Chapter Text
Weiss’s hands press into the desktop. Her chest heaves, frigid and bare against the chill in the dorm room. Despite the cold, a drop of sweat rolls down her face and drips off the tip of her nose to spatter against the desktop. Her lips are pulled down in a frown, but they’re parted, and her breath is ragged. Her eyes are closed, her brows together. Her hands shake. They always shake. To this day, she doesn't know if it’s due to nerves, indignation, or excitement. A pair of arms wrap around her midriff.
When Blake’s teeth find her neck, she sucks in a gasp. It never gets old. “You’re a damn animal , I swear.”
Blake growls, not exactly disproving Weiss’s point. When she releases, there is a mark, a purple bruise. Blake always leaves at least one. This one is too high up for Weiss to hide with a blouse or jacket collar. She’ll need to heal it after they're done. More’s the pity.
“That’s insensitive,” Blake remarks, her tone cool and smooth, like a satin pillow.
Weiss snorts, “If you wanted sensitivity, you’d be fucking Velvet.” Her tone is razor-sharp, biting, but she spreads her legs slightly, naked down to the last stitch. She turns her head a little. Seeing as she isn’t an owl, she can’t rotate her head far enough to actually look at Blake, but the movement acknowledges the woman on her back well enough. She clarifies, “I mean you , specifically. It has nothing to do with your genetics.”
“Oh,” Blake says, and from the tone of her voice she knew that the whole time, “So it’s a personal insult. Well, that makes it so much better.”
They were not kind to each other. They could be cordial, they could be polite, they could even be supportive or understanding.
But not once in the four years Weiss has known Blake Belladonna had they been kind to one another.
But that is not a complaint. Far from it.
After all, that’s why the sex is so good.
Blake shifts, her cock hardening against the small of Weiss’s back. The heat soaks into her skin, sending a flush creeping up her neck. The warmth of her body always seems so very alien.
“It was not an insult,” Weiss clarifies further.
Blake merely grunts in reply, squeezing Weiss just a little tighter. Her breasts press into Weiss’s shoulder blades.
Blake is taller than her, leaner, stronger. Weiss has dexterity, skill, but Blake has reach and flexibility. Weiss is more practiced, but Blake is more instinctive.
Weiss isn’t wholly certain whether she’s thinking in reference to sex or sparring. Perhaps both. There is little difference.
Had you asked her, Weiss would not be able to tell you why they do this. Not for certain.
It had started a year and a half ago, their junior year. They had been drunk, their first time. It had been a Friday, the day before Weiss’s twentieth birthday. She had received a call from her father that morning. It had not gone well- though, truly, she could not remember what had been so awful about the conversation. The specifics had quickly faded into the fog of forgotten memories (she’s had so many unpleasant conversations with her father, no one scolding stood out apart from any other), but the displeasure from the encounter had cloyed at her, settling heavily about her shoulders.
That night, Yang had snuck some liquor onto the academy’s grounds, for the next day’s celebration. Weiss had tried to find a better outlet for her emotions, truly she had. She’d tried fighting the bots in Beacon’s training room, she’d tried exercising, she’d tried writing in her journal, she’d tried studying…
...None of it had helped.
So, instead, she'd fallen into a bottle.
The liquor had been intended for Weiss’s party the following night, but the bottle had been sitting on Yang’s bed, undefended, as Weiss was alone. Blake had spent that evening at the library, and the sisters were spending the night with their father, who had come to visit and was staying in a hotel down in Vale.
Perhaps that was what had pushed her into the bottle that night. Envy, for them and their family.
She knew it was in poor taste, of course. Their family, on paper, had more problems than even her own. One absentee mother who had abandoned Yang in the crib, another murdered under uncertain circumstances. Their Uncle’s alcoholism, the depression that had racked their father once and now, the deep-seated abandonment issues Yang harbored, Ruby’s persistent difficulty addressing or expressing her negative emotions…
And what did Weiss’s family have? A didactic, authoritarian father and a mother with a pension for drink? It was practically nothing. Take away their money and their power, and they were any other troubled family.
