to the red handprint smeared across her cheek, whispering her tales of brave huntresses and doomed princesses in old Atlesian. To her, love is her mother taking her for a stroll around the gardens and mumbling to her the meanings of all her favourite flowers, the scent of red wine curling strongly in the frigid air between them.)

“Weiss? Are you gonna take much longer? I need to brush my teeth,” Ruby’s muffled voice travels through the locked door of the bathroom, shocking Weiss out of her stupor. She hastily drops the petal in her hand, unrecognisably mangled from its journey up her trachea, into the toilet before flushing. 

“I’ll be out in just a moment.” Her voice crackles unpleasantly, the remnants of a cough clinging to her words. She washes her hands (she touched the toilet and wan’t raised in a barn, thank you very much) before stepping out of the bathroom.

Ruby bustles past her, and Weiss slips under the covers of her bed, ignoring the other two residents of her dorm. She’ll deal with everything in the morning.

Morning comes and things have not been dealt with. For the second time in just over eight hours, Weiss has locked herself in the bathroom of their dorm. 

(She’d waved a hesitant Ruby onwards, saying she’d meet her in the dining hall in a minute, but that she wanted to try something new with her hair. Blake and Yang had already left, and Weiss ignores how much that hurts.)

Porcelain remains unyielding as she grips the sink, staring into her own reflection. With her hair tangled from unrestful sleep and the weight of her own piercing glare, she looks almost… wild. She examines herself, desperate to find some hint of love in her face. A softening of her brow, or the lifted corners of a smile.

She sees nothing. She sees cruelty and anger and the ice queen. She sees someone only capable of carrying hate in their heart and, ironically, she hates it. 

She coughs once more, never breaking eye contact with herself in the mirror as shards of purple-white fall from her lips. Her face does not move as her abdomen twists in pain. A perfect ice sculpture, impassive and cold.

The petals flutter against the tender flesh of her lungs. She averts her gaze. 

(She appreciates how Ruby doesn’t comment on how her hair is in its usual side-pony as she joins everyone at breakfast, instead flashing her a concerned glance that she resolutely ignores.)

There is something freeing about dying, Weiss decides. She is going to die— that’s the truth of the matter when it comes to Hanahaki. She can’t even tell her beloved because she has no fucking idea of who it could be, which means she can’t risk getting the surgery either. Plus, that would mean Father would find out and god forbid her father ever finds out. 

(Schnees are not weak. She should not have allowed the flowers to take root in her lungs in the first place.)
 
So. She’s going to die. Maybe she’s doing everyone a favour. It’s fine, the world is probably better off without another racist twat. 

(She’s trying to get over her prejudice, she swears. It’s just hard to unlearn things you’ve been taught for 16 years. Or maybe she’s just not trying hard enough. She doesn’t want to think about that. Her lungs hurt.)

Surely she’s allowed to loosen up a bit now that she’s dying. What other good does dying do for her if not give her a little leeway? Who cares what her father thinks if she’s already beyond the veil.

Weiss decides she can chill out a bit, no pun intended. As such, things calm down with Blake and Yang as they all reach an uneasy sort of truce a few weeks into the term. 

(“You can take off your ribbon in the dorm, you know,” Weiss mutters from the desk. 

“What?” Comes the shocked voice of the faunus girl.

“Don’t make me repeat myself. I just can’t imagine wearing that ribbon all of the time is comfortable.” Weiss snaps, not looking up from her textbook. 

Blake doesn’t reply, but Weiss hears the sound of shifting satin on fur and has to suppress a small smile.)

Unfortunately, this leads her to this very moment. 

“Ha! Rubes, your semblance change, or somethin’?” Yang’s voice carries sharply across the din of the shared RWBY/JNPR lounge room as she plucks something off of Weiss’s skirt. “What’s up with this petunia petal? Haven’t seen one of these since we left Patch!”

Her blood is doused in ice dust, freezing solid in her veins.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I thought I got rid of them.

“I dunno where that came from,” Ruby calls back through a mouth full of sweets before going back to passionately discussing the best type of cookies with Nora. 

“I remembered seeing many petunias back when I was in Argus!” Pyrrha chimes in. “They’re such beautiful flowers. I never would’ve expected them to have such a sinister meaning.”

“So that’s why they attached themselves to our Snow Angel over here,” Yang jokes. “They found one of their kind.”

Weiss sneers at her to mask the hurt running through her body at that statement, as well as the now-familiar pain within her chest beginning to flare. Her throat begins to crackle with the urge to cough but she knows that if she does it in front of all these people, she’s well and truly fucked. 

Without a word, Weiss pivots on her heel and swiftly exits the common room. 

(Only then, in the privacy of the broom cupboard down the hall, does she allow herself to cough. Harsh air tears at her airways as a flurry of dainty petals fall from her mouth into open palms. She sneers again in the dim light, crushing the petals in her fist. Small and unassuming, yet a pain in the ass. Just like her indeed.

Later that night, alone on the abandoned rooftop of the academy, she searches for the meaning of petunias on her scroll and finally, finally, lets the tears fall.)

A week after what she has mentally dubbed The Common Room Incident, Weiss meets Sun Wukong. 

She sits alone on the roof, like many nights before, the warm currents of Vale brushing her hair back from her face. Her hair is free from its usual updo, white strands drifting in the wind behind her as she sits and watches. 

Looking out over the academy, Weiss admits to herself that she’ll miss this. 

In the quiet of the night, she hears the faintest shuffle of something against concrete behind her. In an instant, she is up, Myrtenaster pointed towards the sound and her finger twitching against the hammer of the revolver. 

“Whoa! Slow your roll there, bucko!” A nervous sounding laugh escapes the throat of the monkey faunus she holds at sword-point. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I didn’t expect anyone else to be up here.” He holds his hands up as he cautiously steps towards her, golden hair glinting in the moonlight. 

“How did you get up here?” She growls. “I would’ve heard the door open.”

“I– uh. I may have climbed up here?” He titters nervously again, rubbing the back of his neck. Weiss doesn’t reply, instead raising a single, manicured brow at him. “Honest! I’m good at climbing! I’m from Haven– my team is here for the Vytal Tournament.” 

Weiss appraises him one more before lowering Myrtenaster with a sigh. “I came up here to be alone. I’d appreciate it if you could leave now.”

“Aw, but what’s the fun in that?” He grins, confidence returning to his step as he begins to approach her. Weiss doesn’t deign to reply, instead returning to her original position overlooking Beacon. A shadow of warmth appears at her side as the shirtless boy flops onto the ground next to her. 

“I’m Sun. Sun Wukong. At your service,” He grins, flashing her finger-guns from where he’s sprawled out across the concrete. 

(Secretly, Weiss wishes she could do that too. That she could sprawl her body out without care of the space she was taking up in this world. Even under the unobserving gaze of the universe, all she can allow herself is a brief slackening of her spine. Her chest aches. Her throat burns. She ignores them both.)

“Weiss… Weiss Schnee.” She does not turn to look at him, and barely hears his sharp intake of breath. 

“Whoa… that’s not a name you hear everyday…” The boy chuckles nervously, yet, against all reason, he does not get up to leave. 

“Indeed.”

The silence stretches between the two of them. Weiss’s lungs feel heavy and choked yet she does not cough in front of this strange boy. 

Instead, they both sit, staring into the starry night sky.

To Weiss’s displeasure, Sun has taken this as an open invitation to be her friend. To Weiss’s extreme displeasure, she finds herself enjoying his company. 

Saying team RBY is confused would be an understatement. 

“Weiss.” Ruby whines from her top bunk (read: deathtrap). “You can’t let Sun replace me as your best friend.” 

“You both wish you were my best friend,” Weiss sneers without any heat, not once looking up from her Grimm Studies textbook. “As if I’d let myself be best friends with either one of you.”

“Awww,” Yang croons from her side of the room, feet kicked up against a wall and the sounds of some shitty game emanating from her scroll. “You’re so cute, Weiss. Acting like a little kitten with those claws – no offence, Blake.” 

“None taken,” Comes the reply from the black haired girl. “Weiss is cute, after all.”

Weiss scowls, hoping that the shade from the literal bed hanging over her is enough to hide her blush. Damn her Atlesian genes. Judging from the way Yang’s grin widens as her eyes flicker up to meet the heiress’s, the bed didn’t hide jack shit. 

“Guys,” Ruby whines again. “This isn’t about Weiss’s cuteness. This is about how she’s literally replacing me with some guy who can’t even close his shirt!” 

“Shut up, dolt. No one’s replacing anyone. I can’t stand the both of you equally,” she stresses. “You both follow me around and I can’t get rid of you. Take it up with him if you care so much.”

(Secretly, she can feel her heart rejoicing at the fact Ruby considers her to be her best friend. The tension in her lungs ease for a moment.)

“I saw you give him a cookie yesterday!” Ruby wails, throwing herself back against her bed and Weiss watches as the whole structure shudders. Brothers above, she can see the headlines already. Schnee Dust Company Heiress Crushed To Death By Unsafe Infrastructural Practices. More on page 12. 

“He was hungry and wouldn’t stop complaining! You know I only keep cookies on my person because of you anyway. You should be honoured if anything.” Ruby lets out a thoughtful hum in response. 

“Ok. I’ll allow it then. As long as you promise me you like me more than him.”

“Thank you so much for your permission, my liege.” Weiss drawls. “Let me inform the council of your decision.” 

Yang chuckles from her corner while Blake exhales sharply. Weiss revels in the strange feeling in her chest that for once, isn’t pain. 

She begins to meet with Sun every night, though they never plan it. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they simply relish the presence of another living, breathing person beside them. Sometimes, she thinks that Sun might know her better than anyone else on all of Remnant, including herself. 

(Sometimes, Weiss considers telling him about the garden in her lungs. She never gets that far.)

Sometimes, she wants to kill Sun. 

“Sun, full offence, but if I ever hear a suggestion that I find you attractive I will throw myself into the deepest, darkest pit of Grimm I can find.” She shudders.

“But Weiss, Weissy, Weicicle. Who wouldn’t want a slice of this pie?” Sun runs his hands down his chest, only to be met with fake gagging sounds from the white-haired girl. “Hey!”

“That seems like a pretty solid response to me.” Blake snarks as she slides onto the bench, a plate of suspicious dining hall food in her hands. 

“We were talking about our lovely Snow Angel’s type.” Jaune pipes up, ignoring the venomous glare the heiress sends his way. 

“My type is not you.” Weiss hisses, causing the blonde boy to sheepishly look away. 

(She notes the mournful glance Pyrrha sends his way, as well as the way she brings a hand up to rub gently at her sternum.)

“Type of what?” Ruby asks, not looking up from her plate of whatever sweets she’s somehow managed to acquire. 

"Don't worry about it, Rubes. The better question is what is our princess's type?" Yang lazily grins, resting her chin on her palm and winking at Weiss.

Weiss feels her breath catch in her throat, along with thorns and bramble as her gaze catches on Yang and Blake for a split second too long. She wishes she was brave enough to say it but fear tastes like blood and petals on the back of her tongue. 

Girls. My type is girls. 

“I don’t have one,” She chokes out, looking back down at her plate. 

(She remembers her fathers screaming slurs in the room over after an investor pulled out due to ‘moral differences’. She remembers her father telling her and Winter and Whitley in no uncertain terms that Schnees are not to end up as degenerates. The sweet perfume of flowers fill the back of her throat.)

“You looked uncomfortable at lunch.” The presence of Sun no longer surprises her, and she doesn’t even turn as she hears the boy land on concrete. She simply hums vaguely in response. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”

She is not a degenerate. She is a Schnee. She will not bow to these temptations. She may like girls but she will not let the world know. She carries the secret like a dagger in her boot. 

(Like thorns in her chest.)

“I was not comfortable. I didn’t appreciate the subject matter. That is all there is to it.” She replies monotonously, the preplanned reply rolling off her tongue like ash, not technically an untruth. 

“Yeah, yeah. You can do the whole ice queen schtick with me but I’ll see through it anyways,” Sun lazily waves her off. “I meant it. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t wanna.”

Weiss is dying. Maybe she can allow herself to confide in this unlikely friend. Not like it’ll matter much, ultimately. 

(She ignores the pang of fear that runs through her at the thought.)

“I–“ she starts. The words stick in her throat, snagged on thorns and vines. She clears it once and feels a petal sputter out of her throat onto her tongue. “I– I… don’t,” her throat constricts again. She clears her throat once more.

(She is scared. She has always been a coward even though she wishes so acutely that she could be brave. Maybe if she hacks up the garden in her lungs, they’ll find some traces of courage in between the petals of cowardice manifested.)

“Wanna twenty questions it?” Sun suggests, and Weiss cannot help but feel infinitely thankful for him. She nods.

“Do you like boys?” 

Brothers, right into it then. 

She pauses, inhaling against the steady fluttering of petals. She shakes her head. Sun doesn’t outwardly emote and Weiss can’t tell if she’s thankful for it. 

“Do you like girls?” A nod, short and sharp. Her throat feels clearer for a split second. Sun doesn’t say anything yet again, and for the briefest moment Weiss fears that he’s going to get up and go, leaving her to drown in her secrets. 

(She immediately berates herself for the thought. Sun is good. He wouldn’t do that to her. She ignores the voice in the back of her head that tells her she’s not worth it, that Sun would be better off leaving in her moment of need. Schnees do not show weakness. Schnees will not ask for help. She is weak. She is unworthy. The feels the blood in her mouth as it swells beyond the bounds of her lungs. She fucking hates flowers.)

He doesn’t leave. Instead, he smiles, putting up his arm in the offering of a hug and she doesn’t even realise her body is moving before she’s in his arms, tears soaking into the skin of his shoulder through his thin shirt. He hums gently as she’s cradled tenderly against his chest and wow, when was the last time I was held?

(She craves the embrace of her mother, something she only remembers whispers of as a child. Not as Willow is now, though. She would not want her moment of cowardice to be further soured by the bitter tang of alcohol. She wishes she was brave enough to ask someone for a hug. She silently chokes on the petals in her throat along with her sobs.)

She’s almost scared to die now. She wishes she could stay in this moment forever– warm and safe. 

(The only sign of Weiss’s tears is the dampness Sun feels seeping through his shirt onto his skin. He wonders why she has learnt to cry so silently and feels his blood boil. He can’t do anything about her past, though, so instead her holds her tighter in the gentle hum of the warm Valeian night.)

“Thank you for telling me, Weissy,” He murmurs against her temple and she can’t help but let out a wet laugh at the nickname. “I know it’s hard for you.” 

She doesn’t speak in response. She doesn’t have to. There are words brimming at the tip of her tongue but they are laced with bitter poison. They aren't even hers, but instead the remnants of Jacques Schnee's venom that remain in her bloodstream.

“You don’t have to speak,” He repeats himself. “I’m here. I’m here.”

(I think I love you, she wants to say. She thinks she loves him in the same way she loves Winter, in the warm comfort of someone willing to protect her against the uncaring cruelty of the universe. She thinks she loves him in the same way she has grown to love Ruby. A steady presence at her side, dragging her unwillingly into an uncertain future. She thinks she loves, but it is not the type that causes thorns to tear at weakly gasping lungs or for petals to coat her windpipe. She feels this love deep in her soul, gently nudging against the cold lump in her chest she calls her heart. These people are too good for her– the warmth of their love will only cause her heart to sublimate but, ah, fuck it. She’s dying anyway. If anything, it's a better way to go.)

She hopes Sun can understand everything she’s too scared to say by the way she clings to him, even though she does not once open her mouth to speak. Instead, she holds him tighter and thinks I love you.

(The way his grip tightens in kind says I know.)

Chapter Text

Something shifts between them after that night. It’s freeing to be able to exist as she is around another person. Naturally, it becomes common to find Weiss with Sun when around the campus, to the point Ruby approaches her one day and:

“So… are you and Sun… y’know…” She whispers to Weiss from where she’s sneak-eating cookies under the table in the library.

“Focus on your essay,” Weiss snaps back on instinct before pausing. “Are Sun and I… what?”

“Y’know…” Ruby gestures with her hands, fluttering them around like Weiss is supposed to know what that means.

“Y’know, bumping uglies,” Yang chimes in with a wicked grin.

“Bumping… ew! Yang! That is disgusting!” Weiss yelps, only to be met by a round of ‘ Shhh ’s from the other inhabitants of the library. “That is disgusting !” She repeats again in a hushed hiss.

“Why, though? He’s, like, objectively good looking, even if he’s got nothing on me.” Yang winks and flexes, muscles rippling under her baby tee. Fuck. Weiss prays to both the Brothers that her face isn’t flaming red.

(The Gods are not so kind, and Yang watches in wonder as the prettiest rosy blush blooms across Weiss’s cheeks, and ain’t that a sight . She shoots a quick glance to Blake who also looks incredibly pleased by this turn of events.)

“It certainly looks like you two are… involved,” Blake chimes in without looking up from her novel that’s contents most definitely do not match the ‘Grimm Studies’ dust jacket.

“Go back to your fucking ninjas, Blake,” Weiss replies in kind.

Blake looks up at her, raising a lazy eyebrow. “Do you mean fucking as in the verb or the attributive?”

“Both, neither, I don’t care!” Weiss-whisper shouts. “What do you mean it looks like Sun and I are dating? We’re just. Friends.” She stresses.

“Weiss, you gotta consider it from an outside perspective.” Ruby cuts in. “You’re always like… touching each other and hanging out and stuff. It is a little suspicious,” She teases as puts her fingers together, to illustrate just how little the little suspicion is.

“I hang out with you guys all the time too!” Weiss (quietly) exclaims.

“Yeah, but we’re literally teammates. You’re, like, contractually obligated to hang out with us.” Ruby replies.

“Trust me, my will to hang out with you guys right now is dwindling by the second. Maybe I should go find Sun right now. He wouldn’t treat me like this.” Weiss threatens, Ruby sticking a tongue out at her in response.

“Well, personally, if I liked men, I’d be on Sun like nobody’s business,” Yang says flippantly, stopping Weiss’s heart dead in her fucking chest.

What?

“Is this about Sun?” Nora interrupts loudly, slamming her books down on the table. Smartly, none of the library inhabitants attempt to shush her.

“I believe so,” Ren says from where he emerges from the stacks behind her.

“People have been talking about it, y’know,” Nora stage-whispers.

“About how the heiress of the SDC is hanging out with a Faunus.” Ren clarifies.

(Weiss is used to the whispers, to the glares and looks. She doesn’t care— it’s her burden to bear. But Brothers. Now she’s dragged Sun into her mess? One of the only people in the history of Remnant to give a flying fuck about her? And this is the thanks he gets?)

“That’s so weird!” Ruby huffs. “It’s not like it’s any of their business!”

If Weiss had the bandwidth for it, she’d be more grateful for Ruby. As it is, she can’t hear much of anything at all over the roaring silence in her ears. She swears she can hear the wet sound of blood soaked petals unfurling and unsticking from one another in her chest.  

“Yeah well, like, I also get it. No offence, Weiss, because you’re great and all, but your dad is like… the ultra-racist.”

“Yes, thank you, Nora.” Weiss snaps. “I didn’t know that. Thank you so kindly for informing me.”

Nora just grins, flashing her a thumbs up. “No probs, dog.”

“Hey, Weiss?” A soft touch to her arm sends her plummeting back into her body as she turns to Ruby, who has gently placed her hand on Weiss’ own. “We don’t care about anything that anyone says about you, you know. We’re a team.”

“Neither does team JNPR,” Ren adds, “You’ve proven yourself to be a faithful friend.”

Are you all fucking stupid? Weiss wants to scream. This isn’t about me.

Weiss should’ve fucking known. Everything she touches seems to just crumble to pieces around her. She grits her teeth against the thorns creeping into the back of her mouth.

No one has the time to really say anything as she haphazardly bundles up all her items and sweeps out of the library.

(Blake watches as Weiss practically runs— or the Weiss equivalent of running in public— out of the door. She thinks, for just a moment, that she can smell the iron tang of blood on the wind as she goes. She dismisses it. Probably a paper cut; Weiss’s aura will fix it in no time.

Blake can’t shake the distinct feeling that she’s wrong. Since when was the scent of blood tinged with the sweet perfume of flowers?)

“I can’t keep making contact with you in public.” Weiss informs Sun the moment he touches down on the rooftop and his blood immediately runs cold. Before he can open his mouth to reply, she barrels onwards. “Apparently people are getting the wrong idea about us and it looks like I’m leading you on or using you to better my image or something,” she rambles as she starts to pace, “And I don’t want to potentially ruin things for you if people know we’re close and think that I’m using you and—” She jolts to a stop, pivoting to look at him for the first time of the evening.

“You know I’m not, right?”

Her voice is thin and wavering in the space between them.

When they’re both standing, she looks up at him, but she has never felt smaller than him until this moment. Her arms lock around herself in a cheap facsimile of a hug as she stares up into his face, blue eyes blazing with desperation. “You know I wouldn’t do that to you.” A statement, yet it almost sounds like she’s trying to convince herself more than him.

“I thought you were going to friendship break-up with me for a minute there, Weissy.” He starts slowly,  processing her rant, only to see the look of abject horror that crosses her face at the statement. Abort, abort. Wrong fucking move Wukong. “I know you’d never do that to me,” he backtracks immediately, taking a step towards the girl. “Both of them. All of it. I don’t care about that kind of stuff. I trust you, Weiss. I don’t care what some randos say about me, you’re literally my best friend.” He takes another step towards her.

“Objectively, it hurts your image to be seen with me,” Weiss attempts to rationalise, shuffling backwards. “The Schnee family is not necessarily the most loved family on Remnant.”

(Sun used to wonder distantly why the aloof ‘ice queen’ always seemed a little too cold, but up close he sees Weiss . Not the heiress to the SDC, not the member of RWBY, not that bitchy know-it-all from Introduction to Dust . Just… Weiss.

In the pale wash of moonlight, just Weiss looks so, so tired.)

Sun isn’t stupid. He’s seen Weiss when she’s playing that weird game of verbal chess with the dickhead that is her dad, on the rare occasion she picks up a call from him in front of Sun. He sees the way she measures out every word to the man, unflinching as he spits insults through a screen. He sees the tension in her frame every time someone mentions her family, or her father, or even the SDC. He wonders if she even knows who just Weiss is, instead of Weiss Schnee, Heiress to The Schnee Dust Company.

“I don’t care what other people say. You mean more to me than your family name, Weiss.” Sun says evenly, maintaining eye contact with Weiss. Her eyes flash with anger.

“My name can give you all the lien in the world but we both know I can offer you nothing.” She snarls, her voice growing raspy.

“Your company is the most valuable thing I could ask for. I wouldn’t call it nothing.”

(“You will never be enough,” Her father spits at her from where he looms over her twelve year old frame. “A huntress.” He scoffs. “You are weak, Weiss. You are nothing.” He pivots sharply, storming to the doorway of her room before pausing. Without turning around, he continues. “You’ll be dead before you even graduate.” Her door slams shut in his wake.

She has become so accustomed to the pain that the handprint on her cheek feels almost like a whisper. Klein will appear soon, she knows.

Winter would’ve, once, but now Winter is gone. Abandoned her for some stuffy military job.

So Klein will appear soon, instead, with kind eyes and an icepack and stories of yore. She thinks he expects she’ll be crying, that she’ll be feeling sad, or something.

She does not cry. Her lip doesn’t even tremble. Nowadays, she doesn’t feel much of anything at all.)

Weiss freezes before, strangely enough, she begins to cough. It’s a wet cough, the kind that tugs on the inside of your trachea on its way up and Sun feels his own throat ripple in sympathetic pain. Her hands clasp firmly over her nose and mouth as she hacks into them, but as he reaches a hand towards her, she flinches away.

Strange.

As Weiss turns and flees from the rooftop, he can’t help but note that her hands are still curled into fists, specks of blood dotting her thenar. It’s concerning, but he won’t push it. Not now, at least. He’s willing to wait.

Weiss’s perfectly manicured nails dig into the flesh of her palm as she runs soundlessly down empty hallways, crushing the flower petals in a vice grip.

It feels wonderful to be seen. She hates it.

They don’t talk about Weiss’s mini freakout in the library for the rest of the week, for which she is infinitely grateful. Even so, she doesn’t miss the concerned glances the team shoots at her every now and again. She hates it. She hates the pity.

(She knows that Sun has been avoiding bringing up anything potentially upsetting with her. Last night he had gone on a rant about the worst peanut noodle shop in Vale while the weight of Weiss’s meltdown hung over their heads. Something something, she’s dying, something something. Let her ignore at least some of her feelings, as a treat.)

She can practically feel Yang’s gaze, heavy on her shoulders from across the room. She swears she’s going to go insane or explode or something because could everybody please stop examining her for her cracks for just one fucking minute?

The room feels crowded, even though it’s just the two of them.

(The petals are clogging up the back of her throat, but she cannot let herself cough in front of Yang. The moment the thorns begin to catch on the tender membrane of her throat she knows she will not be strong enough to stop the deluge of blood and petals.

She knows Yang will not be strong enough to ignore her pain.)

“Can you stop staring at me?” She snaps, finally, whipping her head up to glare at Yang. It falters in the face of Yang’s furrowed brow. She doesn’t look calculative or scrutinising or whatever Weiss thought she’d look like. She looks… concerned?

“Weiss,” She says, and fuck me, since when could Yang sound that serious?

“What.” It’s not a question.

“You can tell us anything, you know?”


Weiss knows logically that Yang is concerned, but in the moment, all Weiss can think is that she sounds probing. She can’t afford to be seen. She needs to shut this down.

“My business is my own.” She huffs.

“It doesn’t have to be.” Yang hums but, blissfully, she leaves it.

The urge to cough grows stronger, more frantic. It screams incessantly in her chest, begging to be noticed. She ignores it anyway. She’s getting good at that.

It’s stupid.

It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before; just some guy bitching about her behind her back in the cafeteria. A normal Tuesday, or whatever. She shouldn’t be getting so emotional about it, really. Just some awful guy saying awful things like awful people do.

It’s stupid. She’s stupid.

(She knows why it hurts. He had compared her to Father, saying they were one and the same. The mere concept of being anything like that man makes flowers immediately spring to the back of her throat.)

It’s stupid, but the thought is stuck in her head, like a particularly stubborn piece of lint on a woollen jumper. It’s stupid, but she looks in the mirror and all she can see is cold eyes and a cruel mouth and him.

It makes her want to scream. The only thing that differentiates her to her father is the reminder of her failure that neatly bisects her left eye.

(The words you mean more to me than your family name ring in her ears. It’s stupid, but she wants Sun. She needs so desperately to be seen right now that she’s choking on it. Or maybe that’s just the flowers.)

Usually, it wouldn’t be an issue, but now, the petals and thorns won’t stop coming. She’s hunched over the toilet in the common room, having removed herself from the dorms in the hopes no one would hear her hacking and spluttering and Brothers forbid do something stupid like try to check on her.

It seems, however, that The Brothers are not listening to her pleas.

“You too, huh?” Comes a melancholy voice from the doorway as the bathroom is washed in harsh fluorescent light. Weiss barely hears it over the sound of her own retching, but eventually, it registers. Someone else— someone she knows— is in here with her. As she coughs up flowers. Fuck.

Wait, what?

“Pyrrha?” Weiss rasps out without ever turning her head from the red and purple flecked toilet bowl. She hears the other girl pad towards her, the sound of bare feet on tile breaking through the incessant humming of the lights. She desperately hopes she’s wrong, but she knows, in her heart of hearts, that she isn’t. A warm hand comes up to rest on her shoulder, and Weiss is too tired to suppress the flinch that ripples through her body. The hand doesn’t recoil, instead gently squeezing.

“It sucks, huh.” Comes the defeated voice of the other girl as she kneels beside Weiss.

“What?” Weiss asks without ever turning her face away from the porcelain, unwilling to acknowledge that someone has caught her in such a pathetic state. Then her words register.

What? You too? Weiss thinks in shock. But how can the invincible girl be defeated by something as lowly as emotion?

(Logically, she knows that Pyrrha can still be the strongest person she knows while also having hanahaki. It’s a sign of both her strength and her weakness: she loves so fiercely that she doesn’t know where to stop. Weiss can almost admire her for it.)

Nimble fingers pluck at her spit soaked and bloody chin as her face is tilted upwards. A sleep-soft Pyrrha comes into view, unbound hair cascading over a faded sleep shirt. She wordlessly plucks a piece of toilet paper off the roll and folds it into a neat square.

“May I ask who it is?” Pyrrha asks as she begins to gently wipe Weiss’ mouth.

“I—“ Weiss starts, but how do you explain to someone that you don’t know?

“Actually, don’t answer that.” Pyrrha cuts her off. “It was rude of me to ask.”

(It feels nice to have her autonomy respected. For someone else to acknowledge that she doesn’t owe anyone anything.)

Weiss winces, before smiling sheepishly up at Pyrrha. “Is it bad that I can kinda guess who your beloved is?”

The redheaded girl just smiles sadly at Weiss as she settles down into a seated position. “Is it that obvious?” She chuckles mirthlessly.

“No,” Weiss says quickly. “I guess I just… know what longing looks like.”

(Sometimes, when she makes eye contact with herself in the mirror, she thinks she can see the yearnings of every version of herself. She feels like she’s ten again, waiting for someone to come along and rescue her from her father. She feels like she’s six again, confused and shaking and afraid as her father says he loves her after striking her across the face. She feels like she’s four again, curled up in the lap of her dear grandfather and listening to his lilting stories in old Atlesian. Sometimes she wonders if a younger Weiss would recognise who they’ve become.)

The next smile Pyrrha sends her is one of sad camaraderie, and Weiss can’t help but feel like a fraud. Here before her is someone who’s truly suffering from the pains of hanahaki and unrequited love while she flounders around without even knowing who she’s in love with. What a joke. She coughs weakly as thorns try to seek purchase in the membrane of her throat. Pyrrha tuts at her gently, tapping her cheek as if to scold the flowers in her lungs for doing what they do best.

Weiss can’t be treated with this kind of tenderness. She doesn’t deserve Pyrrha’s empathy— only one of them actually has a reason to be sick. Pyrrha is the tragic lover while Weiss somehow manifested hanahaki with her dramatics.

“I don’t know.” Weiss says. 

Pyrrha cocks her head to the side. “You don’t know what?”

Weiss forces out her words between masticated petals. “I don’t know… who.”

The JNPR member looks genuinely taken aback for a moment, blinking rapidly. “Huh?” She asks, eloquently.

“I think I might just be broken, or something.” Weiss laughs halfheartedly. “The flowers just. Showed up, one day.”

“I thought it was Sun.” Rushes out of Pyrrha before she clasps her hands over her mouth, face flushing red.

Weiss can’t help the tired laugh that rips from her. “Brothers, no. I don’t even like men.” She says into the space between them, words flowing from her mouth faster than her brain can register what is being said.

(All she notices is the pain in her lungs receding slightly as she takes in her first full deep breath of the night.)

Wait.

Fuck.

Weiss snaps upright, swaying against the toilet seat as she registers what she’s just confessed to Pyrrha, who is still watching her in a shocked daze. “I mean—“

“Oh wow, um. Sorry, I didn’t mean to… assume?” Pyrrha trails off, face flushing even more as her voice lilts up at the end of her sentence.  

“I— uh. I. No one but Sun knows.” Weiss stutters out blankly, still watching Pyrrha with wide eyes and taut muscles.

“Oh, well, then. Thank you for trusting me with this information,” Pyrrha dips her head at Weiss— what? “I promise I will treat it with care.”

“It’s not—” Weiss’s voice catches, this time not on flowers. “You’re not… disgusted?”

“Brothers, no!” Pyrrha's face shifts into one of indignation. “I would never judge who one loves. I wouldn’t shun you because of your sexuality! You’re still Weiss; you’re my friend.”

(Is she still Weiss? Who even the Weiss that exists beyond the fractured spaces of her family?)

“Thank you, then… I suppose,” Weiss says slowly.

“Oh Brothers, what are we even doing having this conversation on the bathroom floor?” Pyrrha fusses suddenly, springing into motion. “Come on, let's get you cleaned up so we can both get back to bed.”

A pang of pain rattles against Weiss’s ribs as she realises she’s selfishly been taking up Pyrrha’s valuable rest time to reveal her… proclivities . She tries to wave the other girl off, claiming that she can fix herself up, since it’s not the first time this has happened so you should go to bed since you’ve got a big day tomorrow.

Pyrrha sighs long-sufferingly, yet affectionately, as she gently flicks Weiss on the nose. “You’ve got a big day too. Allow me to help a friend in their time of need, if you’d be so kind.”

For some unknown reason (a healthy mix of being Ruby’s teammate and oxygen deprivation, maybe?) Weiss cannot resist the urge to scrunch up her face and stick her tongue out at Pyrrha, startling a laugh out of the warrior. She mirrors Weiss’s expression, and Weiss can’t help but laugh too at the absurdity of it all.

They continue like that, sitting on the bathroom floor under the harsh fluorescent glare of the lights, as Weiss giggles through an unfamiliarly clear airway with a girl that also has a garden in her chest.

Chapter Text

It’s weird to have someone privy to your weaknesses, Weiss decides. Little changes with how Pyrrha interacts with her in public, but sometimes she catches the other girl staring at her with a complicated look on her face. Weiss tries to pay it no mind: she knows it isn’t pity, and that’s good enough for her.

(Luckily, both of them grew up in the ugly gaze of the public eye. They know how to frame their actions to seem incidental yet purposeful. Neither of their teams seem to notice the way they silently gravitate to each other, their bond forged in invisible suffering.)

Sun totally knows something’s up, though. (She swears he has some kind of sixth sense when it comes to her secrets. He says he does, and that it's called 'being her best friend'.) Her assumptions are proved correct one night as she and Sun stare up at the twinkling sky. 

“You and Pyrrha seem to be hitting it off,” He starts, nonchalant. Weiss, however, can see his statement for what it really is. 

“We are. We share something in common.” She replies. Not too revealing. 

(Not telling Sun has been keeping her up at night. There’s an indescribable heaviness to the burden of not being able to share something with your best friend. She doesn’t know what she’ll do if he thinks her fucked up version of Hanahaki is stupid— if it’s his final straw. If he leaves, because of that.)

“Definitely not a love for Jaune,” Sun snorts, gently nudging Weiss in the side. 

It should be funny, but Weiss only feels sick. She can’t help but feel like she’s the reason Pyrrha has Hanahaki, however nonsensical that logic is. If Beacon has taught her anything, it’s that she’s an illogical woman at heart. 

(If Weiss is simply gone, Jaune will realise what a fucking catch Pyrrha is. If anything, Weiss should die sooner, so Pyrrha doesn't need to go through more shit. It's an objectively good trade off; Weiss for Pyrrha. A silver lining to her impending demise, she supposes. She just wishes that death would hurry the fuck up, as her chest begins to swell with pain once more.)

“Sun, do you ever think about how you’re going to die?” She asks him abruptly, tamping down her need to expel the petals from her airway. They taunt her from where they sit, heavy in her throat.

“Brothers fucking Grimm, Weiss. Where the hell did that come from?” Sun yelps, voice coloured with shock. Weiss just shrugs. Sun pivots his body to face her, but she stays as she is, looking out over Vale. She rests her head on her knees as she shifts her gaze up to the cloudless night sky.

The stars above her twinkle endlessly, and Weiss can’t help but wonder how many of them died billions of light years ago. When she dies, will people gaze upon her corpse in wonder too? Will they find her beautiful?

“Weiss?” Sun asks gently, a warm arm coming to rest on Weiss’s bicep. “Weiss, are you ok?”

(She's not strong enough to keep this from him. Maybe he'll leave, but she'll deserve it. She's leaving him anyway. She's going somewhere he can't follow. He deserves the truth.)

“Sun,” Weiss says before her throat closes up. Unbidden and unwanted, she can feel tears begin to burn at her waterline. “Sun.” She repeats, turning her head to face her best friend. He deserves to see her face, at the very least, even if looking Sun in the eyes right now makes her feel like she's going to have a heart attack.

She hopes that when her body finally collapses in on itself, he’ll be a billion light years away, watching her at her most beautiful instead.

“Sun," She repeats herself for the third time, and his grip on her arm tightens. "I’m dying.” 

“Something’s mega off with Weiss.” Ruby stresses, pacing in the narrow strip between the two bunks. “I can’t figure out what it is, though, and that’s really stressing me out!” She cries, before throwing herself down on Weiss’s bed.

“I know what you mean,” Yang hums. “She’s not being her normal bitchy… she’s being…”

“Reticent.” Blake finishes, ears flickering on top of her head. Yang rolls her eyes.

“I don’t know what that means.” Yang says.

“Yeah, me too.” Ruby pipes up.

“She’s being closed off.” Blake repeats herself, pressing her fingers to her temple.

“That she is. I… don’t know what to do about it.” Yang sighs, sitting down heavily on Blake’s bed. Blake slips over from her position by the desk, pressing herself against Yang’s side as she sits down next to her. She takes the other girl’s hand in her own, rubbing soothing circles over the back of it.

“We can’t help her if she refuses our help, as harsh as that sounds,” Blake says softly as Yang leans her head against her shoulder. 

“I know,” Yang mumbles, the sound muffled against Blake’s skin. “It’s just… rough.”

“Surely there’s something we can do,” Ruby whines from across the room. “She’s just, like, suffering alone right now!” 

“Well, at least she’s got Sun.” Blake reasons. 

“You think she actually tells him anything?” Yang asks. “I feel like she wouldn’t share her problems willingly.”

“Whatever she’s keeping to herself right now is really heavy. Shit like that always has a way of spilling out,” Blake says solemnly, clenching her fists in her lap. “Even if she doesn’t want it to.”

Sun can’t breathe.

Weiss is staring at him, eyes glistening with more that just starlight and Sun can’t breathe. If it was anyone else, he’d laugh it off as a bad joke. But this is Weiss. This is Weiss.

“What?” He chokes out. He can’t breathe .

Weiss opens her mouth before it closes again, never making a sound. “Weiss,” Sun says again, even though he can’t feel his body. “Weiss, what did you say?” He sounds like he’s begging. His hand begins to shake from where it’s wrapped around Weiss’s arm. He heard her wrong. That's all. She said— she must've said lying or something and he misheard because if he didn't that means that—

“I’m dying, Sun,” Weiss repeats, her voice impossibly quiet. Her words are almost snatched away from him by warm breeze that sweeps across the rooftop, but they ring loud and clear in Sun’s head. 

Dying?

Unbidden, laughter begins spilling out of his body, but it’s cold and mirthless, shattering as it smashes against the cold ground they sit on. It hurts as it forces itself out of his body, but he can't stop. He laughs and laughs and laughs until his heaving in his chest turns into sobs. Weiss turns her body fully, enveloping him in a hug as he cries brokenly into her rising and falling chest.

Weiss is… dying?

He pulls back sharply, but his grip on her remains firm, but not painful. “What is it?” He rasps out between his tears. She stares down at him for a moment, eyes clouded in confusion, before they grow sharp with clarity. She takes a deep breath, opening her mouth to speak, but the breath stutters halfway as it snags in her chest. She twists away from Sun, coughing sharply into her hand. The cough is wet and gravelly, and he can’t help the way his pulse spikes, the fear that Weiss is dying right now in front of him coursing through his veins. She turns back to him after her coughing subsides, only to slide her palm from her face, leaving a smear of crimson behind.

What?

Before he can react, she unfurls her hand, revealing to him a bloody bouquet of petunias. 

Fuck.

Weiss slips into the dorm at 3am, hair tousled and eyes puffy from her stupid tears. She feels drained. She wishes she could go back in time and erase herself from Sun’s life. He truly would be better off without her. Hurting him like that felt worse than the feeling of thorns ripping up her throat. 

(Sun had kissed her on the head and held her tight for hours, as if he could squeeze the sickness from her body. He told her they'd figure it out. She knows she loves him so deeply, and she knows she's worse than scum for it. There is nothing worse than hurting the people you love. She deserves every punishment the Brothers dole out to her.)

Her chest is in so much pain. Her lungs scream at her as she's choked by the petals of her own fucking inadequacy. She can't cough, though, unless she wants to wake up the whole dorm.

Blissfully, her teammates are asleep by the time she cracks open the door. She can’t help but notice how Yang and Blake are pressed together in Blake’s twin bed, and ignores the way her chest flutters with leafy jealously. She turns to her own bed, ready to collapse into it, only to notice a small piece of paper sitting on her duvet. Picking it up gingerly, she brings it towards her face as she toes off her shoes, black squiggles blending together in the darkness. 

She has to squint hard to finally make out messy handwriting in the low light, but she immediately recognises the scrawl as Ruby’s.

Since when did Ruby leave me handwritten notes?

She shuffles soundlessly towards the window, letting the moonlight illuminate the small sliver of paper. 

dearest weiss,

we are conserned concerned about you but we also don’t want to push! if something is bothering you you can talk to any one of us we hope you know. we’re always here for you, weissy <3 

love, 

your team, rby

Blake isn’t sure if her night vision is a blessing or curse right now. Over the mane of Yang’s golden hair, Weiss looks… vacant. Her eyes are dull as she clutches at Ruby’s note, blinking rapidly. Her eyes scan over the lines multiple times, but they look empty and far away. Blake isn't sure if Weiss even knows where she is.

All at once, she crumples, clutching her chest and clamping a hand over her mouth and it takes every fibre of Blake’s being not to jump up and help her. She’ll just run away. Weiss’s body heaves and shudders, yet she doesn’t make a sound, save for the dull thump of her knees hitting the floor. Blake hates that she just discovered how good Weiss is at suppressing her cries. 

Her night vision is a curse, Blake decides, as she watches Weiss’s face contort in pain, thin trickles of tears beginning to stream down her face. Her hand remains clamped firmly over her mouth even as she brings a shaking hand back up to her face, clutching the now crumpled note. She lays it across the floor, desperately smoothing it out with the back of her hand as the hand over her mouth folds into a fist. Her body lurches, and even Weiss can't fully suppress the choked off gag that rips through her frame.

Blake can smell blood, but she can’t see anything as Weiss collapses into foetal position, body trembling. It scares Blake. She's stuck. She knows she can't help. She hates it.

She's trapped a bed billions of light years away. She's the sole member of a captive audience, helplessly watching as the moonlight shines a vicious spotlight on the imploding body of Weiss, illuminating every moment of her supernova.

Chapter Text

Sun is being weird, Ruby decides. Weirder than usual, that is. He’s not his usual kind of clingy— he seems… frazzled, but it’s tinged with a strange sort of heaviness. Ruby isn’t an idiot. She knows it 100% has something to do with Weiss, because she’s being weird too. The dark bags under her eyes and Sun’s weirdly long glances at the heiress mean something . She just. Has to figure out what, exactly. 

(She might be a bit of an airhead, but that’s only when things aren’t important to her. Weiss is important. Weiss is her partner. Weiss is her best friend. She’s just not the best at the whole social cues thing. Sue her.) 