But, at the end of the day, the Xiao Longs had one thing the Schnees didn’t: Love. Love between parent and child. Love that persisted even when life was difficult or differences were found. Love that remained present and real, even when a child was not useful .
Weiss had felt like her mother that night, laying in her bed with a bottle in her hand, taking long pulls from it.
Blake had discovered her there, returning from the library just after sunset.
She had joined Weiss, sharing liquor and misery. As it had turned out, she had found her day poorly as well.
In the end, they were both drunk, and neither any happier for it.
And Weiss had been angry . Angry at herself, angry at their teammates, angry at her parents, angry at everything .
And so she’d turned to Blake, her friend. They had always been polite and respectful, and they did truly love one another, but they had never really been kind to each other. It was just a part of their dynamic.
Weiss had needed that.
Needed someone who would be unkind to her. Needed to feel something other than despondence.
And at that moment, to her liquor-addled brain, she needed nothing other than Blake.
She’d already known, then, about Blake’s anatomy. She’d never asked for an explanation, out of respect. Blake was Blake. Weiss accepted her as she was, a particular organ didn’t affect that in the slightest.
In the end, it had been simple arithmetic, really. She trusted Blake, she was reasonably physically attracted to Blake, and she needed Blake.
And so she’d asked Blake to fuck her.
And Blake had not said ‘no’.
It was a tale like any other. A moment of weakness between friends. Plenty of love between them, but not the kind that warranted - allowed - sex. There was no heart in the action, no passion, they just needed to feel, needed to taste. Needed to fuck.
And Weiss…needed to defy. Defy her parents, defy their culture, defy Atlas, defy the world .
And yet, it had not been as easy nor as simple as that. She had been afraid - or, perhaps, sensible. To this day, she couldn't tell the difference.
You see, her life had been planned out long before she'd been born. Like a flow chart, a series of steps, potentialities, paths. All options were mapped out, considered, approved, disapproved, ranked, sorted, planned for. Even Weiss's great defiance of attending a Hunter's academy had been anticipated and considered by her father and the board a decade in advance-- even Weiss's choice to attend a foreign academy had been anticipated and considered a decade in advance.
There was leeway, of course, there were choices she could make for herself, but her father had found a way to profit from all of them. Every decision Weiss had made in her life had, in retrospect, served in one way or another to reaffirm her father's power, no matter how defiant she'd felt at the time.
But even beyond those meager choices she was afforded, there were also certainties. Certainties which were beyond her power to defy.
And one certainty above all had always filled her with dread: Marriage.
She will be wed, traditionally. Sold, like a token, to increase the company's alliance with another. It is the burden and duty of any Heir or Heiress in Atlas, especially one who's inheritance is as important as her own.
Sexuality isn’t the issue. Weiss is bisexual and does prefer women, true, and there are certainly those who would despise her for those preferences, but Jacques Schnee? No, her father simply does not care enough about her to feel any displeasure regarding her preferences. That is what so many people got so wrong about him. He is not a hateful man. No, no, he is something orders of magnitude worse.
Oftentimes, he is accused of being a racist. It’s a fair assumption given his history and the practices of the business he has cannibalized, but those who know him as personally as Weiss know the claim to be false. No, he does not care for any single thing strongly enough to summon forth an emotion like hatred. He is not an immoral man, he is an amoral man. He has no morality to speak of, no opinions, no beliefs. He seeks only power and wealth, exploiting whatever and whoever he needs to gain more of it-- be that the Faunus people, Weiss, his own wife, his employees, the law, Atlesian citizens…
No, to him, people are worth their value in Lien and nothing more. They are meant for investment, trading, or spending. Atlas’s poor attitude regarding the Faunus allows him to exploit them without repercussion, and he finds the arrangement perfectly agreeable. They are, to him, the same as every other living creature on this planet: nothing more than a convenience.
No, Jacques Schnee is not a hateful man. You need to have a heart to hate.
Weiss is disgusted by him.