Ruby has the sneakiest of suspicions it has to do with the ‘heavy thing’ Blake was talking about, but even after observing Weiss for two whole days, she just can’t figure it out. She can’t just sit by, though! She’s not about that life, especially if she’s going to be an amazing huntress. Proactivity is the root of success, or whatever. 

She decides she needs to take things into her own hands when she watches Weiss lock herself in the bathroom in the morning of her third day of watching, eyes bloodshot and hazy. 

“Weissy. What’s wrong with you?” She asks that afternoon, minutes after Yang and Blake bid the two farewell to slip off to the gym. Weiss freezes, and yeah maybe I should have worded that better. “I mean. What’s wrong?” 

(Let it be known tact has never been Ruby’s strong suit.)

“Nothing,” The heiress grunts out, hunching over the desk. Yeah, Ruby knows that she’s full of shit. She sighs from where she’s hanging off her bunk. 

“You know that we love you, right? And that we want you to be ok?” 

Weiss’s head snaps around, wisps of hair whipping around her face like a blizzard. Her eyes are ice cold, but Ruby can see something else, just below the surface. She can’t tell what the emotion is, but it looks like grimm swirling in the pale blue of Weiss’s irises. “Wanting doesn’t mean shit , Ruby.” Weiss spits. “And don’t go throwing around love confessions like they’re nothing. Some words have meaning.”

(Weiss needs Ruby to be lying to her. She can’t have people love her. That’s not how it goes. She needs Ruby to mean ‘love’ in a superficial, disingenuous way. In the obligatory way. Her team ‘loves’ her because they have to. Because she’s another cog in the machine. 

She doesn’t know how to deal with love freely given. She barely knows how to handle Sun’s open affection, so she needs Ruby to be lying to her or else she won’t know what to do.)

“Weiss. We love you.” Ruby stresses, still hanging upside down. She feels like this is a conversation that needs to happen right side up, though, so she flips herself down from her bunk and sits on Weiss’s neatly made sheets. It speaks volumes that Weiss doesn’t even yell at her once for getting outside clothes on her bed. “I get that whatever you’ve got going on right now is, like, monumental or whatever—”

“ Monumental— ”

“But you can actually tell us anything, you know? Like, we won’t judge you about things that are important to you. Because that makes it important to us too.” Ruby punctuates her statement with a shrug, leaning back on her hands. 

Weiss just watches her, mouth agape, before reality seems to sink in again. “There’s no fucking way you didn’t prepare that earlier,” She says, visibility dazed. “You’ve never been so verbose in your life.” 

(Rude. True, but rude. Ruby will not be letting Weiss ever find out that she prepared her whole spiel with Penny the evening before, thank you very much.)

Ruby elects to ignore her, giving her assholery a bit of leeway since she’s being jumped about confronting her feelings in the middle of the day. 

Weiss clears her throat sharply, before she speaks again. “Nonetheless, my business is m—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ruby waves a lazy hand. “ My business is my own, and all that jazz.” She says, doing her best Weiss impression. The heiress looks mildly offended, but more present in the conversation, which Ruby will take as an absolute win. “Have you considered that I’m your partner and your best human friend, which means I actually care about you?”

Weiss chokes on her spit a little bit. “Is that… racist?”

“I dunno. I think it’s you avoiding the question.” Ruby punctuates her sentence by sticking her tongue out at Weiss. 

Weiss looks thrown. Ruby can basically hear the clink of the tiny wheels working in her head and feels a little bit bad for overwhelming her.

“Sleep on it,” She offers, getting up to scurry up to her top bunk again. “Or do something with it. Think about it, maybe?” She snarks, and, yeah, maybe Weiss is rubbing off on her, but they're literally partners, so that's to be expected. “I’ll be here in the meantime.” She grunts as she heaves herself up onto her very structurally sound bed, pulling up the specs for Crescent Rose on her scroll. She’s got a few upgrades she could probably simulate before actually Weiss thinks about her feelings, and guns are so much easier to understand than people. 

She just hopes Weiss actually thinks about said feelings, instead of shoving them into the tiny repression box in the back of her brain. 

(Never let it be said that Ruby doesn’t know her partner well. Weiss is important to her, after all.)

Weiss is mad. It’s like Ruby’s words have jammed a crowbar under the lid of the tiny repression box she keeps in the back of her brain. 

She doesn’t understand. There must be a caveat somewhere, but she can’t fucking find it. What do they want from her? Surely they don’t just want her to ‘be ok’, whatever the fuck that means. Weiss doesn’t know if she’s ever ‘been ok’. 

(She does know. Being ok was the norm when her grandfather was still alive and Willow could look at her children without the haze of alcohol censoring their faces. She knows she’d probably be a very different flavour of fucked up if she had never gotten a taste of the sweet nectar of ‘ok’ before it was ripped away from her. She’d still be fucked up, for sure, but she thinks it would be easier, at least, to discover ‘ok’ anew, as opposed to desperately attempting to resuscitate something thirteen years dead. She wonders if the agony of her ribs shattering under the force of chest compressions will be worse than the feeling of suffocating from the inside out.)

She won’t ever tell her team about her Hanahaki; that’s a secret she’ll take to her early grave. But… a small part of her wants to tell them about her… desires. About who she is, to some degree. She can’t tell if the risk outweighs the reward, though. If this news changes things, it has the potential to ruin the rest of her li– education

(She doesn’t want to admit it. That she’s just... scared. True and simple. Just like that. The fear of rejection hangs heavy over her neck, the sharp blade of a guillotine. It’s pathetic, really. She’s a Schnee. The fear of being left alone yet again should be nothing in the face of her own mental capabilities. Father always taught her that attachments make you weak. The petals that tickle the back of her throat taunt her inability to follow his instructions.)

But… she likely won’t live to see graduation. So why does it matter? Should she just die with her secrets and let them wither away within her corpse forever? Or does she let her rot spread, just to provide some brief self-serving relief that she won’t die a stranger to her team.

Brothers Grimm, she’s being dramatic. Yang’s openly… some flavour of queer, clearly, and none of the team seem to care. (Based on the way Blake flirts with Yang, she does a little more than ‘not care’. Weiss chooses not to examine the way the thought of Blake and Yang together makes her feel mildly ill and a little more than choked up.) But what if it’s different because it’s Weiss. They might not hate her for being a les— for liking girls, but what if they resent her for keeping it a secret for so long? For not being brave enough to even call herself a lesb—

“Weiss!” Yang’s voice directly in her ear shocks her out of her rumination and back into her body, where it sits against the couch in the common room. Pyrrha is watching her inconspicuously from across the room as her team files towards their dorms, an unspoken question in her eyes. Weiss just nods at her, grateful, and the other girl leaves with her team a moment later.

“What’s going on in that big brain of yours?” Yang teases, nudging Weiss. The warmth of her body feels like a searing brand against Weiss’s skin, and she has to resist the urge to lean into Yang’s heat. 

“Probably nothing your plebeian brain could comprehend,” Weiss scoffs, enough pomp in her voice to make it clear she’s joking. It seems to work, given the way Blake hides her smirk behind her book. 

(Yang is smart. Weiss knows this. But Yang also has the awful tendency to think with her heart instead of her head. Sometimes, when she watches Yang’s eyes blaze red, Weiss wonders what it would be like to be driven by burning passion, instead of cold calculation.)

“C’mon, Weissy,” Yang pouts, poking Weiss in the cheek. “Tell us what you’re thinking about. Even if it’s boring shit like the state of the economy or whatever.”

Weiss can’t help the face she pulls at that, mouth tugging itself into a grimace against her will. “Brothers, economics is so dull. I’d rather have a tea party with an Arma Gigas.” She huffs, flicking her hair over her shoulder.   

(She desperately ignores the fact that she’s destined to take over the SDC, perennially doomed to slave over business and economics for the rest of her life.

Maybe the flowers are doing her a favour. Can’t deal with the economy if you’re dead.)

“Wow, how dramatic!” Yang exclaims, fanning herself with one hand as she half-slumps into Weiss’s side. Weiss allows herself a brief moment of weakness, soaking in the heat that rolls off Yang’s body before she shoves the other girl off of her, causing Yang to tumble off the couch. “Ok! That was rude!” The blonde exclaims, voice muffled as she speaks directly into the carpet. “How cruel and harsh you are, Weissicle!”

The mirth in Yang’s voice soothes the roiling petals in Weiss’s chest that spring to life as the words register. It’s a joke, she knows it’s banter, but Weiss’s body feels like a raw nerve wrapped in thorns and ichor. Her chest swells with pain, petunias blooming in her airways. The brushing of the words cruel and harsh feel like tongues of flame against her skin. 

(The lashing of the words cruel and harsh against her live wire body feels like the cold bite of her father’s rings as they slice into the soft skin of her cheek, propelled by an open handed blow from the man that was supposed to nurture and protect her. Cruel and harsh feels like her mother watching her stumble into the hallway, tutting softly, before telling Weiss to be sure to colour correct the bruise that will surely form before she applies concealer. Cruel and harsh feels like Winter vanishing in the dead of night, leaving Weiss trapped in the frigid hallways of the family mansion, surrounded by people who also don’t know how to love.)

“Weiss!” Ruby shouts directly into her ear, jolting her out of her musings. “You keep floating away from us!” She exclaims, knocking gently on Weiss’s cranium with her knuckles. The tension in her chest grows, foliage pushing at the tender walls of her lungs.

“Sorry,” Weiss murmurs uncharacteristically, oblivious to the concerned glances shared between the other three members of her team. “Just something on my mind.”

“Weiss,” Comes Blake’s gentle voice, a warm hand landing on her arm. “Would you like to share it with us?”

Just tell them. Just get it over and done with and tell them!

“I…” Weiss starts, staring at the clasped hands in her lap. Her throat burns with more than flowers, the creeping shame regarding her proclivities coalescing in her chest. “I— um.” She stutters, voice buckling beneath the weight of her own inadequacy. 

Yang’s definitely queer. Blake’s probably queer. That means she's in a safe space. 

So why is she still so fucking terrified?

(Deep down, she knows why. She fears the rot that crept into the mansion as her grandfather withered away and her mother grew more enamoured with inebriation than maternity. She shudders over the morphing of her childhood bedroom from an oasis into a prison. 

Just because her teammates are safe now doesn’t mean that can’t change in an instant. She can’t trust that safety will endure, since she is the rot encroaching on her team this time.)

“You don’t have to force yourself to tell us anything, Weiss.” Comes the soothing rumble of Yang’s voice in her ear. 

Just say it, you fucking coward.

“I’m a lesbian!” Weiss blurts out, vocal cords moving independent of her own brain. The words fly out of her mouth and she freezes, wishing she could reel them back in and swallow them whole alongside the bramble in her throat. “My father can’t know.” Her body continues, mind frozen in shock. “He’ll disown me at best. I’m so— I’m so s—“ Her voice finally cuts off, coming to an abrupt halt as the vines in her throat constrict around her voice box. Her unspoken words sits heavy in her chest— heavier than any flower or thorn. 

Scared. I’m so scared. 

(She hasn’t wanted to admit it to herself. How terrified she is of her own father. She knows her father is capable of heinous things. She knows he’s an evil, power-hungry man. She knows he could make her, the black smear on the pristine facade of the Schnee family, disappear in an instant.)

There are hands on her arms and back, tracing patterns into her skin, but it feels like her blood is searing hot under the flesh of her friends.

Her desires were meant to be the knife in her boot, but the blade has slipped and she can feel the edge of her secrets cleave themselves through her achilles tendon, rendering her immobile. 

(She just wants to be free in life. She supposes death is the next best option.)

“Thank you for trusting us with this,” Blake says, tone gentle against the burning in her veins. “We promise you we won’t tell anyone against your will.”

“Yeah!” Ruby pipes up. “We love you a lot, Weiss! I’m glad you decided to tell us.” She says, arms curling around Weiss’s midsection.

“I’m not brave,” Weiss rasps out. “I wish I could change myself. I wish I could be normal.”  

She wishes that she could rip out the part of herself that stares longingly at Blake and Yang and hand it to her father in the perfect offering of her obedience. Maybe the degeneracy gathered in her palms will cry out Love me! Love me! as her internal organs strew themselves across the floor, all in a desperate attempt to please him.

(Maybe if she pulls hard enough, the sinew of her soul will stretch and snap and she'll be able to rip the flowers from her body too.)

The shadow of her father clings to her psyche like a leech. She doesn’t want people to know how weak she is; how afraid she is of her own flesh and blood. She doesn’t want people to know how, in spite of her fear and his awfulness, she desperately just wants her father to love her.

“I know it’s hard,” Yang’s voice returns to her ear, low and comforting. “And I know that you probably haven’t grown up in the most tolerant environment—”

Weiss’s low laugh cuts her off. Understatement of the century, she thinks to herself. 

“Yeah, ok, maybe it is.” Yang responds to her clearly not-so internal thoughts. “But we’ll be here for you the whole way, ok? I know Ruby said it before, but we do love you, Weiss. And we’re all here for you.”

For some reason, the affection from her team makes her stomach churn. She almost wishes they rejected her, that they threw her to the floor with disgust curling at their lips and venom dripping from their words. She almost wishes they turned her away, shunning her for her inadequacies, instead of stupidly embracing the hollow shell of a person they seemingly don’t know she is. She needs them to let go of her before she dies, so they can turn their backs by the time she hits the ground.

(The flowers feel more suffocating than ever before. If more people love her then how can she possibly be at peace with the fact that she’s leaving?)

“Ok,” She says instead, finally looking up into the faces of her teammates. Their furrowed brows and open looks of concern make her feel all the more queasy. “Thank you.” 

I love you all too, she wants to say, but the words are snagged by the thorns that creep up her trachea, the tackiness of her blood ensuring no syllable makes it out of her throat. She clears it, fruitlessly, and stares back at her clasped hands, knuckles white as her nails dig into the flesh of her palm. “Thank you,” She repeats, voice barely above a whisper. 

Selfishly, a small part of her heart revels in the affections of her teammates, drinking up their concern to quench her never ending, childish thirst for attention. She feels dirty, knowing that she’s manipulating them to care for her so close to her end. Petunias, fully bloomed, land on the back of her tongue, her treasonous body reminding her just how close that end is.

(Enjoy it, that treacherous part of her brain whispers as Ruby nuzzles into Weiss’s side. At least you’ll have more than just Sun mourning you when you’re gone.)

Weiss feels the warmth of the three bodies around her and is unable to suppress the tear that slips out of her left eye, tracing the contour of her scar. 

Now, knowing she’ll be leaving more than just her overgrown garden of a corpse behind, she’s almost afraid to die. 

Chapter Text

Nothing groundbreaking happens after Weiss comes out to her team, thank the Brothers. She doesn’t think her heart could take it. The sun rises and sets, Weiss does her best to make it through the day without vomiting random flowers on random people at random times, rinse and repeat.

The only difference is the softcore flirting. It's barely been two days, but Weiss swears Blake and Yang seem to have pulled out all the stops when it comes to making her tiny baby eensy-weensy crush on them worse. If Yang winks at her one more time, she may actually explode. 

(She’d be awful for them, she knows. It’s clear they’re perfect for each other: gorgeous and kind and all around good people. Not like Weiss. She’d only taint them— drag them down with her lovelessness and vile, wicked nature. Just the thought of liking them makes her chest ache something fierce.)

Sun is no help when she complains about it. 

“So, this is ultimately a good thing, right? It means you can hit on Blake and Yang freely now.” Sun says, tossing Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang from hand to hand.

“No!” Weiss cries, punching him in the shoulder. “I will not be hitting on any of my teammates, thank you very much.” 

“Whoa there, Weissy,” Sun laughs, holding his hands up in surrender. “No need to get so defensive over your little crush.” 

“Oh fuck off,” She rolls her eyes. “I don’t have a little crush on anyone.” She sneers, sticking her tongue out at Sun. 

“You know I have functional eyes, right? I know you Weissy, which means I know you’re gay for Blake and Yang.” Sun sing-songs, skillfully dodging out of the way of Weiss’s next punch. 

Even if you like them, what’s the point? Her brain whispers, like the soft rustle of petals in the breeze. Weiss resolutely ignores them. She is having a good time with her good friend. She will not start thinking about her impending death. 

“Maybe if you get your head out of your ass and ask out Neptune, I’ll consider it.” She huffs, sticking her tongue out at him. 

Sun splutters, pointing an accusing finger at Weiss. “Lies and slander! Neptune is my best bud, nothing more!” 

“Wow, Sun. Are you cheating on me?” Weiss drawls unenthusiastically. “I thought I was your best friend.” 

“You were, until you accused me of being into Neptune.” He scoffs, turning away from Weiss. It does little to hide the flush across the bridge of his nose. 

“It’s ok if you are,” Weiss nudges him gently in the arm. “It’s not like I’m in a position to judge.”  

Sun sticks his tongue out at her. “Yeah, you’re fucking not.”

“Brothers above,” Weiss rolls her eyes, but can’t stop the smile that tugs at the edge of her lips. “See if I try being nice to you ever again.”

The air on the rooftop is surprisingly crisp tonight, cutting through the muggy humidity of Vale. Weiss shrieks loudly as Sun tackles her down, the joy of her voice unimpeded by the blooming flowers heavy in her chest. 

Blake’s happy for Weiss, truly, but she can’t shake the feeling that the heiress is still hiding something. She watches as the heiress flips through a textbook, an idle hand rubbing her breastbone. 

(She remembers the awful, gagged sobs, enveloped in the darkness. She remembers the way Weiss gripped at her chest, fists twisted into her nightgown in agony. She remembers the metallic stench of blood slicing through the dorm.

She remembers the fear that Weiss is hiding something dangerous. It hasn’t left her since.)  

Even now, as they sit in the dorm, Blake can’t help but feel like something’s… off. Weiss’s still lovely like this, curled up on her bed, pale skin and flowing silver hair that tumbles over her shoulder. Blake is familiar with the contours of her cheek, the curve of her cupid’s bow. She’s spent hours watching them, committing them to her memory. But she can’t help but notice a gauntness resting just below the surface of Weiss’s skin— the dark smudges that marr the underside of her eyes. 

She stares for longer, simply observing her teammate. The window is shut, the only thing audible in the room being the gentle swoosh of Weiss’s pages cutting through the air as she flips through her book. But there’s something more, murmuring just below the gentle hum of the world. Blake focuses harder, ears twitching atop her head. 

She listens. 

To her finely tuned faunus hearing, Weiss’s breaths sound… choked. Wheezy. 

Sickly. 

(A phantom tinge of blood wafts past her nose.)

Weiss is sick. Probably a cold. It has to be. It doesn’t make sense for it to be worse. 

Surely, if Weiss was sick– really sick, she’d tell them. Right?

(She wouldn’t. Blake knows this.)

If Weiss was sick sick, she’d tell them. She’d…

(The idea that Weiss might be very, very sick strikes her bones with a panic unlike anything she’s ever felt before.

She knows how to fight Grimm. She knows how to fight humans and faunus alike. She doesn’t know how to fight illness. She doesn’t know how to fix this.)

The most awful part of it all is that she knows she can’t bring it up. That Weiss will flee or fight or, Brothers forbid, do some stupid combination of both. 

For a brief, fleeting moment, Blake wishes she wasn’t a faunus, just so she wouldn’t have to be subject to knowing so much. It’s an awful thought to have, she knows, but it rattles around in her brain in the same way as the rasping breathing of the girl across from her. 

She’s scared. She doesn’t want to lose more people. She doesn’t want to lose Weiss. 

(There’s a bone deep ache in the centre of her chest. It tells her that it doesn’t matter. That Weiss is already lost. 

It smells alarmingly like blood.)

It’s probably a cold, Blake rationalises. Weiss would tell them if something was seriously wrong. She’s just being… overly anxious. Probably just the exam stress clouding her judgement. 

Right?

(Across the room, Weiss sucks in another wheezy breath, if only to prove that she’s still alive.)

During the day, Weiss surrounds herself with activity and life. She’s usually pretty good at tamping down any stray foliage that creeps up her pharynx, sometimes excusing herself to split up mangled leaves and petals. 

Late at night, without the bustle of activity to occupy her brain, her thoughts meander, dragging her indelicately behind them. 

Tonight, Weiss wonders if it’ll hurt when she dies. 

(Somewhere deep down, she knows it will. She wonders if her suffering is a final act of worldly retribution; the sacrificial lamb for the atrocities committed by the Schnee family.)

She watches the way Ruby’s bed sways in the gentle breeze that slips through their open window and wonders if it’ll do the job for her. She wonders if she should just… ensure it’s painless, in the end. 

She wonders if that makes her a coward. 

She doesn’t want it to hurt when she dies. Ruby’s bed creaks above her, casting an enticing shadow across her body. 

(She wonders if she can turn her own bed into an altar, sprawling her broken body across its surface as repentance.)

She could make sure it doesn’t hurt. She desperately wants to take her own destiny back, even if that just means determining how it ends. 

She knows she can’t. She knows she doesn’t deserve it. 

The flowers seem to grow thicker everyday, and the oxygen in her lungs rattle between the brambles. These days, there’s an ever present ache in the centre of her chest, radiating out from her sternum. The end will hurt, yes, but so will the time before it. It’s her sin to bear. 

She just needs to hide it from her team until she finds a suitable replacement. Then they’ll be able to get rid of her easily. 

(She ignores the way her chest swells with pain at that. It’s her responsibility to make sure her team isn’t unbalanced once she succumbs to her own weakness. She wonders if they’ll need to make a new team name, or if someone will effortlessly replace her, the brand of RWBY unchanging in her absence.

Selfishly, she hopes it’s the latter. She hopes they’ll feel it when she’s gone, if not just to prove that she occupied space in the universe while she was alive.)