But he has power over her. He controls her inheritance and, thus, her future. Weiss will not get the right to make this decision. Marriage will not come of love, or passion, or even poor choice (No, she will not even be given liberty to make her own mistake ). It will be a transaction, made by her father with another wealthy business. She, like everyone else, is currency .
And Blake had been her defiance of that. Weiss’s way of lashing out and denying her manufactured destiny's control over her.
But that did not change the certainty of her inevitable marriage. That did not change the reality of what would be required of her.
The union would come, and in Atlas, even the most passionless and functional of marriages brought with them a sexual component. With the pervading Atlesian obsession with the Aristocracy, ‘purity’ is not only highly valued, it is required , and perceived impurity is grounds for Divorce. If she is wed and found to not be a virgin, her spouse would have grounds to take her to court.
As a married pair, Weiss would already be obligated to share her power and wealth with her spouse, but in Divorce? With Atlesian law and attitudes being what they are, the court of her ‘peers’ in Atlesian high-society would undoubtedly award her inheritance to her spouse, divesting her wholly of her right to her family’s company and legacy.
Without love, without loyalty, Weiss could not trust her future spouse to keep her ‘deviance’ a secret. Not when they stand to gain so much by exposing her. No, if she could not trust them to keep her secret, she could not afford to have a secret at all. She had to remain a virgin.
But that fact hadn't changed what she'd needed that day.
So, she'd offered a compromise.
And again, Blake hadn't said ‘no’.
It had, of course, been a mistake. As they lay there atop Weiss’s wet sheets after the deed was done, they’d both readily admitted that it had been a mistake.
That should have been the end of it. An awkward piece of history between friends, a night both of them pretend had never happened. By rights, that should have been the end of the story.
Except for the fact that they had done it again come morning.
And again two days later, while Ruby and Yang were out at dinner.
And yet again, the next week, in the locker room.
They didn’t stop. They never stopped.
In the beginning, it was just that need. The outlet of it. The way it made Weiss feel at once filthy and desirable.
After the first few months, though? Neither of them could have said why they were doing it, nor could they say why they had continued to do it up until today. At some point, questioning each other’s motivation at all had become taboo, a faux pas . They didn’t discuss it, didn’t talk about it, and when they weren’t fucking they pretended their relationship was as unremarkable as ever.
They’d been doing it for a year and a half, now. It’s easy to track, Weiss marked it by her birthdays.
Blake retreats a few inches. There’s the snap of a cap opening, a brief, wet sound, and the snap of a cap closing. “You clean up?”
Weiss scoffs, “When have I ever been anything but clean, Blake?”
“Fair enough,” she says, pressing back against Weiss’s back, her nose finding Weiss’s hair, “But I have to ask each time. Just in case.”
Weiss grunts. When Blake’s cock presses against the small of her back again, she shudders. It's wet with lubricant.
It slides down, slipping between the cheeks of her butt. Weiss shivers and spreads her legs an inch wider. Her feet flex against the carpet as she feels Blake line up with her ass.
When Blake presses in, it is without warning. Weiss grits her teeth, her hands turning to fists on the desktop. It had hurt, the first time they’d done this. Not overmuch, Blake had been gentle and slow, but the penetration had been new, and Blake had only possessed so much patience for tenderness.
But that had been fine, then, because a part of Weiss had wanted it to hurt. She had asked Blake to take her roughly.
Now, though? No, practice and methodology had made her more than used to the sensation. There is no pain, only that indescribable sensation of being mounted and penetrated.
Blake’s first thrust sends Weiss’s breath from her lungs, and she hisses, “You could have warned me before doing that.”
Blake stoops down and sinks her teeth into Weiss’s pulse again, growling through her full mouth, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you needed your hand held.”
Oh, the little-
Indignity, sharp and angry, blossoms in Weiss’s chest, “Just shut up and do you work.”
She spits the words like venom, a sneer on her lips and a snarl in her voice. She doesn’t care that she’s naked, or that Blake is currently humping her. No, she deserves more respect than she’s getting.