The bed above her sways once more as she closes her eyes against the growing sharpness in her lungs. She can almost taste the alluring weight of Ruby's bed, heavy over her skull. 

She knows she can't do anything, though, so instead she rolls over, drifting off into a fitful sleep. 

Mealtimes with Team JNPR have become steadily more difficult, Weiss finds, largely thanks to Jaune. Her fuse has shortened by a factor of at least five ever since she found out about Pyrrha’s struggle with Hanahaki; She feels an almost protective rage every time Pyrrha muffles a cough into her palm following some senseless comment from the blonde boy. 

She bears it as best as she can for as long as she can, annoyance bubbling just below the surface of her skin. It gets to about two weeks before it gets to be too much. 

“I’m just saying, snow angel, I could show you a—” Jaune drawls from where he’s half spread across the lunch table. 

“Jaune!” Weiss snaps, waves of frustration rolling from her body. “I am not interested. I will not be interested. So just. Leave. It!” She borderline-shouts, slamming her hand down on the table as she stands abruptly. The blonde haired man visibly withers in front of her, curling into himself as his cheeks flush with shame as surrounding tables turn to face them, their occupants murmuring to each other in hushed whispers.

Behind the sound of the rushing blood in her ears, Weiss vaguely hears Pyrrha cough. Once, then twice. Then three times. Her eyes snap to the redhead, only to watch as her shoulders shudder rapidly, hands cupped in front of her mouth. 

Fuck.

“Pyrrha. We’re going.” Weiss commands as she sweeps over to the other girl, practically hauling her off the bench. 

“What? Where are y–” Ruby begins. 

“I said that Pyrrha and I are leaving.” Weiss barks out, dragging Pyrrha behind her. “And where we are going is none of your business.” 

Weiss resolutely ignores the flicker of hurt that flashes across Ruby's face before the other girl is no longer in her line of sight.

Pyrrha coughs again, more frantic this time. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I caused this. I did this.

Weiss’ own chest begins to twinge with sympathetic pain.

Pyrrha stumbles slightly behind Weiss as she picks up the pace, hand firmly clutched around the other girl’s bicep. 

“Keep up,” Weiss mutters under her breath, though her tone lacks its usual sharp edge. “And act natural.”

“I’m bringing you to the infirmary. You must’ve swallowed something wrong.” Weiss stage whispers to the other girl. She sees the way the greedy ears of the people around her perk up, desperate for a crumb of gossip. 

Pyrrha just nods helplessly, bringing a hand up to thump at her sternum, as if to dislodge whatever morsel got stuck in her airways. Which… honestly isn’t too far from the truth, Weiss muses. They’re still being choked, just from the inside out. Weiss pats her back uselessly, ushering her out of the hall. They don’t turn towards the infirmary, obviously, but instead snake their way into an out-of-the way bathroom. 

As Weiss clicks the door shut behind them, Pyrrha is already lurching for the toilet, awful retching coughs ripping themselves out of her lungs. Weiss can hear the inelegant splat of the blooms dropping into the water, even from where she’s leaning heavily against the door. She feels the heaviness of her guilt pressed up against her diaphragm, nestled in between her petunias.  

(She’s so fucking awful. She doesn’t know how to not hurt people. Even her care is lined with the ragged, piercing edges of a snowflake.)

She peels herself off the door, lowering herself next to Pyrrha as she begins to gather the redhead’s hair in her hands, pulling it away from her face. 

“Let it out,” Weiss murmurs, smoothing a hand down her back. Pyrrha gasps into the porcelain maw of the toilet, wordless moans tumbling out as petals rip their way up her throat. “It’s alright, just let it out.”

It’s not fair that someone like Pyrrha will die in pain. Weiss can’t help but think. She’s not paying for the crime of anything but loving a man too stupid to love her back. 

It’s unfair. Weiss wishes she could take all of Pyrrha’s hurt— the hurt she’s caused just by existing. She can’t though, so she smooths her hand down Pyrrha’s back once more and whispers gentle encouragement in her ears as the other girl shakes apart.

They stay like that for a long time, even as Pyrrha’s spluttering turns into broken, keening sobs then into nothing at all. 

“You shouldn’t have yelled at him.” Pyrrha eventually speaks, after what feels like an eternity of Weiss staring blankly at the bathroom wall. Her voice grumbles with overuse, coated in the slippery perfume of flowers. She heaves herself off her knees, her body thumping against the wall as she slumps against the tiles.

It takes Weiss a moment to register what she’s even said. “He clearly wasn’t listening to me otherwise. What was I meant to do?” She shoots back, trying to keep the annoyance from her voice.

“Everyone in the school will be talking about it by tomorrow. He isn’t going to take that sort of attention well.” Pyrrha says, eyes still blankly trailing the grout and the tiles.

“Then maybe he should’ve backed off sooner. I’m clearly not reciprocating.” Weiss snaps, unable to keep the edge out of her voice. Pyrrha just shrugs half-heartedly, eyes finally meeting Weiss’s. 

“Weiss, I think…” Pyrrha starts, hesitant. “I think that this is going to kill me.” Her voice is barely above a whisper as her eyes flutter shut, head tilting back as she basks in the shitty fluorescent lighting. The non-sequitur is almost comical in its straightforwardness. Her confession rings in the open air.

Weiss chokes on a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, tell me about it.” 

“At least your mystery individual might still love you back,” Pyrrha sighs. “I don’t think Jaune will ever even see me as an option. I’m too… me.”

Weiss can’t help but snort. Weiss’s parents can’t even look at her without disdain— how could she be good enough for some random to love her? She’s so broken she can’t even love without the cloying sheet of petals that lines her lungs. “You’re infinitely loveable, Pyrrha. Jaune doesn’t know what he’s missing out on.” 

Pyrrha smiles sadly, face still tilted skywards. “Maybe he’ll see me before I’m too far gone.”

Weiss’s temple throbs with how firmly her jaw is clenched. She wants so desperately to knock some sense into that dumb boy.

Which… it suddenly occurs to her, she actually can. As the object of his strangely placed affections. 

Fuck. That’s going to be so unpleasant. She can’t not do it, though. Pyrrha doesn’t deserve to die in pain like her. The other girl looks like a shell of herself from where she’s slouched over, gaunt and ghostly in the harsh lighting. 

(She wonders if she looks like that to her team— like she’s already slipping away.)

“I’ll make him see you.” Weiss grits out. Pyrrha’s eyes flutter open slightly, boring into her. “I can do it. I’ll make him see you.” The redhead smiles half-heartedly, eyes slipping closed again. 

“I’m sure you will, Weiss.”

(Selfishly, for a fleeting moment, Weiss is struck with the thought that if she gets Jaune and Pyrrha together, that she’ll be suffering alone again. It’s a disgusting thought, one that makes petals flurry in the back of her mouth, but she can’t help the way it rings in hollows of her brain.)

Maybe she’ll be able to do one good thing before she goes. A plan begins to piece itself together in her hindbrain. 

(Maybe, just maybe, if she sets this one thing right the Brothers will show some mercy and make it ever so slightly less painful for her at the end.)

Either way, if it doesn’t go well, at least neither Pyrrha or Weiss will be around for the fallout. 

“Pyrrha,” Weiss says authoritatively. “This disease won’t kill you. I won’t let it.” 

Pyrrha finally looks directly at her, somewhat bewildered. “What?”

“I’ve decided I won’t let this disease kill you.” Weiss says, jaw set and eyes stony. 

Pyrrha huffs an incredulous laugh. “You’ve decided?”

“Yes.” Weiss states simply, chin tilted ever-so-slightly upwards. 

Pyrrha stares for a moment longer, before her eyes begin to shine with something new— a delirious sort of hope, perhaps. She laughs again, pushing the hair from her eyes. It makes her look so much more alive, Weiss thinks. “Well, glad to have you on my side, then.” 

Weiss just nods sharply, once. “You will be. I’m going to fix this.” 

She’s come to peace with the fact that she’s dying. What she has to do feels like a fate worse than death. 

She has to talk to Jaune.

Chapter Text

Sun laughs in her face the moment she tells him. It’s quite rude, really. 

“You’re so dramatic,” He cries from where he’s curled over, smacking the floor between short bursts of laughter. Weiss really doesn’t think it was funny, but given how much of a simpleton her best friend is, she’s not too surprised by his reaction. 

“I feel like it’s a fair and valid reaction, all things considered.” She huffs, crossing her arms. 

“Brothers, I would rather walk naked into a pack of Grimm than be in your position.” Sun huffs as he straightens up, wiping at his eyes. Weiss grimaces at the mental image. She doesn’t want to imagine Sun naked. She already sees too much of his bare chest, as is. “I don’t think Jaune will back off even after you tell him to.”

“I know. I would rather face another Arma Gigas than talk to Jaune about feelings.” She declares gravely. 

Sun howls, clutching his side as he tips over. For a long moment, his laughter rings loud and clear through the open air, and Weiss allows herself to smile.

Eventually, though, his hysterics peter off, slowly leaning into silence, before:

“Wait a second, did you just say another Arma Gigas?” 

Weiss doesn’t get a chance to see Jaune at lunch. Team JNPR is conspicuously absent, Yang and Blake sitting comfortably in their usual spots. Before Weiss can excuse herself to go find them, Glynda Goodwitch has the attention of all the students in the hall.

A ball! The students chatter excitedly, discussions of clothes and dates and the very illegal consumption of alcohol rolling across tables. 

Weiss ignores the heaviness that settles in her gut. The concept of a ball reminds her too much of the looming walls of a concert hall, of the false smiles and clammy hands that came after.

(She knows that's not why the thought of a ball makes her feel sick. She grew numb to the bureaucratic nightmare of socialising with the elite by the time she left Atlas. Thinking about that makes her feel almost nothing at all. The memories taste like the empty sting of the cold against the false smile of her teeth. 

She knows a ball with her friends— the people she loves— will remind her of a time where dancing made her happy, back before it all fell apart. She doesn’t know if she’s strong enough to face that.)

She hopes the decor team— CFVY, she’s pretty sure— won't use flowers as the centrepieces. If she has to smell any more, she might actually go insane.

“I wonder if you could go to a ball with two people,” Yang comments offhandedly, leaning heavily into her palm as she pushes her food around her plate. 

“I don’t see why not,” Ruby shrugs. “Oh!” She perks up. “We could all go as a group! A team RWBY bonding experience!” 

“That’s a nice thought, Rubes,” Yang smiles, leaning across the table to tap her little sister on the nose. “But isn’t there someone else you’d like to ask?” She drawls, the corners of her smile sharpening ever so slightly. 

Ruby’s face rapidly turns the same colour as her cloak. “I don’t know what you mean!” She squeaks out, eyes flickering to where Penny sits across the room and back to her food in rapid succession. 

Weiss snorts, knocking her partner in the shoulder. “You know, you could stand to be less obvious.” 

“I’m not obvious about anything!” Ruby practically shrieks, pulling the hood of her cloak over her face in one swift movement. Penny’s eyes flicker to Ruby, then Weiss, her head tilting in concern. Weiss waves her off with a lazy hand, rolling her eyes at Ruby’s antics. 

But… for some reason, Penny’s gaze stays firmly locked on Weiss, piercing green eyes roving across her face. The furrow between her brows deepens ever so slightly. It makes the skin on the back of Weiss’s neck prickle. She feels pinned under the sudden scrutiny of the other girl’s gaze, unable to tear her eyes from glittering emerald green.

(For a fleeting moment, Weiss is struck with the sudden fear that she can tell— that she knows. The buds in her chest quake with the fear of being found out. She dismisses the thought almost immediately. It’s not like Penny has x-ray vision, for Brother’s sake. She’s just overly paranoid.)

“—sn’t that right, Weissy?” Yang says, snapping her fingers in front of Weiss’s face. 

“Uh," Weiss blinks. "Yes?” 

Yang smirks at her. “Oh, so you agree that Professor Oobleck is the most eligible bachelor in Beacon? I thought he wasn’t your type.” 

Weiss splutters, redness flooding her cheeks not unlike her partner next to her, still hidden away in her cloak. Maybe Ruby’s onto something— she wishes she had her own oversized piece of fabric to hide in. “I—”

“You zoned out on us again, princess.” Yang cuts her off, saving her from the embarrassment of whatever she was about to say next. The corners of her eyes soften a little bit, and the sheer fondness radiating from the blonde makes Weiss feel a little bit sick. “You all good?” 

(You don’t deserve this concern. The vicious part of her brain spits at her. It’s so sudden she almost flinches, a stabbing pain shooting through the spaces between her ribs. She’s hiding things from her team that love her and trust her and don’t know that she’s not worth their time because she won’t be here for much longer. The lilting tones of Yang’s voice suddenly feel like the cold sting of poison dripping down her spine. She’s powerless to stop the shudder that ripples through her body.)

“Be nice to her, Yang,” Blake says. “You just traumatised the poor girl.” 

Weiss shoots Blake a grateful look, only to find amber eyes already locked on her, peering over the top edge of her book. What the fuck is in the air? Why is everyone staring at me today?

“Plus,” Blake continues, “Everyone knows that Professor Goodwitch is where it’s at.” 

“Holy shit,” Yang splutters. “I didn’t know you had it in you Blake.” She laughs, eyes shining with disbelief. 

Agreed. Weiss thinks, her jaw hanging agape. Even Ruby peers out from her self-made cloth prison to shoot a judgemental glare at Blake. Ruby opens her mouth to speak, only to be cut off by the faunus. 

“Wow, How convenient.” She deadpans, tucking her book under her arm. “Seems like it’s time for class.” 

“Uh, no it’s not.” Ruby says, finally emerging fully from her hood to crane her neck at the clock on the wall. "There's still twenty minutes left?"

“It's time to go because I say so.” Blake smirks. “You’ll understand when you’re older.” 

“Hey! I’m not that much younger than you guys!” Ruby whines, slumping over the table. “Weissy’s on my side. Right, Weiss?” Ruby asks, peering up at her partner.

“Yeah, sure.” Weiss shrugs. “I don’t argue with children.”

“You’re so mean!” Ruby cries, her body going limp as she begins to slide under the table. For once, the words don’t send anything but a gentle warmth through Weiss’s body as she pats her partner on her rapidly disappearing head. 

“There, there.” She consoles. “Get up, now. You have your whole life ahead of you.” 

“Weiss!”

Weiss can feel the corners of her mouth lifting into a smile, an impossible fondness for her team swelling in her chest. Her chest feels light— lighter than it’s felt in a long time— as she sits with her teammates in their own little bubble, a perfect tableaux amid the bustle of the cafeteria. 

That night, Weiss gets to the roof fairly early, by her normal standards. She's surprised to find Sun already there, arm slung over his eyes from where he's sprawled out. 

“Hey, Weissy. Wanna be my date?” Sun asks sleepily.

“I assume you mean to the ball, and not in general.” Weiss says, looking over at him as she folds herself into a sitting position, the white tulle of her skirt a stark contrast to the dreary grey concrete. 

“Duh. I’m an ally, Weiss. Also, respectfully, you have too many daddy issues for me.” 

Weiss snorts. “You’re not going to ask me out in a more romantic and dramatic way? How shameful.” 

(She can’t help the pang of fear that zings down her spine. It’s bad enough that they’re friends. Weiss shudders to think about what her father might do if she shows up to a ball hanging off the arm of a rugged faunus. She’s not sure who she’s more scared for; Sun, or herself.

Her chest tightens, almost imperceptibly. The feeling is all too familiar nowadays. It’s almost become her most faithful companion. She stifles the cough she feels building up in her throat— just because Sun knows about her Hanahaki doesn’t mean she wants him to see her hacking up flowers. She's still not comfortable being weak in front of people, not even herself. Her father's teachings are a bottomless pool, swirling just inside the cavity of her skull. 

Brothers. Sun’s right. She really does have too many daddy issues.) 

“I’m pretty sure you would stab me before I could get the words out.” Sun mutters. He’s not wrong.

Weiss shrugs halfheartedly, leaning back on her palms. He's right, after all. “I shouldn’t go with you.” 

“Why? Because I’m a feral monkey man?” Sun peers up at her, a look of faux-offence painted across his features. 

Weiss rolls her eyes, punching Sun in the arm. “That’s totally why.” She drawls sarcastically. “And it’s definitely not because I think you should stop being a pussy and ask Neptune to the ball instead.” 

“Aw, fuck off, Weiss.” Sun whines, throwing her a glare that is significantly tempered by the raging flush across his cheeks. “I don’t even know if Neptune is into guys, let alone guys like… me.”

“What? Annoying and clingy?” She smirks at the glare he shoots her way. “You’re a catch, Wukong. Plus, the worst thing he can do is say no.” 

“Brothers, Weiss. That might kill me.” Sun shudders. “Boom. Dead on the spot.”

“Hey, at least it’ll be quick.” Weiss replies thoughtlessly, eyes scanning the horizon. The lights of Vale twinkle gently, and up in the sky, the stars wink back. “The whole slowly dying thing is getting kind of annoying.”

“Brothers Grimm, Weiss.” Sun laughs, tinged with disbelief. “Would it ki— can't you warn a guy before you remind him about your impending death that he still hasn't really come to terms with?”

“Where would the fun be in that?” Weiss says, a hint of apology in the softened edges of her tone. “Plus, you won’t get rid of me so easily. I still need to… bleugh… talk to Jaune.” Weiss shudders. “I’m going to try and find him tomorrow. I didn’t see him at all today.”

“Why do you need to talk to him about it so urgently?” Sun asks, propping himself up on his elbow. “I mean, I support you and all, but if you really don’t want to talk to him, surely you can just, like, ignore him?” 

Weiss sighs, lazily tilting her head to look over at Sun. “I wish I could. But it’s something I have to do. I’ve made a promise.”

Sun rolls his eyes. “All right, then. Keep your secrets.”

“Thank you. I will.” 

“Or maybe you shouldn’t. Talk to Jaune, I mean. The Weiss I know wouldn’t break a promise, so you’re physically not allowed to die until you talk to him.” Sun pipes up, smiling halfheartedly. Weiss feels her chest pang, though not with the physical pain she’s grown accustomed to. Her returning smile is dipped in its own sorrow. 

“I can always make new promises,” She shrugs. “Brothers forbid my last promise ever is about Jaune.” 

“Make me a promise right now, then.” Sun grunts, pushing himself up to a proper seating position. 

Weiss scoffs heatlessly. “I grew up in business. Tell me your terms before I agree to anything.”

“Weiss,” Sun says, taking both her hands in his own. His gaze grows solemn as they lock eyes. “Promise me you won’t give up. Promise me you won’t let go until you really, really have to.”

The sudden knot in Weiss’s throat is an amalgamation of flowers and heartache as her best friend’s gaze wavers slightly, eyes coated with a barely perceptible sheen. She nods, clearing her throat fruitlessly. Sun squeezes her hands, a steadying weight. 

“I promise,” She barely manages to whisper. She clears her throat again, petals spluttering into the back of her mouth. She pays them no mind. “I promise.” She repeats instead, louder and firmer. 

“Good,” Sun breathes, squeezing her hands once more before letting go, his normal cheeky grin returning to his face. “Now, let’s go to sleep. You’re gonna have to be well rested to deal with your favourite person tomorrow.”

“Brothers, don’t remind me.” Weiss groans, pushing herself off the floor and dusting non-existent dirt off her skirt. 

“Sorry, no can do,” Sun says as he clambers up, the two of them making their way towards the stairs. “It’s my job to remind you of everything bad in the world, unfortunately.” 

“Maybe take a look in the mirror for that,” Weiss jokes, hip checking him as she moves past him, starting down the stairs. 

“Wow, ok. Rude.” Sun grumbles from behind her. “I’m actually the best thing in your life, thank you very much.”

The guilt that sluices through her body is jarring, yet not entirely unexpected. He’s not wholly wrong, Weiss thinks. She thinks of him holding her between her shuddering sobs, whispering reassurances into her hair. She thinks of the steadying frame of his body pressed firmly against hers as she shook, her father’s contact brightly displayed on her scroll. She thinks of the haunting way he wailed into her chest, begging her to stay. 

“Hey, Sun?” Weiss says, turning around. Her best friend stands at the open doorway, a few steps above her. The way the moonlight trickles around his silhouette and dampens his features makes him feel more like a shadow than a person. “I really do promise.”

"I know you do.” Sun smiles, barely visible in the low light. “You’re Weiss.”

A ball! The students chatter excitedly, discussions of clothes and dates and the very illegal consumption of alcohol rolling across tables. 

She hopes the decor team— CFVY, she’s pretty sure— won't use flowers as the centrepieces. If she has to smell any more, she might actually go insane.

She stands in the middle of an empty hall with bright spotlights that sear her skin. Her breathing echoes, reverberating between the ornate walls. She knows what she must do. 

After all these years, she is still able to fall into a pas de deux without a warm body by her side. She waltzes with herself, dancing to the empty clack of her shoes on cold marble. She spins, only to stumble, the floor dipping into a step beneath her feet.

She looks down to see the familiar shape of her bedroom floor, a warm glow emanating from the fireplace. In the shiny reflection, she sees her own five year old face staring back at her. 

“Little princess,” her grandfather says in the lilting tones of Old Atlesian. “Would you do me the honour of giving me this dance?” He bows in front of her, regal even with his body as frail and weak as it was by the end, and Weiss giggles as he sweeps her into a light waltz. Klein chuckles fondly from where he sits in the corner, flipping the vinyl in the gramophone.

“You are such a fine dancer, Sir Opa!” Weiss titters as they dance across her bedroom. “Truly the finest in the land!”

“And you, my dear.” Her grandfather smiles down at her, radiant and beaming even through the hazy fog of memory. “You are the finest princess in all of the world. I will always dance with you.”