Despite the vitriol, though, Weiss’s left hand makes its way between her thighs in the next moment. She groans as she finds her clit. She had needed this, badly. Even more than normal, considering…
The thought is the harbinger of a cascade, and soon fresh dread fills her.
She is running out of time.
It’s their fourth year now. Two more months, and Weiss will graduate from Beacon. It had seemed like such a wealth of time, freshman year. Now, here she is on the cusp of the end, and it all seemed as if it had been over in a blink.
A teardrop flows down with the sweat beading on her face as Blake sets about her work with her hips. Weiss circles her clit, moans, and wallows.
Two months. That’s all she has left. After that, she will receive her license and return to Atlas. Leave her team behind - her family behind - in favor of returning to that place she’d once fled. Then, as soon after as father finds a fittingly profitable offer, she will be sold to another heir or heiress to incorporate yet another company into the SDC.
Her father will probably pick one of his bootlickers. That way, even when he retired and abdicated the company’s seat to Weiss and her Spouse, he could maintain control over the goings-on.
Blake moans into her ear, and she begins to thrust faster. It’s brutally hard, her hips slap against Weiss’s ass. It’s one of Weiss’s best features. The reward she’s received for all her work on the training field. Blake loves it. It may even be Blake’s favourite part of her.
And Blake does not treat it kindly-- she never does (which is how Weiss knows she loves it). No, she fucks Weiss like an animal. Rough, short thrusts, pawing at her hips with desperate fervor, pressing her body close to Weiss’s and engulfing her in her arms. It's all skin-on-skin, all sweat-against-sweat.
It is dirty, it is filthy, it is ugly.
But it is Weiss’s.
The hand on her clit speeds up. It won't be long now. Not if Blake’s panting moans are anything to go by. Her breath warms Weiss’s cheek when she pulls her teeth free, as she presses close from behind, fucking her agaisnt their team’s homework desk. Weiss wants to finish with her.
So, so very soon. Two months, and it will all be over. It had gone by in a flash.
She whimpers. She isn't sure if it's despair, lust, or some cocktail of both.
Inevitability. The future looms, deep and dark. Weiss is powerless to escape it. Marriage, forced upon her. Her hopes for the company stolen away by some puppy on a leash, obedient to her father’s hand. She’ll end up just like her mother.
Weiss bites her lip. When she moans, it’s in sync with Blake.
Blake finds her ear, nibbles on its shell, and whispers, “Oh, Weiss, yesss…”
Weiss swallows thickly.
She cannot bear it. She cannot bear this burden. She needs to be free of it.
Blake uses her like a toy. Thrusting, tugging her back, fucking the hole she was offered without question. When she finishes, it’s graceless and animal. She sinks in as far as she can go, grunts in her throat - a guttural, universal sound of pleasure - and bites into Weiss’s shoulder again. She holds Weiss against her body, forces her to be still, and empties herself.
It is a familiar sensation at this point. The way she throbs, so very deep inside of Weiss. The way the thick fluid’s heat settles into her. The way her own fingers accelerate of their own will, the way her voice changes to breathless, sucking gasps.
It is too much. It feels like she is watching herself die, slowly, of some terrible poison. She can't go back. Not to Atlas, not to that world. She can't- she can't-
She comes. A sob tears its way through her throat. Weiss isn’t sure whether it’s pleasure or grief in her voice.
Her knees shake, her thighs quiver, and she falls down to her elbows on the desktop, panting like an animal.
Blake pulls out of her slowly but gracelessly. When she leaves Weiss’s body, it’s with a groan. Weiss mirrors it with her own a second later. “You good, Weiss?” She asks, because even though they are unkind to each other, they do still care.
“Yes, of course,” she snaps, her voice as sharp as she can make it in spite of how breathless she is.
As if to prove her point, she forces herself upright, looking back over her shoulder at Blake.
Her hair is midnight black on her pale skin. She is always so very hauntingly beautiful. Weiss doesn’t understand why she is always shaken by that thought, as if it is a fresh revelation every time she thinks it. Blake shrugs, “Alright then. I’m gonna go wash up.”