Weiss’s bedroom stretches infinitely, glistening chandeliers illuminating the floor as she is swept up in the arms of her grandfather, spinning across the floor. The music is gentle, like the feeling of her grandfather’s hand in her own.

“I love you endlessly, my dear Snowflake.”

The warmth of her grandfather’s voice follows Weiss into consciousness, a bittersweet cocoon of home. It hurts deep in her soul, somewhere untouchable by any physical thing, somewhere even bramble and thorns can’t reach.

She sighs, almost inaudibly, and rolls over, only to lock eyes with molten amber. It feels like forever stretches between them as their eyes remain locked before Blake slinks out of Yang’s bed, padding over to Weiss's. Weiss sits up to meet her as the faunus perches on the edge of her bed. 

“Are you ok?” Blake whispers, voice raspy with sleep. A calloused hand reaches up to cup Weiss’s face, the rough pad of Blake’s thumb swiping across the damp skin of Weiss’s cheek and— oh. Oh. She’s crying. 

In a moment of weakness, Weiss finds herself leaning into Blake’s hand, desperately chasing the feeling of the other girl's skin as it brushes against her own, a series of featherlight kisses. Her eyes flutter shut on their own accord as she lets out a shuddery sigh. 

“I’m ok,” She murmurs, half into Blake’s palm. “Just… missing someone.”

“You must love them a lot.” Blake hums.

“I did. I can’t wait to see him soon.” Weiss sighs, mouth softened by her exhaustion. 

(She doesn’t notice the way the sweeping motion of Blake’s thumb stutters for just a moment, barely imperceptible.)

“Is he in Atlas?” Blake asks, voice barely a murmur.

Weiss breathes out again, her breath heavy and warm against the cool chill of the night. “Not anymore. He’s further than that now.” The motion on her cheek stops, but the press of Blake’s palm never leaves the curve of Weiss’s face, so she pays it little mind. 

“Well, I hope you aren’t gone for too long, when you go to visit.” Blake says, after a long moment of silence. “We’ll miss you.”

“Yeah,” Weiss sighs, sleep beginning to drag her back down into its embrace. “I’ll miss you guys too.” She mumbles, finally succumbing to the pull of unconsciousness. 

(Weiss’s face slackens with sleep, the furrow between her brow finally smoothing out. With the heiress’s face cradled delicately in her palm, Blake feels like she’s holding the world in her hands. Weiss looks so fragile like this, the dampness on her cheeks glistening like porcelain in the waning moonlight. She’s radiant, Blake’s very own star, but impossibly real and heavy in her arms. 

She doesn’t know where Weiss is going to meet this person, but she’s struck by the realisation that she would follow the other girl to the ends of the world, if only she asked. She just hopes Weiss is going somewhere she can follow.)

“Little princess,” her grandfather croaks, eyes slipping shut even as Weiss grips his clammy hands tightly, somehow knowing it’ll be for the last time. “Don’t worry. We will dance again together, one day. I love you endlessly, my Snowflake.”

There’s the sensation of a caress on her cheek, and arms around her waist. Another pair of arms reach around to cradle her from behind, all encompassing and warm. She sobs as her grandfather’s hand grows limp in her own, before there is nothing at all.

The phantom embrace she finds herself in grows tighter still and i n the empty void of her dream, it feels like coming home.

Chapter Text

She wakes up slowly, cocooned in an unfamiliar warmth. Sleep lingers at the edges of her consciousness, but it isn’t enough to distract Weiss from the distinct feeling of two pairs of arms around her, holding her close. Her eyelids flutter open, only to find amethyst eyes already watching her.

In the waning cool tones of the early morning, Yang looks so serene. Pale light sweeps across her tanned skin, kissing the apples of her cheeks. Sleep-soft and safe, Weiss wishes she could do that too. 

The weight at Weiss’s back nuzzles closer, the unmistakable feeling of fur flicking against the exposed skin between her neck and shoulder. She jolts slightly at the sensation, causing Blake’s arms to tighten around Weiss's waist almost imperceptibly. 

“Hey, princess,” Yang murmurs, barely audible over Ruby’s snores overhead. “How’re you feelin’?” 

The inquisitive noise that leaves Weiss’s throat is involuntary, her brain still slowly waking up. Hazy with sleep, she’s not sure why Blake and Yang are here with her. Their warmth is addictive, her body drifting back towards unconsciousness as she her eyelids grow heavy.

She forces them open, only to see Yang watching her with a fond little smile. It almost makes her regret it.  

“You were crying last night,” Blake pipes up from behind, thumb starting to stroke Weiss’s hip, rasping gently against the silk of her night dress. Weiss suppresses the desire to press up into it, and instead tries to rub the sleepiness from her eyes. The faunus's words register slowly, like coffee dripping through filter paper. “You wouldn’t stop until we joined you.”

Weiss feels heat flood her cheeks as she tucks her face into her pillow. Brothers, she can’t believe her teammates had to calm her in her sleep like some fussy child. “I’m sorry,” Weiss whispers, voice barely audible. “You should’ve woken me up if I was being loud. I could’ve slept in the common room.” Her shame makes her feel warmer than before. Trapped between her two teammates, the heat is almost unbearable. 

Yang tsks at her, using her thumb and forefinger to tilt Weiss’s chin back up. Weiss is powerless to stop the way her eyes are drawn to Yang’s own, lilac fractals spiralling in her irises.

“Don’t be silly. We were worried about you.” Yang reprimands heatlessly. “Seemed like you were having a rough time.” She sweeps the calloused pad of her thumb across Weiss’s lips as she speaks, the roughness catching on Weiss’s smooth skin. Weiss can’t help the shiver that runs down her spine, prickling her skin with gooseflesh. 

Blake nods wordlessly behind Weiss. She feels it in the way the fabric of her pyjamas drag up and down against her back in the facsimile of a lover’s caress. The scent of her teammates' respective shampoos mingle in the sheets around her head in a dizzying aroma.

It’s all too painfully intimate. Weiss wants so badly; the gaping maw of a Grimm in the bottom of her chest, tangled up in a garden. She’s greedy— desperate for more that she has no right to ask for. 

They’re touching her so softly, so gently. Like she’s something precious. Like she’s something worth loving.

It’s unbearable. She sits up. 

(She desperately tries to ignore the prickles that dance across her skin where they touched her, leaving behind a ghostly trail of their comfort. She can’t give into her delusions. They were just dealing with her… fussing. That’s all.)

“You shouldn’t worry. Dreams can’t hurt me.” She says, staring down at the pooled sheets in her lap. The silk glistens like the sparkle of candlelight in her grandfather’s hair. 

“Yeah, well, we’re gonna anyway. Might as well accept it, princess.” Yang says, and Weiss can hear the way she’s rolling her eyes. A lithe hand comes up to rest on her arm, coaxing her to turn around. 

(She wonders when she’d become so docile, as she follows the unspoken command of Blake’s hand. She wonders if the sharp edges of her crystalline body are softening slightly as she melts away into nothing, or if she's just malleable under the heat of the two girls in her bed.)

Blake and Yang are still both watching her, the weight of their eyes heavy on every plane of her face. The intensity of their gazes cause her breath to stutter, catching jagged in her throat. 

(It feels like creeping into Winter’s bedroom, like Klein’s flashing eyes, like strolling in the gardens. It feels like her grandfather’s hand in her own, before it all went wrong. 

She doesn’t want to call it what it is. That would make it too real.)

“We’ll always be here, you know.” Blake says, propped up on one elbow. “Us and Rubes, too.”

The girl above them lets out a loud snore, as if in agreement, and it’s almost enough to burst the bubble around the three of them. 

“And,” Yang chimes in, pushing herself into a seating position. “We’ll wait for as long as you need. Forever, if that’s what it takes.” She tilts her head and smiles— a private, gentle one. “We just want you to be happy, princess.” 

Blake nods her agreement, folding her body into a cross-legged position. “We know you’ve got… things going on. But we want you to remember you can lean on us.” Absentmindedly, she reaches up to smooth down the fur on her ears, and Weiss can’t help but find it awfully endearing. “We’re your team. We’ve got your back.”

(She doesn’t want to call it what it is, but the tugging in her heart is too strong to ignore.

It terrifies her. It terrifies her more than anything has ever terrified her before.

She knows how to deal with the fear of staring down an Arma Gigas. Of standing in front of hundreds of nameless, faceless people. Of feeling her own breath grow shorter and shorter as she chokes to death on her own feelings. 

She doesn’t know how to deal with this. Of the fear of being seen by the two girls in front of her, face bare in the morning light.)

She doesn’t say any of this. Instead, she smiles softly at Blake and Yang. “Thank you. It means… more to me than you know.” 

(The kind of love she feels should be something dark and mangled, spat up into toilets and wastebaskets while no one is looking. There should be no beaming in her chest, no lightness in the tips of her fingers. She doesn’t know what’s happening.)

Blake and Yang smile at her as dappled sunlight begins to spill over the ledge of the windowsill and for the first time, it hits her — an unmistakable reality that slams into the centre of her chest.

She’s in love.

It glows in her soul, encased in petals and bramble. 

She’s in love, and it’s going to kill her.

(For the first time, cold dread seeps into her chest at the thought.)

Her revelation lingers around her shoulder for the rest of the day, muddying time as she cruises on autopilot. 

She loves them, but it doesn’t hurt like thorns digging into the soft meat of her trachea. She loves them like the softness of her bedsheets, or the crisp air of a beautiful winter morning. 

But she loves them, so they must be the root of her disease. 

Right?

(It makes sense, she justifies, that she would be able to twist something so pure into a new means of self-flagellation. 

She ignores the way that explanation doesn’t sit right, a bandaid over the cavernous wound of her own churning thoughts.)

She’s knocked out of her reverie by Sun, who jabs an elbow into her side. 

“ Psst! Loverboy at 12 o’clock!” He whispers with all the discretion of a Grimm in a china shop. Weiss rolls her eyes, shooting Sun a half-hearted glare, but her attention is quickly drawn to the flash of blonde and armour disappearing around the corner ahead of them.

She thanks him halfheartedly, already bustling down the hallway and resolutely ignoring the thumbs up Sun sends her way. 

“Jaune!” 

The boy’s movement stutters, before he picks up speed. 

Brothers. He’s not nearly as slick as he thinks he is.

“Jaune, I need to talk to you!” Weiss yells down the hallway, past the stares of the other students. 

He freezes, shoulders tense, before he slowly begins to pivot on his heels. 

“Heyyy, Sno– I mean. Weiss.” Jaune gulps, rubbing the back of his neck and very conspicuously avoiding Weiss’s gaze. “Have you. Uh. Have you. Reconsidered?” Jaune awkwardly smirks, shooting Weiss finger guns. The way his hands are visibly trembling don’t help to sell his faux-suaveness. 

Ugh. This is going to be painful.

In lieu of saying anything, she grabs his arm, dragging him into an empty classroom. 

“Cut the crap, Jaune.” She huffs as she slams the door shut. “You and I both know I don’t feel anything for you.” 

Jaune’s face flushes red as he ducks his head. “But— I mean. You c—”

“Stop looking for some idea of me.” Weiss snaps. “You’re never going to find her because she’s not real, Jaune. You don’t even know me!” 

(Hypocrite, Weiss’s hindbrain whispers. You don’t know who you are, either. It hisses. Weiss resolutely ignores it, along with the smoothness of the petals that coat the back of her throat.)

Jaune’s gaze snaps back up to Weiss. “I do!” 

“Tell me one thing I enjoy, then.” Weiss demands, as non-threateningly as she’s able to. Jaune looks like he’s about to cry, or pass out. Or maybe both, in that order.   

“Um…” He whimpers, eyes darting around the room. “You. Uh. You like… cookies?”

Weiss scoffs, rolling her eyes. “No, I really don’t.” 

Jaune's eyes widen in panic, flitting around the room. “But— but you always carry them everywhere?” 

“Yeah, because my partner is Ruby Rose.” She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “See, Jaune? Everyone who talks to me knows that. You don’t even talk to me.”

“Well— But— I love you!” He exclaims, hands twisted in each other.

This fucking boy.

“Ok. Prove it.” She says cooly, crossing her arms over her chest. 

Jaune’s frantic energy halts as he stares at her blankly. He blinks. “What?”

“Prove it." Weiss repeats, steady gaze trained on Jaune. "I don’t love you back, so what kind of flowers do you have?”

Jaune blinks again, mouth opening and closing wordlessly. He clears his throat. “What do you mean?” He asks slowly.

“If you really loved me, you’d be coughing up flowers by now.” Weiss shrugs, raising a single manicured brow. "So what are they?"

They stand like that for a moment, Jaune trapped under Weiss’s gaze before he withers, tucking his chin into his chest. 

“I mean… I guess… I don’t have any.” He mumbles. 

Weiss sighs, placing a hand on Jaune’s shoulder. He jolts, eyes flicking across Weiss’s face. She doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but she's sure he won’t find it. “It’s ok, Jaune.” She says, voice kindest it’s ever been with him. “You don’t love me. That works out better for the both of us, really.”

“But— I. I…” He stammers. 

“Jaune." She claps him on the shoulder, making her way towards the door. "Sort your shit out. Then maybe we can try being friends.”

“Oh,” She pauses, hand hovering over the handle. She looks over her shoulder to find Jaune standing where she left him, eyes unfocused and glassy. “And I think you might love someone. But I think she’s closer to you than you’d think.” She swings open the door, stepping into the corridor.

“Huh? Wait, wha—” Jaune’s voice is cut off as the door clicks shut behind Weiss. She slinks into the throng of students in the hallway, slipping her scroll out of her pocket as she makes her way towards the common room. 

Brothers. That was excruciating. She deserves an award. 

maybe not an award, but i can give you a high five and like 2 lien ^^ Is how Sun replies to her message, his obnoxious profile picture grinning up at her. She snaps her scroll closed as Pyrrha hums thoughtfully. “I didn’t foresee you accusing him of not having Hanahaki. That was an interesting route to take. You don’t see that kind of thing in the movies.” 

Weiss rolls her eyes, flopping back against the couch. “I just told him what he needed to hear. And I didn’t make him cry. So really, it was quite a success.” 

Pyrrha huffs out a laugh before also dropping down against the cushions, causing Weiss to lurch upwards. She shoots the redhead a heatless glare, before closing her eyes and settling against the backrest. 

“It seems as though we have very different metrics of what a successful conversation is.” Pyrrha teases, poking at Weiss’s shoulder. 

“Hey, I spoke to him without even yelling. That’s probably the most you could ask of me.” Weiss huffs. 

“Yeah,” Pyrrha sighs forlornly. “Now I guess all we have to do is wait. Maybe he’ll notice me now.” She clears her throat a few times, presumably dislodging some insolent petals from where they cling to her vocal cords. “I wouldn’t bet money on it, though.”

(Something heavy churns in Weiss’s gut. It prickles against her abdomen, pressing bristles into her diaphragm.)

“He will,” Weiss declares. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“I’m sure you will.” Pyrrha says placatingly, halfheartedly patting Weiss’s thigh. 

“Seriously, Pyrrha.” Weiss says, peeling her eyes open and turning to face the other girl. Pyrrha is already looking at her, face downcast. It looks so wrong on her. “I don’t want you to die. We can fix this.”

“I admire your resolve, but it’s not up to you.” Pyrrha shrugs.

“I don’t care. I’m not going to let you die. Not if I can help it.” Weiss announces, fists clenching in her lap.

Pyrrha smiles softly at her, but the edges are dipped in sorrow. “Have you considered I feel the same about your situation, Weiss?” 

“Oh.” Weiss chokes out. “I… did not.”

(She knew they were friends, but the other girl's words still surprise her. Somehow, Weiss had forgotten that Pyrrha doesn't know how to not love the people around her. It's frightening to be included in that group, when she's the reason that Pyrrha is going to die. 

The petals that rise in the back of her throat taste like vomit.)

“I just wish I could do something more for you.” The other girl sighs. “I wish you knew who it is.” She closes her eyes, the harsh fluorescent lighting washing the life out of her skin as she tilts her head towards the slate metal sky. “And… I wish they’d love you back.”

(Blake and Yang smile at her, illuminated by the soft dappled sunlight. Her trachea constricts.)

“Yeah,” Weiss breathes out, voice still stuck in her throat. “Me too.” 

She leans back against the couch, exhaling heavily as her eyes slip shut. 

“Me too.”

She doesn’t talk to Sun that night. She lets the waves of his voice wash over her as she stares over the rooftops, into the vast, glittering expanse over Vale. 

She hopes her grandfather is up there, waltzing between the stars. It’s a cold comfort, knowing she’ll be joining him soon. 

Sun traces lazy patterns across Weiss’s arm. The sensation of skin on skin reminds her that she’s not with her Opa just yet. The warm Valeian air whips her hair against the tender apples of her cheek. Each kiss of sharpness reminds her that she’s alive. 

(Sometimes, she feels like she forgets that, too focused on the looming inevitability on the horizon. She's alive, but not living, too busy staring down the barrel of her own death.)

Sun is still speaking, his voice a comforting rumble in his chest. He pays no mind to the way Weiss wheezes on almost every exhale. She appreciates that. She appreciates him.

It’s unfair that he’ll miss her when she’s gone. He’s so good. He doesn’t deserve the hurt that he’ll have to carry, just because Weiss was too weak to love properly and too broken to be loved in kind. 

(It’s unfair that she has to go. A small part of her brain cries that she doesn’t want to— not anymore. She ignores it. It’s not like she has much of a choice.)

She almost says this to Sun, so close to interrupting whatever tirade he’s on, but her words are snagged on the thorns in her chest. He keeps speaking, tracing swirls and stars and hearts into Weiss’s skin. If he’s aware of the tumultuous nature of her thoughts, he doesn’t show it. She’s not sure if she’s thankful for that. 

She leans into him, her ear resting over his heart. The steady beat of it soothes her frazzled nerves. It reminds her that he’ll keep on living, even after she’s gone. 

(She tries not to be jealous.)

Sun stays as he is, firm and alive against Weiss, voice rumbling through his chest beside his heartbeat. 

He’s strong. He’ll survive losing her.

(She doesn’t want him to lose her. She doesn’t want to lose him.)

The stars wink at her from where they watch overhead. The emptiness between them looks cold, a never ending field of loneliness occasionally interrupted by the fleeting brush of a passing celestial body.

She doesn’t want to join them. Her grandfather can wait. She wants to stay here, where it’s warm and humid and buzzing with life. She wants to stay here, with Sun. With Ruby.

With Blake. With Yang.

(She knows it’s too late.)

Curled up against her best friend, she doesn’t say any of this. Instead, she listens to Sun's rambling, turns her face into the breeze, and reminds herself that right now, she's alive.

Chapter Text

Sometime around midnight, Weiss gets up from where she’s curled against Sun, his chest rising and falling with his wheezing snores. Unprotected from the elements, the humidity makes Weiss’s back tacky with sweat, her clothes sticking to her skin uncomfortably. She peels her face from Sun’s (thankfully) covered torso, stretching out all the unpleasantness of spending half of her night on a concrete floor. She leaves him on the roof, sprawled out and sleeping. 

Weiss gently pushes the door to their dorm open, only to be met by the gentle glow of Yang’s scroll. The blonde shoots her a quick smile from where she’s precariously sat on the desk chair, one knee to her chest and her other leg resting on the top of the table. Weiss can’t even bring herself to be annoyed by the way Yang has definitely messed up her papers, too overwhelmed by the gentle fondness in her chest. Brothers, she needs to get a fucking grip. She tiptoes over her wardrobe, gathering her clothes as stealthily as possible, before she scurries off to the showers. She’s not sure if the weight of Yang’s gaze on her is just the product of her overactive imagination, but she doesn’t let herself turn around to check. 

She slips into the bathroom, and eagerly shrugs off her many layers, sighing in relief as cool air kisses her bare skin. She turns to the shower, only to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She gravitates towards it involuntarily, hands landing on the edge of the sink. She squeezes it slightly. The porcelain remains unyielding, the same solid coldness under her hands as when she first coughed up that petal, all those months ago. 

(It almost surprises her, as if her softening should have altered the world around her in kind.)

Her hair is greasy yet frizzy, tangled and wild in places where it had clung to the static of Sun’s shirt. There are bags under her eyes— slight enough that you’d have to be looking for them to notice, but there nonetheless. Strangely, she likes them. They make her feel more human.

(She examines herself, desperate to find some hint of love in her face. A softening of her brow, or the lifted corners of a smile. She sees nothing.)

Weiss looks the same. There are no marks on her skin from where Blake and Yang have brushed gentle fingers across her lips, no mark to signify Ruby’s arms around her torso or Sun’s chest against her cheek or Pyrrha’s gentle hand on her shoulder. Her body is as unblemished as ever, save for the ruined skin that sluices through her left eye. 

Those icy blue eyes stare back at her, her gaze like broken glass. They rove over her body in the mirror, hungrily searching for something different— something new. 

Her pale skin is sickly under the harsh fluorescent lights. It makes her realise that she does not, in fact, look the same. There is a gauntness to her cheeks that was not present all those months ago. There is the teasing shadow of a hollow under her cheekbones, the creeping beginnings of sallowness taking hold.

Weiss almost laughs, the choked-off sound scraping against the ever-present wounds that line the inside of her throat. There are hints of love all over her face. She was just too stupid to remember that her body was not built to be able to withstand the forces of loving and being loved in kind. 

She’ll love and love and love until the skin of her cheeks sink so far into her body that all that’s left of her is the unsullied blankness of her bones. She’ll love so hard that it will rip the breath from her lungs, the roots of the flowers worming through every crevice of her respiratory tree. She’ll love until she dies, because it’s the only thing she has left to give. 