Then, she turns and walks to the bathroom. Weiss watches her go, eying the way her hips shift left and right, shamelessly devouring her naked form with her eyes.
She waits until the door to the bathroom shuts before leaning heavily against the desk again and burying her face in both her hands.
She can’t deal with this. She can’t go back. She can’t leave Beacon behind, can’t leave RWBY behind, can’t leave her real family behind.
But she has no say in the matter.
It’s an institution. A system. A machine. It will drag her between its cogs, threshers, hammers, and presses. Force her into the shape it desires and spit her out in whatever form her father deems is most useful.
She will lose everything she cares about.
Weiss doesn’t even cry. She just leans against the desk, hides her face, and shivers, naked and cold.
By the time Blake comes out of the bathroom, Weiss has set herself to rights. She brushes past Blake, narrowly misses clocking her shoulder, and goes about cleaning herself up and getting dressed.
XXXXX
She cannot do this. She just, can not go back.
She’s wallowed in dread for a month. She can no longer bear it.
One month, and they graduate. One month, and everything is gone.
And Weiss is powerless against it. It’s a machine that had been built long before she’d been born. A system put in place the second Jacques Gelé had married Willow Schnee. Perhaps even earlier.
But she does not want to allow her father to have that level of control over her. She does not want to be less than herself. She does not want to be owned any longer.
But she can do nothing about it. No action she could possibly take would avert the course laid before her. The machine is too big, the institution too great. What could she do against that? Every single defiance she could indulge had been accounted for, every rebellion carefully countered years in advance.
She could not simply refuse to return to Atlas. Her citizenship is there-- her inheritance is there. If she stays, she will be without resources, stranded in Vale with nothing but a hunter’s visa justifying her immigration. She could live like that, but then her father would win . He wouldn’t need to dole out her inheritance or abdicate the company to her. He could retain power and simply wait for Whitley to come of age, and then repeat the exact same process with him. If she stays in Vale, she damns her brother to a fate worse than death. Damns him to her fate.
And even still, she would not truly be free. Her father would guilt her, twist her words, besmirch her, torment her. All the willpower in the world is worthless against him. Decades of manipulation and reinforcement of trauma have taken their toll on Weiss, and she does not trust her own strength to resist forever.
And yet, she can not return to Atlas, because then she would surrender all power she has over herself. She would be cast in the fire, melted down, and reforged into a lusterless imitation of her mother, nearly all her power and ambition stripped away and transplanted onto a puppet of Jacques Schnee.
She has no options. She has nothing.
She has nothing.
So she presses her face into her hands and tries to ignore it. She still has a month. She is determined to enjoy the last of her time, at the very least.
But her friends can tell. They know her too well at this point, after four years together. They can see through every fake smile, they can hear every fake laugh, they know when she is hiding those dark thoughts.
Ruby and Yang try to help, bless them. They offer sympathy, try to understand, try to empathize, but…but it is just beyond them. She’d never given them any details as to what awaited her in Atlas and never plans to. She just warns them that she will likely lose contact with them. She explains the situation to Blake, though. She does not know why Blake is the exception, but as always, she avoids questioning it. The answers to those questions carry a weight that Weiss cannot bear.
She does try and make the most of it, she really does. Life had gotten hard before, and the mantra of ‘keep moving forward’ had kept her going for this long.
But how do you keep moving forward when you know damn well you are walking into oblivion?
Every tick of the clock stings like knives in her flesh.
But she does her best to ignore it. She spends time with her team, with JNPR, with the other friends she’s made along her four years. She studies for their final graduation exam, prepares herself physically for their practical. She buries herself in schoolwork and her social life, but it is never quite enough to drown out each tick of the clock.
One month to go.
Her and Blake fuck a lot, as well. Weiss hides her face, often, while they do it. It is one of the rare times she can forget how little time she has left, but the snap back into reality is like whiplash, and she cries more often than she doesn't. Whenever they finish and part, Weiss finds herself drowning in a deep, bleak emotion. She does not know where this feeling comes from, it is different to her usual dread, but she as always refuses - refuses - to explore it, fearful of what she may find.