She coughs, and the mass at the back of her throat feels different. It’s big, blocking more of her airway than anything before. It doesn’t feel like the familiar bodies of her petunias, or even like a bundle of them, but instead something large and imposing. Weiss feels the heady static of panic at the base of her neck as air barely makes its way around the blockage, every inhale suctioning the petals into a seal at the back of her throat. She clears it fruitlessly, the vibrations only serving to irritate the cuts that line her trachea. On her next exhale, her mouth is filled with thin slivers of blood. It’s a cold comfort, knowing the blossom at the back of her throat isn’t smothering her completely. 

She coughs again. The flower does not move. She coughs once more and it tumbles involuntarily into a gag, her hand flying to her throat like she can grab the blockage from the outside. 

She wonders if this is what dying feels like. She knows she’s not. It doesn’t hurt nearly enough.

Hunched over the sink, Weiss lets her mouth drop open, desperately reaching into the back of her throat with manicured fingers. The tips of her fingernails hook into the soft flesh of a petal, large and flat, and she begins to tug it forward slowly, uncaring of the scratches she’s clawing down her tongue. An awful choking noise is ripped from her throat as she feels the flower peel off the back of her pharynx, the petals sticking to the chasm of her mouth. The smooth cellulose of the stem grows more and more noticeable as it scrapes against the torn up muscles of her larynx. Her throat spasms as she feels each excruciating centimetre of it crawling upwards and outwards.

The bloom fills most of her mouth, pressing up against her tongue and teeth and soft palate and everything in between. Her jaw strains as she opens her mouth wider, desperate to get the flower out. The tips of petals just begin to breach the opening of her lips when there’s a sharp rap of knuckles against the bathroom door. 

Weiss jolts, her hand jerking forward. Searing fire jolts through her neck as the stem of the flower tears into the mutilated meat of her throat, and she’s powerless to stop the pathetic whine that rings loudly in the room. Brothers, Weiss can barely think through the cloying haze of pain, a smothering blanket of agony coating her insides. She can feel the flower heavy on her tongue, half-freed from the prison of her body yet still clinging desperately to her mouth. There are twin scratches gouged into the epithelial layer of her tongue, a perfect exit runway seared into her epidermis. Something sits heavy and wet under her nails, but she can’t tell if it’s the skin of her tongue or the supple flesh of the petals.

She takes it all back. She must be dying, because it surely can’t get worse than this. 

“Weiss?” Yang’s voice is muffled through the bathroom door, but Weiss can still hear the concern that drips from her words. It’s uncharacteristically soft, a low hum that makes electricity sparkle in Weiss’s fingers. “Are you ok?” 

Weiss hums what she hopes is some kind of affirmative noise around the burning in her larynx, staring at the drops of red that begin to spill from her lips onto the white porcelain below. Wisps of flame dance just below her nose, almost out of view. She pinches at them hesitantly, the mangled flesh squishy between her fingers. Yang knocks again, with slightly more urgency. 

“Weiss? Can you answer me?” Yang asks. Unfortunately, on account of the flower stuck in her throat, Weiss cannot. 

She rubs the petal between her fingers, before she steels herself, grasping them as firmly as she can between her shaking fingers. She inhales as deeply as she can, before she traps her breath in her lungs.

3. 2. 1. Go!

She yanks her hand forward, and the blossom follows in kind. It cleaves its way through Weiss’s throat and mouth, carelessly tearing through anything in its path. She lets go of the flower the moment the main mass of it passes by the restraints of her teeth, letting gravity do the rest of the work for her. 

Coated with her blood and saliva, a fully bloomed orange lily splats pathetically into the sink. 

The sob that leaves her is impossible to suppress, her body barely even her own. Her hand slams back down onto the lip of the sink, spreading smears of bright red across its surface.

“Weiss!” Yang barks out, now banging against the bathroom door. “Weiss, open up!” 

Weiss tries to reply, but the only sound that exits her mouth is nothing more than a wheeze. Blood continues to dribble from her lips, painting the centre of the lily a deep crimson. She clears her throat, lurching as searing pain shoots up her neck in fiery arcs. She opens her mouth to speak again, and prays to the Brothers that at least something will come out. 

“Yang,” Her voice is low and gravelly and barely above a whisper but Yang goes silent nonetheless. She flounders for a moment, gaping at the swirls of red-orange-white below her. “Yang,” she tries again. Her vision swims in front of her. “I don’t… I don’t feel so good.” The words slip out against her will. She grips the sink tighter in a desperate attempt to fight her vertigo. 

She feels Yang’s sigh more than she hears it. “Yeah, I think I got that.” She huffs sarcastically, before her voice drops into a low, unfamiliar tone. “Let me in, Weiss.” Yang begs. The mental image of the ever proud Yang Xiao Long begging because of her makes something ugly stir in Weiss’s chest. “I can help you.”

Weiss shakes her head, only to remember that Yang can’t see her. Opening her mouth to reply, she finally lifts her gaze from the bloody mess of the sink. Her voice stops dead in her throat as someone unrecognisable stares back at her in the mirror. A girl, naked and trembling, face smeared with blood and saliva and snot and tears. She’s a pathetic, feral sight. It can’t possibly be Weiss. She raises a hand to her cheek. The girl in the mirror mimics her movements perfectly. Her breath stutters, and the girl in the mirror's chest heaves in kind. 

“Don’t worry.” The girl says, voice like cracking ice. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

She has Weiss’s sky blue eyes. She has the distinctive scar that bifurcates Weiss’s left eye. She has Weiss’s lips and nose and skin, but it can’t be Weiss, even though it must be.

(It can’t be Weiss, because Weiss has never looked so alive.)

“I won’t leave you alone like this.” Yang says before Weiss hears the distinctive noise of a body sliding against the door. “I’ll be here until you come out, whether you like it or not.” 

There is a burning in her lungs but, mercifully, it seems there are no more flowers for her to hack up for the time being. She looks at herself in the mirror again, bile and blood swirling in her mouth. Maybe Father was right, Weiss can’t help but think hysterically as her eyes flit over the sunken skin around her collarbones. Maybe love really does ruin you. 

She hears Yang shuffle against the door, probably adjusting herself into a more comfortable position. The girl in the mirror smiles, manic, perfect white teeth streaked with gore. 

Weiss exits the bathroom in a familiar cloud of jasmine scented steam that tickles Yang’s nose. Her nightgown billows slightly as the steam rushes past it. Backlit by the fluorescence of the bathroom, she can’t help but think the other girl looks like a ghost. She’s got a towel loosely draped across her neck, catching the beads of water that roll down the expanse of her neck. 

(Some part of Yang yearns to sink her teeth into that stretch of pale flesh. She shakes that thought away. There are more pressing issues at hand.)

Yang scrambles up, leaving her scroll haphazardly open on the floor. Weiss’s eyes flicker down to it, a small crease forming between her brows. “Weiss,” she breathes out. “Are you ok? You sounded really unwell.” She’s powerless to stop the way she reaches for the heiress, gentle hands coming to cup her face. Her thumb gently caresses the apple of Weiss’s cheek, and the dampness there almost feels like tear-tracks. 

Weiss opens her mouth to reply before it snaps shut again. She nods, once, before leaning into Yang’s hand, eyelids fluttering between open and shut. Her pale skin stands out more than usual against Yang’s deep tan. “You don’t look well,” Yang notes, tilting Weiss’s chin up. There’s dark smudges under her barely open eyes. “Do you need to go to the infirmary?” 

Weiss’s eyes fly open in panic, a piercing blue even in the darkness. She shakes her head frantically and pulls back, the blonde’s hands slipping from her face. Her arms, hidden by flowing silk sleeves, wrap around herself in a cheap mimicry of a hug. Yang hands itch with the need to hold her. She settles for tightening them into fists, before she releases them. 

(Weiss’s left eye doesn’t open as much as her right one, scar tissue tugging down on her eyelid. Yang has to suppress the urge to run her finger over the puckered skin.)

“I’m— we’re worried about you,” Yang tries to reason, a whispered confession. Weiss turns away from her, a sheet of damp silver hair blocking her face from Yang’s view. “I just want you to…” She bites the inside of her cheek, stopping her sentence in its tracks. 

To talk to us? To stop being so scared of… whatever? To look at me?

Yang sighs, resting her hands on Weiss’s biceps and squeezing ever so slightly. “You don’t have to speak, sweetheart. You’ve clearly been through the wringer tonight.” She steps towards the other girl, voice still low and soothing. “I just want to know if you’ll be alright. Just until the morning.”

(She doesn’t notice the way Weiss’s face flushes at the new pet name, or the way her throat spasms in pain.)

She brushes Weiss’s hair from her face, the white strands a glimmering silver where water droplets cling to them. Weiss doesn’t move away, and Yang takes that as permission to cup her face in her hand again. The curve of Weiss’s cheek fits perfectly in her palm. Her lips are slightly swollen, and under any other circumstance Yang would think they were kiss-bitten. They’re parted slightly, Weiss’s soft breaths warming Yang’s thumb. 

Weiss’s noises were guttural— like they were being dragged out of her without her consent. It’s scary. It doesn’t seem like just a severe bout of food poisoning, but Yang has no idea what it could be otherwise. 

(She doesn’t want to entertain the idea that it’s something more serious. She’s already lost too much in her short life. She can’t lose Weiss as well, not when she's just started to love her.)

Yang doesn’t often feel hopeless in the face of adversity, powered by brazenness and sheer force of will, but this feels different. Yang doesn’t excel in situations where a delicate touch is needed and no matter how much she tries to pretend she isn’t, Weiss is fragile. Yang can see it in the way words catch in the chinks of her armour, her eyes going cold. The way she unfurls under gentle compliments from her team, her lips tugging upwards almost imperceptibly. The way she hunches over, a hand to her chest, when she thinks no one’s watching.  

Yang wants to be gentle with Weiss. Wants to hold her close like something precious, like she and Blake did just that morning. She doesn’t know how to convince Weiss that her sharp edges won’t rip into her if she gets too close.

“I’ll be ok tonight,” Weiss whispers, so soft that her words are almost stolen by the night. Her voice is ragged, curling in on itself, and Yang doesn’t know how to fix it. “I promise.” 

(Yang is an older sister; she’s more familiar with worry than the planes of own mother’s face. She doesn’t know what this feeling rumbling in her chest is. It feels too much like fear for her comfort.)

“Ok,” She nods, somehow tearing her hand from Weiss’s face. “Ok.” She repeats, taking a step back. “Goodnight, then, Weiss.” She turns around, scooping up her scroll from the ground. She feels the way the metal bends under the force of her grip. "I'll see you in the morning." 

“Goodnight, Yang.” Weiss murmurs, before she flicks the bathroom lights off and the room plunges into darkness.

Chapter Text

Dawn comes cruelly, casting cold, harsh light across the room. Weiss’s bed is empty, sheets pulled taut over the mattress. Yang can’t find it in herself to be surprised. She sighs and rolls over, pulling her duvet over her head. She squeezes her eyes shut against the blurry darkness.

She tries to go back to sleep. She can’t. All she can think about is blue eyes and soft skin and the lingering feeling that something is very, very wrong. Yang tries to ignore how that feeling is becoming all too familiar as the days go by. 

She muffles a groan into her pillow. Fuckkk. Why does she always have to fall for the complicated ones?

“You ok?” Comes Blake’s soft voice from under her bed. Yang jolts a bit, cheeks flushing. She… forgot that Blake would be able to hear that. She throws the duvet off of her head and rolls over, only to find Blake already peering at her over the edge of her bunk, amber eyes like molten glass. “Mind if I join you?” 

Yang shuffles over in lieu of a reply, and Blake heaves herself onto the bed in one, fluid motion. Yang takes a moment to appreciate how the lines of her body lengthen as she stretches. 

“Is it Weiss?” Blake asks as she slips under the covers, eyes knowing. 

Yang snorts out a mirthless laugh. “These days, when is it not?” Blake hums softly in agreement. “I mean,” Yang continues. “I just feel like shit not being able to help her, you know? And knowing that the only thing stopping us from helping her is, well, her. It sucks.” 

“It’s frustrating.” Blake agrees softly. She looks away, ears flickering on top of her head. “Especially because,” She trails off. “I know you like her,” she starts hesitantly. “And I know you know I like her too. The same way I like you. And you like me.” She barely whispers, eyes flickering back up to Yang’s. 

Yang feels heat flood her face. She chuckles, embarrassed. “I mean, I’ve never been great at hiding my feelings.” She mumbles, scratching at her neck. 

“I know,” Blake smiles. “It’s endearing.” Her smile flickers, brows drawing together. “I’m just— I don’t know how I feel about telling Weiss.” She sighs. “She’s already got a lot… on her plate. I don’t want this to, I don’t know, destabilise her more? If she has to deal with the stressors of a… of our feelings, on top of everything else.”

To be honest, Yang hadn’t considered that. She voices this to Blake, who seems wholly unsurprised. “Why don’t we ease her into it?” Yang suggests, shrugging as well as she can while lying on her side. “We can ask her to go to the dance with us, but like, not in a friend way.” 

Blake hmmms thoughtfully. “That’s actually not a bad idea. We’d have to be careful how we go about it, though. I think it could spook her easily.” 

Yang huffs a small laugh into the space between them, flicking Blake on her human ear. “She’s not a horse, Blake.” 

The faunus rolls her eyes in response, lips quirking up in the corner. “No, but you still wouldn’t want to get into her blind spot in a fight.” She quips. “No guarantees you’d survive it.”

Yang’s lips tug themselves into their own small grin, an automatic response to Blake’s smile. “Well, let’s just hope I won’t have to fight her anytime soon.”

Weiss’s chest is heaving, her forehead dripping with sweat. Black flashes in the corner of her vision and she sweeps her arm out in an arc, finger slamming down on Myrtenaster’s hammer. The silver blade of her rapier sinks deep into the hologram as it disappears in a flurry of sparks. 

“Not bad,” Pyrrha hums from where she’s leant up against the wall. “Your reaction time has definitely improved. You could definitely stand to utilise your glyphs more, though.” 

Weiss neglects to reply, too busy gasping in wheezy lungfuls of oxygen as she lifts the bottom of her shirt to wipe the sweat off her brow. In the darkness of the fabric, her thoughts begin to stray to golden hair and calloused fingers on her cheek. 

(“I’ll see you in the morning.” Yang had said, shoulders tense and guarded. Weiss had wanted to run her hand over the other girl’s back until those firm lines seeped from her body. The idea of seeing Yang in the soft light of the morning sent an inexplicable tremor through her body, lightning dust filling her fingertips. 

She slipped out of the dorm the moment she heard Yang’s breaths even out. The common room couch was cold, unlike the gentle warmth that radiated from Yang’s body. It kept Weiss grounded, like the familiar chill of Atlasian air.)

Weiss shakes her head, trying to dislodge her thoughts from her skull and the pain from her chest. Her shirt falls back down as she rolls her shoulder back, bringing Myrtenaster back up. Her finger only trembles slightly against the hammer of the revolver. “Again.” She grinds out, voice still ragged and weary. 

Pyrrha’s brow crinkles. “I don’t think that’s—”

“Again.” Weiss barks, halfway to a yell. Her throat spasms as the abused muscles vibrate, spilling blood down her windpipe. Pyrrha’s eyes flicker to Weiss’s aura bar on her screen as it drops minutely. The redhead’s brow furrows further, a small frown creasing her lips. 

“Weiss. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She tilts her head towards the screen display, red bar already half depleted. “You didn’t take any hits and you’re already down to 50%.” She worries her bottom lip between her teeth. “Are you getting much worse, Weiss?” She asks softly. Her gentle tone grates on Weiss’s frazzled nerves. 

“That’s none of your business.” Weiss snaps. “Now, start the training program.” She demands through gritted teeth. 

Pyrrha’s face morphs into something more determined, the lines of distress carved into her face going hard. She crosses her arms and tilts her chin up, staring down Weiss. “No. I won’t. You need to sit down and take a break.” 

For the first time in what feels like forever, something other than pain wells up in Weiss’s chest. The blistering fire of her anger is heady. It feels good against her mangled insides, cauterising all her wounds as it climbs into her mouth. “It wasn’t up for debate.” Weiss growls. 

Pyrrha doesn’t budge. “I know. I don’t care. I won’t sit around and watch you train yourself to death.” 

Weiss snorts derisively. “That’s rich coming from the person who’s too much of a coward to talk to Jaune.” 

Pyrrha stiffens, forearms flexing as her arms tense. “I’d watch my words carefully if I were you.” She says, voice slightly strained. 

“You say you don’t want this stupid disease to kill you, but you don’t seem to be doing much about it.” Weiss barrels on, arm beginning to tremble. “At least if I train myself to death I’ll be doing something, instead of waiting on some dumb little boy too stupid to love me back!” She shouts into the stillness of the room. 

Weiss feels the burn of Jacques on her tongue as bramble claws its way into her mouth. She is her father’s daughter. She knows how to aim for the soft flesh between the ribs. Her words hang in the air, jagged like icicles. 

In a split second, Pyrrha’s face smooths into something placid and unnerving, like the still surface of a lake. “You need to calm down.” She demands, turning away from Weiss to press buttons on the display. Her shoulders are set in a firm line, years of training pulling her posture into something immaculate. Pyrrha hasn’t held herself like this in Weiss’s presence in a long time. 

“I’ve locked the training module. Blake and Yang are on their way down now.” Pyrrha says tersely. “I hope you don’t do anything rash.” She doesn’t look at Weiss as she walks out of the room, back ramrod straight. 

Weiss’s arm finally drops to her side, trembling with fatigue. Her chest is tight with pain and petals, her breath wheezy and short. The coughs that wrack her frame are almost second nature to her now, torn scraps of white and orange pooling together in her mouth, then her hand. 

When the mound of petals gets too large to hold, she drops them on the floor, uncaring of the blood and spit all over her palm. Myrtenyaster’s fire dust makes quick work of them, until the only proof they ever existed is a scorch mark on the training room floor. 

Her inelegant hacking stumbles its way into hollow laughter without Weiss even realising it, eyes fixed on the black smear on the floor. She’s tempted to scuff the mark out with her shoe, but she doesn’t want to deal with the ash on her white boots.

(Vaguely, she wonders if that’s how her father feels about her.)

Her anger still coats her teeth in a heavy, slimy layer. After so long trying to be better, it feels almost like home. She pictures Pyrrha’s back, ramrod straight, and hopes the other girl hates her forever.

“Weiss!” Comes Yang’s frantic voice from the doorway, voice half masked by the whoosh of the hydraulics. “Pyrrha said there was an emergency! Are you alright?”

Weiss doesn’t look at the doorway, unable to tear her eyes from that little black smudge. “Pyrrha lied.” She replies hollowly. 

“Your aura’s below half.” Blake observes. “Are you injured?”

“No,” Weiss bites out, words a little bit sharper. “I am fine. Pyrrha called you down for nothing. You can leave now.”

Blake sighs, barely audible. “Weiss, you’re being strange.” She says bluntly, staring determinedly at the heiress. 

Weiss half shrugs in reply, foot inching closer to the ash. “Maybe I am, but frankly, that’s none of your business.” 

Yang groans, pinching at the bridge of her nose. “How many times do we need to go over this whole being a team thing.” She huffs. “I swear you’re allergic to listening to us.”

Weiss’s boot is millimetres away from the streak of black. She could get rid of it so easily in one, swift movement. 

“Look!” Yang cries exasperatedly. “You’re literally doing it now!” 

Weiss drags her foot back under her centre of gravity, shifting into a familiar stance as Myrtenaster is raised in front of her. Her sword arm aches, a pain so different from the kind she's grown accustomed to. It grounds her in her own body. It feels... good.

“If you’re going to stay, fight me.” Weiss demands. Blake and Yang blink at each other, then back at Weiss. 

“Wh– no! Absolutely not. You look halfway to dead.” Yang exclaims incredulously. She crosses her arms across her chest, and Weiss can see Ember Cecelia wrapped around her wrists. Good. She can work with this.

“What?” Weiss snorts. “Are you too much of a pussy? Or are you too self-righteous to beat me up while I’m so weak and feeble.” She mocks, voice pitching upwards. Blake squints at her, ears flicking on top of her head.

“You were fucked up last night.” Yang says lowly. “Don’t try to pretend you weren’t. We need to talk about it.”

Weiss feels her mouth twist into a grimace against her will. Stupidly, she had hoped that Yang had forgotten about it all. “I wasn’t feeling great. Sue me.” 

“That was more than just not feeling great, princess.” Yang says, taking a step towards Weiss. She takes a step back in kind, mindful to avoid the charred pile of flowers. Panic curls in her stomach, twisting its way around the annoyance in her gut.

She scoffs. “I cry on you a few times and you suddenly think you know everything about me? Get real.”

“You want us to get real?” Blake suddenly chimes in, arms crossed. “Then tell us why your aura has gone down by five percent since we’ve been here.”

Shit. She takes another minute step back, and Blake’s gaze flickers down to the ash on the floor.

“Maybe it’s because you both won’t get your noses out of my gods-damnned business.” Weiss sneers. She focuses her energy on making sure her arm holding up Myrtenaster doesn’t shake. Not now. Not in front of Blake and Yang. 

“Brothers, Weiss. You always fucking do this!” Yang snaps. “You’re a broken fucking record! Maybe you’d be easier to believe if you weren’t always rattling off the same shit lines like some kind of faulty machine!”

“Well, if I’m a machine then why don’t you step the fuck up and fight me?” Weiss growls, muscles tensing. “It’s not like you can kill me if I’m just a hunk of scrap metal.”

(She doesn’t notice the tremor that creeps into her sword arm. Blake does.)

Yang presses her palms to her eyes, groaning in frustration. “You’re being so unreasonable. We’re trying to help you.”

(Things were so much easier when Weiss was fine with the fact that she’s going to die. She almost misses the simplicity of not knowing how to love. She doesn’t know what to do with all these stupid emotions trapped in her lungs, begging to burst out. It’s a cruel joke that she’s only learning the softness of love now, after it’s already started tearing her apart from the inside. 

It makes her jumpy. It makes her so fucking mad. It makes her want to punch something. It makes her want to be punched. Her knuckles tighten around Myrtenyaster.)

“What if I can’t be helped?” Weiss growls. “What if you’re all wasting your time and I’m trying to get you to stop doing that?”  

“Weiss, get it the fuck together!” Yang barks out, eyes flashing red. “Get your head out of your ass and realise that people actually fucking care about you even though you keep trying to push us away!” 

“Have you considered that you shouldn’t?”  Weiss yells, swinging her hand in an arc, the sharp blade of her rapier clumsily following behind.  “Have you all considered leaving me alone?”

(You’ll be dead before you even graduate Jacques Schnee had spat at her. More than anything else about him, she hates the fact that he’s right.)

“Brothers, when will it get through your thick skull that that’s not an option on the fucking table!” Yang shouts, Ember Cecelia shuddering to life over her forearms. She flexes her fingers, metal plates clinking together. 

Finally. 

Weiss grins, all sharp edges, and it feels like baring her teeth. A snowflake burns bright blue below her feet. 

“Maybe you’ll have to beat it into me,” She snarls, before she lunges forward. 

Chapter Text

Weiss’s blade is easily parried by Yang’s gauntlets, rapier glancing off the blonde’s armoured plates. Blake darts backwards, out of the path of the two girls locked together in the centre of the room. Weiss’s form is sloppy, Blake notes, weighed down by fatigue and heavy with anger. She watches the heiress’s arm tremble, body moving through sheer force of will and adrenaline. It’s only a matter of time before that limited fuel runs out, Blake knows. She’s not sure she wants to see what happens when it burns up. 

Her hand twitches by her side, Gambol Shroud holstered snugly against her back. Weiss slashes at Yang again, Myrtenaster leaving a shimmering trail of Dust in the harsh lighting. Yang sidesteps it easily. The guttural, wordless yell Weiss lets out reverberates around the training room, ringing in Blake’s skull. Instinct has her pinning her faunus ears flat against her skull, lip tugging up into a snarl. 

She schools her expression the moment she notices it marring her features. She doesn’t want to engage. Not yet. 

Metal clashes against metal again. Blake faintly wonders if that’s where the curling smell of iron is coming from. The sinking feeling in her gut tells her she’s wrong. Weiss pants heavily, and that horrible stench grows stronger still.

“Weiss,” Yang grits out, arms raised defensively. “I don’t want to fight you while you’re like this.”

“Well, that’s too damn bad,” Weiss hisses, voice ragged. “Hit me!” She snarls, more vicious than Blake has ever seen. She launches forward again, powered by the glowing snowflake beneath her feet. Yang barely manages to bring up her arm to block the blow as the steel of Weiss’s blade sparks off Ember Cecilia. 

Blake unsheathes Gambol Shroud, wrapping the cord of the ribbon firmly around her palm. Yang’s eyes flicker to her, then to her weapon, and she nods almost imperceptibly. Weiss’s leg slams into the side of Yang’s torso, sneaking into the cracks in her defence left open by her slight distraction. Yang stumbles to the side with a pained grunt, gaze snapping back to the heiress. 

“Fucking hit me already!” Weiss shrieks. Wisps of white hair stick to her face from where they’ve escaped from her ponytail. Blake’s palms itch with the desire to smooth them back, out of Weiss’s way. The feeling of fine hair under her hands might be enough to keep her heart from breaking at the sight of Weiss’s unravelling. 

She catches a glimpse of Weiss’s aura bar, which is steadily making its way towards the low twenties. Blake swears under her breath. She needs to interfere soon, or Weiss is going to shatter her own aura. Gambol Shroud’s ribbon cuts into her palm as she clenches it tighter. 

Metres away from her, ice crystals begin to form in the air, suspended by brightly glowing glyphs. The radiant light of Weiss’s semblance digs into the hollows of her face, clinging to the skeletal form pushing through her sallow skin. 

She looks… deranged. It’s a far cry from the glimpses of softness Blake and Yang were both able to hold fleetingly just the other morning. The heiress is flagging minutely, posture slouching forward, but it does little to detract from the violence dancing under her skin. 

(Once, seeing the high and mighty Weiss Schnee fall apart might’ve felt like some kind of satisfying karmic retribution. Now, it just fills Blake with a hollow sadness and an increasing, bone-deep dread.) 

Icy blue eyes lock with molten amber as Weiss’s gaze slides away from Yang. She bares her teeth in a mirthless grin, smears of crimson streaked across their perfect facade, and Blake feels her stomach churn. 

“You waiting for an invitation?” Weiss sneers, before sending an ice crystal hurling at Blake’s feet. 

The faunus barely has time to leap back as a flurry of crystalline shards explode against the clinical blankness of the training floor. Her grip tightens on Gambol Shroud’s ribbon as she swings the pistol into her waiting palm. 

She doesn’t want to engage. Not yet. She doesn’t think she ever will. 

Weiss scowls, another ice crystal hurtling towards the faunus. 

She doesn’t want to engage, but it looks like she doesn't have a choice either way. The heavy dread in her stomach seeps into her chest as she watches Weiss gasp for air, eyes rimmed red and face streaked with sweat.

An icicle shatters against the floor, right in front of her feet. Blake takes a deep, grounding breath, and jumps into the fray.

Weiss can’t tell if the world is blurry because of the sweat in her eyes, or because of the energy rapidly draining out of her body. She can feel her blood — sluggish and burdensome — as it ekes through her limbs. Her chest is no heavier than usual, and she snarls against the breathlessness that’s become such second nature. 

The burning rage in her ribs keeps her from stumbling over her own feet, though her footfalls land heavier than she’d like. She’s got Blake and Yang corralled into a corner, the threat of icy impalement hanging in the air, but they’re not fighting her. It’s impossible to resist the grimace that tugs at her lip as she trudges towards them, her rapier pointed accusatorially at the pair. “Stop going easy on me,” she demands, “and fucking hit me already!” She punctuates her point with yet another shower of icicles, Blake and Yang batting them away haphazardly. 

“We don’t want to, Weiss.” Blake says faintly. The deep amber of her eyes shine with a painful sincerity. It makes Weiss sick. It makes Weiss mad.

(It makes Weiss want to sit down and cry, right where she is. She ignores that part easily, throwing it into an Atlas shaped box in her mind.)

She’s running out of steam fast, she can tell. Gritting her teeth against her fatigue, she launches towards Yang, leaving her side open to Blake. She just needs them to hit her at least once before she collapses. She needs the sting of injury and the roar of blood in her ears to remind her that she’s alive .

At least she’s taking Pyrrha’s advice, she thinks distantly, as Blake skilfully leaps out of the way of yet another frozen projectile. Blake and Yang make eye contact, a whole conversation transpiring between them — a secret language between the two partners. Weiss can’t help the jealousy that flares beneath her sternum, cloying and lily-scented. 

Vaguely, she wonders where her own partner is. Probably with Penny — which is for the best, Weiss decides. Shamefully, Weiss doesn’t want her partner to see her as she is now. She wants to be remembered as someone strong enough to stand side-by-side with Ruby Rose, not as the withered, fragile husk she’s become. 

Yang parries her easily, yet again, batting her sword away like a particularly annoying fly. Weiss grits her teeth against the scream she can feel building up in her throat. The taste of stale blood is so familiar these days that she barely even notices as it explodes across her tongue. Backing away from the pair, Weiss tries luring them into the centre of the room. Blocks of ice slam into the floor behind them, forcing the two to move across the floor towards her. 

She needs them to hit her. She needs them to hit her hard. She wants to taste the sweet, metallic sting of fresh blood in her mouth, untainted by flowers or thorns or pollen.

“C’mon,” she taunts. “Get off your high-horses and fight me already! Or are your hero complexes too big for you to see over?” She seethes, dragging the tip of Myrtenaster across the floor. She scowls down at the plasteel as it reforms around the gouges left by her sword. 

Yang exhales sharply, rolling her wrists. The way the segments of Ember Cecelia grind against each other sound so enticing. Weiss wants to know what they’ll sound like as they slam into her cheekbone. She wants to feel the sickening crunch of them against her nose. 

(She wants Yang to touch her again like she’s something precious. The idea of calloused fingertips brushing gently over her cheek feels more violent than any kind of fight she could face.)

“Why are you still trying, Weiss?” Blake asks. The question buries itself deep into the softness between her ribs, deeper than Blake could've intended. Weiss huffs out a sharp, bitter laugh. That’s a good question. Why is she still trying? Why does she keep loving even though she knows it’s dragging her closer to her grave every day? Why doesn’t she know how to give up and die? 

(“ Weiss,” Sun says, taking both her hands in his own. His gaze grows solemn as they lock eyes. “Promise me you won’t give up. Promise me you won’t let go until you really, really have to.” 

Weiss grits her teeth against the memory, the thick mix of saliva and perfume sour in her mouth.)

“I’m sure a lot of people would love to ask me the same thing,” Weiss scoffs around the bloom in her throat, stepping backwards. “My father— he’s definitely at the top of that list. Whitley. Maybe Winter.” She steps backwards again, deeper into the centre of the training room. “Though, I don’t even know if my mother’s aware I’m not on Atlas.” She hums. 

Blake huffs out a frustrated sigh. “You know that’s not what I meant.” 

“Well, I’m not about to answer your stupid questions,” Weiss bites out. “If you won’t give me what I want then why the fuck should I do the same for you?” 

“Brothers, Weiss! You’re being childish!” Yang butts in, throwing her arms out wide. “Can we not talk about whatever’s going on like adults?”

"Well, no." Weiss shrugs. “We’re not adults yet,” she grunts, sending forward a new flurry of frozen shards. Her vision swims as she does, her semblance sinking its vicious claws into the vestiges of her aura. She’s helpless to stop the way she stumbles backwards, legs faltering under the weight of her body. 

Her feet don’t find purchase as her right foot lands on something smooth. For a split second, she’s not sure if her vision is tilting, or if it’s the world. She’s too tired to twist out of the fall, limbs uncooperative and unwieldy. She glances down, and a wry smile spreads across her lips at the sight of pitch-black ash on the white of her shoes. Of course, she thinks sardonically.  Always my own worst enemy.

The bite of Gambol Shroud’s ribbon wrenches her back to awareness, eyes snapping open — she wasn’t even aware she’d shut them. Blake tugs on her weapon, wrapped firmly around Weiss’s torso and arms, yanking the heiress up and away from the sweet relief of a head injury. The faunus’s brow is furrowed as Weiss tumbles forward instead, into the solid circle of Yang’s waiting arms. Weiss flails weakly, exhaustion muting her desperation, unable to escape Yang’s solid grip. It feels too close to a hug. It makes her want to throw up.

“Let me go!” Weiss shrieks into Yang’s chest, writhing uselessly. The blonde’s grip only tightens more, before Weiss is abruptly drawn into a real hug, Yang’s arms curling protectively around her body. It makes her freeze, every point of contact a searing reality. Petals clog her throat, desperately crawling into the cavern of her oropharynx. 

From the darkness of Yang’s embrace, she feels another hand tug her hair out of its tangled ponytail, lithe fingers combing through matted strands. The tenderness of Blake’s ministrations ruptures something deep in her soul, somewhere deeper than the roots of her flowers. The sound that tears its way out her mouth is awful and guttural; a keening, animalistic, moan. The red-hot anger drains from her body in an instant, leaving behind an empty, hollow numbness. Without her rage keeping it at bay, the garden in her chest once again makes itself aggressively known. Petals and stems and thorns beat against the walls of her lungs, desperate to get out. 

“Let me go,” she cries weakly, desperately trying to cling to any remaining threads of her ire. Her hands curl into fists from where they’re trapped uselessly against her sides, the perfectly manicured edge of her fingernails biting into the meat of her palms. “You have to let me go.” She whimpers. 

The three of them don’t sink to the ground as much as Weiss’s knees finally give out, causing her to slump fully into Yang’s hold. The brawler guides the trio to the floor, Gambol Shroud slackening around Weiss’s form and pooling limply on the plasteel. Freed from her bonds, the heiress doesn’t even twitch out of place.

The darkness of Yang’s embrace seems to stretch on forever. The two girls desperately trying to hold her together say nothing. Weiss can’t begin to imagine what they’re thinking. The silence is thick and violent. It lays heavy against the bulb of flowers lodged in her throat.

Yang’s grip on her tightens minutely. “Why are you hurting yourself like this?” She asks brokenly, and her words feel more brutal than any silence could be. “Why do you keep asking us to do things you know we can’t do?”

Weiss doesn’t reply, unable to do more than listen to the pounding of Yang’s heart beneath her ear. She forgot how fatiguing her anger can be. She forgot how hollow it leaves her, its fire desolating every emotion in its path. A cold hand envelops her own limp one in a far-too-gentle hold. It makes flowers roil against her diaphragm. 

“Don’t take your pain out on us,” Blake murmurs from where she sits on Weiss's left. “It’s not fair to us. It’s not fair to you.” 

(“Your father loves you very much,” Willow had murmured, gently wiping the remaining errant tears from Weiss’s face. “Sometimes, he just gets very angry, and so he’s… unkind to you. But always remember that he still loves you.” The wine-soaked kiss pressed against her forehead wasn’t enough to soothe the pain smeared across her cheekbone.

That’s not true. You aren’t meant to hurt the people you love. Weiss remembers thinking, deeply naive and all of nine years old. So what is she doing now, drawing her blade on the two people that have taken up residence in her lungs? Pollen and bramble swell in her chest as she realises she’s become a star disciple of her father’s teachings.)

“I don’t know what else to do with it.” Weiss croaks out, somehow. “I don’t know where else to put it.”

“We can’t take any of it away from you,” Yang says, voice rumbling through her chest. “But we can help carry some of the weight.” The blonde pulls away slightly, the stark light of the training room assaulting Weiss’s eyes as she’s wrenched from the safety of darkness. Yang stares down at Weiss, eyes swimming with unreadable emotion. “You need to let us, though, Weiss. None of this self-sacrificial, reclusive shit.” She sighs. “As much as we want to, we can’t chase you forever. That’ll hurt us too much.”

“We love you, Weiss.” Blake says softly, thumb stroking over the back of Weiss’s hand. “But we can’t do anything if you don’t accept our help.” 

“And I know you have a thing about people saying they love you, but we, like, love -love you. Probably a bit too much.” Yang snorts, before a lithe hand darts into Weiss's field of vision, slapping Yang lightly on the arm. “Ow! Brothers, that was rude.” The blonde hisses, shooting a wounded look over Weiss’s head. 

They what?

“You,” Weiss pauses, words sticky in her mouth as her eyes flicker to where Blake’s hand tenderly wraps around her own. Her fingers twitch, like her body wants to hold Blake in kind, even if her mind has yet to decide. “You love me?”

You’re dragging them down. They don’t know they’ll only have you to grieve soon. 

Yang tilts her chin up, forcing Weiss to make eye contact with her again. The frizz of her golden hair forms a radiant halo around her head, and the smile she beams down at Weiss rivals the fluorescent lights in its brightness. 

“Of course we do, princess.” She says, simply. Weiss feels like she might vomit.

(She doesn’t want to admit it, but she’s terrified. She doesn’t know how to tend to the warm flame in her heart without burning her palms. She doesn’t know how to love without it being the fuel for the putrid, suffocating flowers of her soul. She doesn’t know how to let these two girls in, because what if they realise that she’s unfixable? )

“I’m not gentle. I don’t know how to love properly.” Weiss admits, shame burning bright in her chest. “I don’t…” She pauses, words tangled up in her throat. “I don’t think I’m capable of it.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Yang chides, gently flicking Weiss’s ear. “There’s not one way to love properly. That’s just some bullshit made up by big heterosexuality to sell more heterosexuality.” 

“We know that there’s some reason as to why you… think that.” Blake starts as Weiss twists in Yang's hold to face her. “And you don’t have to tell us what it is. Just— just let us help you stop using it to hurt yourself.”

“How?” Weiss asks, tucking herself under Yang’s chin. Surrounded by the brawler's warmth, she can feel her eyes grow leaden with drowsiness.

“How what?” The faunus replies, head tilting to the side. One of her non-human ears flicks, and Weiss has to stop herself from reaching out to touch it.

“How do I… let you help me?” The heiress mumbles, embarrassment flooding her cheeks. It feels stupid to ask. It feels childish. It feels demeaning. It feels disgustingly vulnerable. Weiss wants to take it back the moment it leaves her mouth. 

“You could start by telling us how you’re actually feeling, sweetheart. And by not trying to force us to fight you in the middle of the day.” Yang suggests, and Weiss can hear the smile in her voice. 

“I love you both.” Weiss whispers in response, barely registering the way Yang stiffens against her as she fights against the pull of unconsiousness. “I know I— I know that I’m not, that I can't— I’m not good or whatever—”

“We know.” Blake cuts her off, smile gentle and warm. “I promise you, Weiss. We know.” 

Weiss exhales, the dredges of her energy finally seeping from her body. She sinks into Yang’s solid form as her vision grows blurry. “If you say so,” she mutters, words tumbling heavily from her lips. 

“Weiss? You ok?” A voice asks, rumbly and warm.

“I think she’s crashing,” someone else replies, voice muffled like they’re underwater. “She lost a lot of aura earlier.”

“Do you think she meant it like— like that?”

“We can talk about it later, Yang. I’m pretty sure she’s about to fall asl—”

Weiss doesn’t hear the rest as she slumps down fully, exhaustion finally claiming her. 

“Weiss? You ok?” Blake whispers, voice raspy with sleep. A calloused hand reaches up to cup Weiss’s face, the rough pad of Blake’s thumb swiping across the damp skin of Weiss’s cheek and— oh. Oh. She’s crying.

“We know you’ve got… things going on. But we want you to remember you can lean on us.” Blake says. Absentmindedly, she reaches up to smooth down the fur on her ears, and Weiss can’t help but find it awfully endearing. “We’re your team. We’ve got your back.”

“Yeah. We, like, love-love you. Probably a bit too much.” Yang snorts, arms wrapped around Weiss’s midsection. 

They’re touching her so softly, so gently. Like she’s something precious. Like she’s something worth loving.

“We, like, love-love you.” Yang repeats, and her grip tightens to something bruising, the sharp edge of her ribbons digging into Weiss’s skin.

“I love you both too.” Weiss screams in response, the words never making it out of her mouth.

“We know.” Someone says. Weiss finds herself leaning into Blake’s hand, desperately chasing the feeling of the other girl's skin as her nails sink into the flesh of Weiss’s cheek, a series of featherlight kisses. “I promise you, Weiss. We know.”

Weiss gasps, shooting upright in her bed. She doesn’t have time to think about how she got there as she stumbles to the bathroom blindly, one hand fisted in the front of her nightgown.

They love her back. 

Her chest burns with a smothering fire, relentlessly consuming all the oxygen in her lungs.

They love her back.

She lurches to the toilet, hacking and spluttering as thorns and petals are forced from her airways.

They love her back.

She pants between the waves of flowers, saliva and blood dangling from her lips. She greedily sucks in air in these moments, desperate for the world to stop fucking spinning. 

They love her back.

She chokes out a mirthless laugh against the cool porcelain of the toilet seat, ignoring how disgusting it might be. Of course it wouldn’t be that simple. Of course requited love isn’t enough to save her from this strange, fucked up version of Hanahaki she’s been afflicted with. 

Maybe it’s just cosmic retribution, Weiss muses. Maybe the Brothers are punishing her for believing she could be anything worth loving. Maybe the Brothers are punishing her for conning the people around her into loving her, despite literally everything about her. Maybe the Brother are just being cruel for cruelty's sake, and Weiss is their unfortunate victim.

(It’s a small mercy to know she’ll die loved in more than one way. She didn’t ever think that was on the cards for her. Distantly, she wonders how long it'll take for Blake and Yang to move on. She wonders if they'll replace her with someone better, or if they'll find solace in one another. It'll be an improvement for them either way, Weiss surmises.) 

She lurches over the toilet once more, moaning in pain as bile and blood begins to drip from her nose.

Blake and Yang love her back.

Familiar and painful, the petals don’t stop coming.

Chapter Text

She wakes up to someone shaking her shoulder. Daggers dig into her eyeballs, barely shielded from the glaring white of the fluorescence by the thin skin of her eyelids. She turns her face into the solid coolness against her cheek, a whine trapped behind the rubble of her trachea. The fingers of the hand grip her a little tighter and shakes her a little harder. 

“Weiss,” A smooth voice says, tinged with a haze of fear. “Weiss. Wake up.” She’s shaken again, and her brain rattles around in her skull mercilessly. She can’t help the groan that slips past her lips as pain explodes behind her eyebrows.

“Oh, thank the Brothers.” The voice murmurs. The sound of it sends a pang of burning shame to Weiss’s chest, but she doesn’t know why. She also doesn’t know why she’s cold, the hard surface under her cheek leeching the warmth from her body. “You need to get up. I don’t know how long you’ve been here, but it’s almost three AM. And you most definitely need a shower.” The voice says. “Good thing it’s close by.” It continues, though the last muttered statement is barely registered by Weiss. 

The voice continues to ramble on, but the words don’t register to Weiss. Her head feels heavy, her body blissfully numb. Static buzzes in her ears, slowly drowning out the voice entirely. She’s so tired, she just wants to go back to sleep…

“Weiss!” The voice explodes next to her ear, shocking her away from her slumber. Her head pounds rhythmically in response. “I’ve almost got the mind to leave you here for your teammates to find.” The voice murmurs. 

Weiss rouses a bit at that. Her teammates. To find her? The coldness under her cheek becomes more apparent, as well as the prickling sensation of cool air across her skin. There’s a hard floor under her shoulder, pressing uncomfortably against her joints. 

A floor? 

Begrudgingly, Weiss’s eyes flicker open even as the thrumming pain in her frontal lobe screams in protest. Red hair shields her vision from the worst of the glare of the lights, though the details of Pyrrha’s face are yet to come into resolution for Weiss’s sleep-hazy eyes. “Thank the Brothers,” The words escape the other girl alongside a heavy sigh. “For a moment there I thought you…” The redhead trails off, eyes flickering down to Weiss’s nightgown. She doesn’t know what’s on it, but based on the furrow in Pyrrha’s brow, it doesn’t seem to be good.

“Pyrrha,” Weiss tries to say, but it comes out as more of a wheeze. Her eyes drift shut again, unable to meet the other girl’s unreadable gaze. It’s almost a blessing that her throat is too mangled to speak; she isn’t quite sure what to say to the redhead. She barely feels it as Pyrrha props her up into a seated position, the world spinning even in the safety of darkness behind her eyelids. She cracks them open, only to be met with something akin to a crime scene. Streaks of dried bile and ichor paint a Pollock-esque nightmare in the small bathroom stall, scraps of petals and stems accenting it with mocking bursts of colour. The stench hits her after she begins to take it in, the acrid smell of vomit mingling with the metallic tang of blood. 

“You’ve got new flowers.” Pyrrha notes, voice deceptively calm. Weiss nods in a shaky jerk, eyes still trained firmly on the scene in front of her. Strands of limp, greasy hair half dangle in her field of vision, some tinged a dark brown— almost black in the shadow of her body. She watches them sway in an attempt to battle the mortification coalescing in her gut. “So I was correct,” the Argian continues, “you are getting worse. You’re getting… a lot worse.” Pyrrha’s voice falters. “But you were right too, I suppose.”

Weiss looks over only to see the other girl leant back against the wall of the stall, bottom lip trapped between her teeth. “If I don’t tell Jaune, it’ll kill me.” She says bluntly, eyes trained on the roof. “I don’t want — I don’t want to die.” She half-whispers, voice breaking in the middle of her confession. It sends Weiss’s heart into her roiling stomach. “And if I get much worse, or if he doesn’t feel the same,” Pyrrha pauses, gnawing on her lip with more ferocity. “Is it fucked if I still don’t want to get the surgery?” She asks, head lolling to the side so she can make eye contact with the heiress. Weiss can do nothing but shake her head, mouth glued shut with sap and ichor against the surprising vulgarity from the other girl. The roiling shame in her gut grows more violent, creeping into her windpipe alongside sweet perfume. “I don’t know who I am without my love,” The warrior sighs. “I don’t know what I’m worth if I don’t give everyone all of me, all of the time.” 

“I don’t know what I’m worth if I don’t keep everyone away from me, all of the time.” Weiss rasps around her blooms, shocking herself with her candor as the words tumble from her mouth without her input. 

Pyrrha snorts. “Well, what a pair we make.” Weiss exhales sharply out of her nose. The Invincible Girl and the heir to the SDC, both being quietly suffocated by flowers. What a pair indeed.

“I’m sorry.” Weiss chokes out, apropos of nothing. “I shouldn’t have— the way I,” She stutters out, battling against the stems creeping up through her vocal folds. “I was… I was cruel. To you. And you didn’t deserve it.” I won’t do it again, Weiss wants to say, but she doesn’t want to make a promise she knows she can’t keep.

Pyrrha stares at her, green eyes half lidded with exhaustion yet striking in the cold light. Weiss can’t read her face clearly, but she thinks she sees a fleeting flash of shock flicker across it. “Thank you,” Pyrrha replies. “I appreciate your apology. And I forgive you.” The other girl shoots her a small smile, imperfect and real. “I don’t think holding onto any grudges will help either of us.”

Selfishly, the flowers in Weiss’s trachea seem to settle.

“Here’s to hoping our beloveds return our feelings before it’s too late,” the other girl barrels on. Her gaze flickers to the toilet and the mess surrounding it. “Full blooms and two types of flowers?” She asks, though the actual question is unclear to Weiss. “That’s serious.” Pyrrha’s brow furrows deeper, her eyes catching on the blood crusted into Weiss’s hair. “You… At this rate, you might only have a few months left.” She diagnoses softly. Even though Weiss knows — has known — her impending death-date being laid out so bare in front of her sends ripples of ice through her veins. Her breath catches, heartbeat skipping for a split second. In a few months, Weiss will be dead, and there’s nothing she can do about it. “Have you figured out who it is yet?” Pyrrha asks, eyes kind. 

Weiss can’t stop the mirthless bark of laughter that tears through her windpipe. The memories of the previous day swirl together in her mind, incomprehensibly confusing yet with one clear answer. She wishes she could blame the tears in her eyes on the rippling pain, as opposed to the harsh, bizzare truth of the reality she’s trapped in. “They love me back, Pyrrha.” She barely manages to choke out, hysteria bubbling in her chest. “They love me back and I’m still dying.” She giggles wetly, feeling the tears begin to finally drip down her cheeks. A strange floaty feeling coalesces in her head, her body tingling like she’s being dragged away from it. “They love me and I’m still going to die.” Weiss mumbles, a hand coming up to fist in her nightgown, right above her chest. “How fucked up is that?” She chokes out, staring up at Pyrrha between her lashes, thick with teardrops. 

“What?” Pyrrha’s attention feels like pinpricks across Weiss’s skin. 

“They told me they loved me last night,” Weiss confesses quietly. “Yang said they love- love me. More than they should.” Her words spill out across the space between the two girls. “I realised what she meant after I went to bed. Then I came here and vomited up a bunch of flowers. Isn’t that so fucked up?” Weiss laughs again, wild and tinged with a knife’s edge. “Isn’t it so fucked up that they love me back and that I’m still going to die?” The heiress repeats for the upteenth time. Maybe if she says it enough times, she'll come to terms with her salvation crumbling to ash the moment she finally managed to grasp it. 

The Brothers really do have it out for me, don’t they? Weiss can’t help but think as she feels blood and bile and perfume pool behind her molars. It’s almost routine; the way she lurches over the rim of the toilet, stamens and pistils tumbling from her mouth in a wave of bodily fluids she’s impressed she’s still making. She barely notices as her hair is gathered away from her face. Not that it does much good, she thinks bitterly.

Weiss can barely hear the soothing noises Pyrrha is making as the other girl’s calloused hand rubs gentle circles into her back, leaving gooseflesh in their wake. Blood rushes in the heiress’s ears as she stares into the porcelain maw between her waves of heaving. Pink, purple and orange petals tangle together in the water like the mockery of a sunset, red streaks of blood dashed across the water. They float there, taunting her with the proof that Weiss is too broken to love and be loved in a way the Brothers will recognise. Maybe it’s her fault for falling in love with two women. Maybe it’s her fault for falling in love with two people brimming with goodness while Weiss had grown up steeped in the odious waters of Jaques Schnee.

(“There’s not one way to love properly.” Yang had said, firm and warm against her back. Though the sentiment is nice, Weiss knows she’s wrong. The proof is right in front of her.)

Pyrrha’s hand is warm, even through Weiss’s sleepwear, the low sound of her voice rumbling through the air. She hopes that it’ll be just as warm when she dies — she's selfish enough that she doesn’t want to be reminded of Atlas in her final moments. After a while, the Argian’s words finally filter into Weiss’s consciousness. “Let it out,” Pyrrha murmurs gently, “just let it all out.” 

For once in her life, Weiss listens, and begins to wail. 

Nora is talking loudly about something or another, making huge sweeping motions across the lunch table. Ren nods along, skillfully moving dishware out of the way right before Nora can topple them. Usually this dance would amuse Pyrrha, but she’s distracted by the phantom feeling of blood and grime underneath her fingernails. Jaune is a comforting presence at her side, diligently separating out all of the peas from his meal and loading them onto her plate. 

(Once Weiss’s sobs had subsided, she had shakily pushed herself off the floor, shaking off Pyrrha’s attempts to help. “I need to shower,” She had mumbled softly, bare feet shuffling against frigid tiles. “Sorry, I… Thank you for helping me. Again. Please go to bed. I’ll clean this all up in a second.” The rapier-wielder’s face had gone scarily blank, the only evidence of her breakdown hidden in the gravel of her voice. Pyrrha, of course, hadn’t listened, and instead began to clean up the bathroom stall once steam began to creep out of the shower door.)

Pyrrha can’t get that broken keening sound out of her head. It barely sounded human, a low, mournful groan that swelled into an animalistic cry. It rings in her ears, even now, as Pyrrha scans the dining hall for that familiar shock of white hair. It’s not difficult to find, with Ruby and Yang making their usual ruckus. Weiss watches the two sisters fondly, pushing around the food on her plate. She must have some heavy duty makeup, Pyrrha muses, because she certainly doesn’t look like she got two hours of sleep after hacking up her lungs for half the night. 

She makes eye contact with Weiss. The white-haired girl shoots her a quick smile before getting dragged into conversation by her bubbly partner. Pyrrha doesn’t miss the way Blake and Yang’s hands are tangled under the benchtop, or the way their feet kick playfully at Weiss’s heeled boots. 

(Pyrrha is sure Blake and Yang love Weiss too. The pair wouldn’t try to lie about that to save Weiss — not that they even know about her ailment. The partners seem to exude affection towards the heiress. Pyrrha can’t figure out why that’s not enough for Weiss’s flowers.)

The girl across the room from her blushes at something Yang says, ducking her head as a blush crawls its way across her cheeks. She doesn’t look like a girl wasting away in her own body. It strikes Pyrrha, then, that Weiss doesn’t have the privilege of uncertainty. She knows she’s loved, and she knows she’s going to die anyways. Something melancholy twists viciously in her chest.

Pyrrha hadn’t lied when she had said Weiss was right — that she needs to step up and do something about the flowers in her chest instead of wallowing in self-pity. If anything, she has to do it for Weiss, to use the opportunity her dear friend has been so cruelly denied.

( At least if I train myself to death I’ll be doing something, instead of waiting on some dumb little boy too stupid to love me back! Weiss had screamed at her, red-faced and panting. Under the harshness of the fluorescent lights, her sweat had almost looked like tear-tracks.)

Across the room, Ruby’s laugh is bright and clear as Weiss looks down at her uneaten food, unable to hide her pleased smirk. Pyrrha takes a deep, fortifying breath before turning to the blonde boy sitting next to her. 

“Jaune,” She says softly, under the din of the lunchroom. Dark blue eyes snap up to meet her own. “Can I talk to you outside?”

Let it be known that Ruby Rose is not stupid. Yeah, she admits she might be a little klutzy at times, and focusing on lectures is just so damn boring, but she’s not dumb or blind. She knows that Weiss got into a big fight with her sister and Blake and that they all kissed and made up and that they’re also all in love and stuff but also still dancing around it. Things should be fine now — great, even — so she can’t figure out why Weiss still looks so freaking sad.

It’s clear the heiress thinks no-one’s watching her as she stares vacantly at her notebook, bottom lip clamped firmly between her teeth. Ruby peers over the edge of her bed with all the stealth required of a world-class huntress. From this angle she can see down the back of Weiss’s lounge shirt, the bumps of her spinous processes pressed up against pale skin like they’re about to pierce right through it. Ruby frowns. That… definitely wasn’t a thing like a month ago. She makes a note to ask Penny about potential causes of sudden weight-loss.

(“I am worried for Weiss’s health,” Penny had told her in hushed tones, scuffing her shoe against the stone pathway. “I cannot tell you why, but I can tell that she is… supremely unwell. Concerningly unwell.” 

Ruby had just sighed, stretching out against the bench they were sitting on, the stars above them obscured by the light pollution of Beacon and Vale. “We know,” She murmured, uncharacteristically sullen. “She just won’t admit it to us.”

“That sounds difficult,” Penny sympathised, knocking her shoulder gently against Ruby’s own. “But you’re Ruby Rose. You’ve never met a challenge you can’t beat.” Her mouth quirks up in a half-smile, green eyes twinkling. Ruby feels something stir in her chest like the flurry of petals she so often leaves in her wake.)

Weiss twitches at the desk, hunching in on herself minutely. The blue undertones of her skin shift against the knobs of her spine, now straining to escape the confines of her body. Her breaths escape her in wheezy huffs, short and sharp. She hasn’t even made to pick up her pen, eyes still blank and haunted. 

(It’s the same look she’s seen on her dad’s face before as he sat at the dining table, a silver rose emblem clutched firmly in his trembling hands. He didn’t notice Ruby peering at him from the hallway as his shoulders began to shake, soundless tears leaving dark splotches against the brooch.)

Ruby shifts conspicuously, ropes groaning against wood as her whole bed swings. Weiss’s head snaps up, spine straightening out to its usual perfect posture as Ruby crawls to the edge of her mattress.  “Weissy,” She whines, slumping her upper body out of the cradle of her bed to let it dangle in the air. The blood rushing to her brain feels good against her cluttered worries. “You’re neglecting me. I’m your partner.” 

(If Ruby falls, Weiss isn’t sure if she’ll catch her. Maybe it will teach her a good lesson.)

“You’re a strong, independent huntress in training, Ruby.” Weiss says flatly. “Maybe you should act like it.”

“But I’m booored,” Ruby whines. Weiss’s gaze is sharp again, and Ruby can’t help the relief that floods her body. “I’m bored and studying sucks and that essay you’re working on isn’t due for another two freaking weeks!” 

Weiss snorts. “Maybe you wouldn’t have to copy so many of my freaking essays if you started them two weeks early.” Ruby’s whole face scrunches up at the thought. She can’t think of a single thing that would be worse.

“Well you’re not actually working on it right now, so we should hang out instead.” Ruby pouts, ignoring the way Weiss stiffens as her inactivity is called into focus. “We should go, like, train, or go for a walk or go get food or something.” The younger girl says petulantly. “Or have a chat about something. Anything.” She pauses, before hastily adding: “Anything but schoolwork.” 

The white-haired girl at the desk swivels around to face Ruby and if she didn’t know better, she’d chalk up the hollowness of Weiss’s cheeks to a trick of the light. The other girl clears her throat around some kind of obstruction before squinting at Ruby, still upside down and dangling off the bed. 

“Why do I feel like you’re fishing for something,” Weiss grumbles. “What did you do?” Her bland intonation makes it sound more like a statement than a question. 

Ruby makes an affronted noise. “Ok, first of all,” She starts, “who said I did something? Second of all,” She trails off. “I won’t lie, I can’t come up with a second thing.” She acquiesces. The barely audible huff of laughter from Weiss almost makes her humiliation worthwhile. “But maybe I want to know what’s going on with the other three of my teammates!” Ruby blurts out, turning her head away from Weiss. “Like, I don’t really want to know if Yang is kissing anyone,” Ruby grimaces, because ew. “But I feel like I should be told if three out of four of our team members are gonna start dating! Especially when they’re all my best friends and none of them are telling me anything!” 

Silence fills the room after her mini outburst instead of whatever witty, acerbic quip Ruby would typically expect from Weiss. It stretches out for too long, fragile yet thrumming with tension. Ruby turns her head back to look at Weiss, only to find the other girl with her hand clamped over her mouth, pupils pinpricks of black in a sea of icy blue. Her nostrils flare as her throat spasms, and Ruby distantly realises she doesn’t really know how to deal with people throwing up. Somehow, she shimmies down from her position, vision swimming as blood rushes out of her head. The hazy girl in front of her clasps her other hand over her mouth as a torn off gag lodges itself in her windpipe. 

It feels like instinct, the way Ruby grabs the wastebasket and lodges it in between Weiss’s knees. “Uh, you, uh,” Ruby stutters as her hands flutter about uselessly before finally landing on Weiss’s back. “You, um, probably shouldn’t be… holding it in?” 

Weiss shakes her head frantically even as another wave of tremors roll up her body. Ruby can see the way her jaw is straining against the pressure, muscles tense as she clamps her mouth shut. Weiss’s eyes flicker between Ruby and the door. Ruby knows Weiss well enough to know what she’s asking, but also knows Weiss well enough to know why that would be an awful idea.

“I’m not going to leave,” Ruby exclaims, affronted. “I mean, I’m not super experienced in this but I’m still going to help you out! You’re my partner!”

As the words leave her mouth, Weiss’s thin veneer of self-control shatters as she lurches forward, retching into the bin between her knees. Ruby pats her back awkwardly, waiting for it to stop. Only… it doesn’t, really. Every time Ruby thinks Weiss is almost done, coughs wrack her body and she lurches forward again. Ruby can’t exactly see what Weiss is throwing up, her head buried too deeply into the wastebasket, but there’s the unmistakable splat of thick mucus on thick mucus from within the receptacle along with something… unidentifiable and wet. It’s pretty awful to listen to. Probably sucks more to be hacking it up. 

Weiss raggedly gasps for air, face still buried in the bin, and the sound echoes off the plastic walls in a way that makes Weiss sound more like a Grimm than a human. Ruby continues patting her back, lost as to what more she can even do. “Get it all out, Weissy.” She attempts to soothe, parroting what her mum would tell her when she was sick as a kid. She thinks her mum wouldn’t mind her borrowing her words at this point of time. “You’re ok, it’ll pass.”

After what feels like a millennia, Weiss finally lifts her head. Her eyes are rimmed red, snot and sweat smeared across her upper lip. Her gaze is hazy again, staring straight through Ruby. Ruby peeks into the bin-bag against her better judgement, she knows it's gonna be gross but she can't help but want to lo—

She blinks, hand going slack agains Weiss's back. She blinks again, then a third time. The shredded array of flower petals in her field of vision remain each time. Vines and thorns break up the colourful massacre with dark slashes of green, each coated in a dense layer of sputum and streaked with the bright red of fresh blood. She feels all the air leave her lungs in a whoosh. “Brothers above, Weiss.” She whispers, horrified. The buzzing heat of panic begins to build up in the base of her skull, an empty ringing growing in her ears. “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.” She whimpers. 

“You can’t tell Blake and Yang,” Weiss hisses, voice gravelly, in lieu of an actual answer. The heiress determinedly doesn’t meet Ruby’s gaze. Ruby waits for her to say something — anything — more. She doesn’t. 

“But you love them,” Ruby is sure. She knows her partner; there’s no faking the sheer affection that radiates from Weiss when she’s with Yang and Blake. “And they love you. I– I don’t understand.” She stammers, gaze flicking back down to the wastebasket in the desperate hope that the petals have disappeared. They haven't. 

A revelation dawns on Ruby like a glass bottle shattering over her head. “This is why Sun started being so clingy.” She breathes out. “He must’ve found out, what, a month ago? You’ve been hiding this for a month?”

Weiss’s mouth twists. “That’s only when he found out.” She confesses softly. 

“Brothers, Weiss!” Ruby exclaims, the panic beginning to slither down her spine. “We need to, we need to tell Blake and Yang, or both, or Goo—“ 

“You can’t.” Weiss barks out, shaking her head sharply. “Please.” She adds after a beat, voice cracking halfway through the word. “Please,” She repeats on an exhale, shoulders slumping forward. 

“I want to be the one to tell them.” Weiss mumbles, still staring at the foliage at the bottom of the bin. “Grant me that, at least. Let me tell the wo- the women I love,” her voice hitches, “let me be the one to tell them that I’m… dying.”

(Ruby’s never really understood that metaphor about rocks and hard places – she could easily escape such a predicament with her semblance. Now, watching Weiss curl in on herself around the wastebasket, begging for her silence, she thinks she gets it.)

“You’re not dying.” Ruby says with a confidence she doesn’t feel, tears burning behind her eyes and panic buzzing between her ears. “I won’t let you.” She declares, jaw set firmly. 

Weiss shoots her an exhausted smile. “You’re the best partner I could’ve ever asked for.” She says, crushingly sincere. It sounds too much like a goodbye to Ruby's ears. 

“And Team RWBY is going to be the best team the world has ever seen.” Ruby promises. Weiss just smiles sadly, that glassy glaze once again sliding over her eyes. A weak cough shudders through her frame as she slumps back against the chair, eyes fluttering shut. 

“I really need to get started on this Brothers-damnned essay,” She sighs, and Ruby can practically see the walls slamming down between them. Ruby just nods sharply, backing towards the door on trembling legs. She’s scared that if she opens her mouth she’ll burst into tears and she knows that neither she nor Weiss are equipped to deal with that right now. 

Weiss, who has Hanahaki. Weiss, her partner and best friend, who will not be dying on Ruby’s watch. 

Penny’s the smartest person Ruby knows, and Weiss didn’t say Ruby couldn’t tell her. She fumbles for her scroll as she stumbles out of the room, pulling up the other girl’s contact with shaky fingers. 

eemmergcny she sends. news baout weiss. bad.

Penny, ever reliable, replies immediately. Normal spot, 15 minutes. 

She’s about to put away her scroll when another message comes through. Please take a deep breath. We’ll figure it out. 

Penny really is the smartest, she realises, becoming acutely aware of the burning in her chest. She collapses heavily against the corridor wall and inhales raggedly, before pushing herself back up and squaring her shoulders. She’s Ruby fucking Rose. She’s never met a challenge she can’t beat.

She tries to ignore how impossible it feels to begin to even face the one in front of her.