Weiss hugs her pillow to her chest, digging her teeth into the soft cushion as she grinds a vibrater against her clit, moaning as she feels Blake press her cock against her right ass cheek, jets of wet, sticky heat shooting out and across her back in thick, pearly-white ropes. Blake's skin scalds her everywhere she touches. Her seed brands her perfectly. It feels like marking. It feels good, and feeling good is a sensation Weiss has precious little of.
Weiss comes like that, shuddering against her bedsheets, breathing in the smell of Blake’s sweat and losing herself for a moment.
For a single, blissful instant, she is just an animal.
But it is distressingly brief.
XXXXX
A month turns into three weeks.
Weiss blinks, and it becomes two weeks.
Weiss blinks again, and they’ve already passed finals. A week until graduation.
Weiss inhales, and graduation is tomorrow.
Weiss exhales, and she is a Huntress.
She should be proud. She should glow with it. Ruby is lit up like Amity Arena. Yang is cheering. Even Blake gives in and cracks a much-too-bright grin.
Weiss tries to smile. She can't even muster a fake one.
XXXXX
“So…your flight is tomorrow, isn’t it?”
Ruby and Yang are out with their father and uncle. Celebrating. Weiss can hardly even imagine such a thing. She is a corpse walking.
“Yes.”
Blake purses her lips.
They were not kind to each other. They never had been. They loved each other yet, but kindness? No, they were mean. They bit, spat, snarked, insulted.
But Blake knows. She relates to Weiss’s plight in a way few others could. She’d felt that sense of cloying dread before. The powerlessness of being crushed under a system far larger than oneself, the helplessness of being manipulated and overpowered by people who stand to gain from your suffering.
“Weiss, I-”
Her voice is earnest. It is tight with emotions left unsaid.
“Stop,” Weiss cuts in, “Please, just…stop.” She cannot bear hearing platitudes. Not from her.
Blake closes her mouth.
Weiss’s eyes scan the room. Most of her clothes are already packed. She can’t believe that tomorrow, she’ll never see this dorm room again. It is more of a home than that manor will ever be.
Weiss exhales. She doesn’t cry. She lacks even the fire for that.
“Do you want to help me?” Weiss asks instead.
“Of course,” is Blake’s reply.
Weiss turns in place, meets those golden eyes, and grabs ahold of the bodice of her dress. “Lay with me.”
Blake’s eyes widen, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk? It can help, maybe we can-”
But Weiss shakes her head, “No, there’s…there’s no helping this. Just…”
She breathes in, and out, “We’ve been so cruel to each other, for so long. I enjoyed it, and I know you did too, but…”
Blake shakes in place. Her feet are rooted to the floor, but her eyes bore into Weiss.
And Weiss finds the words she is looking for, “Just…one last time?” The phrase resonates, and Weiss’s shoulders sag, “Let me feel you, one last time.”
Blake exhales, and says the very same thing she’d said the first time they'd had sex, almost two years ago now, “...Okay.”
They’re both naked and in Weiss’s bed within a few minutes.
Less than twenty-four hours. That’s all she has left of her life.
Blake sits on the bed before her. Hesitates in a way Weiss had never seen before.
Weiss doesn’t know why, but it immediately makes her angry, “What are you waiting for?!”
Blake flinches away. They’re both nude, sitting next to each other on her bed, but neither are moving. No, they just look, and Weiss hates it.
She hates it because they’ve done this so many times. Blake has shown this incredible fire for Weiss so many times before, why does she hesitate now? Why does this have to be different? Why are things already changing?! She should still have another day! Gods above, what she wouldn’t give for another fucking day!
It sets a fire in her. When Blake doesn’t reply to her question, it fans the flames, “Well?! Get on with it, you idiot!”
Blake swallows, hesitates again, “ Weiss-”
Weiss stands up in a flash, her nudity so very unimportant at that moment. “Where is the animal I know?” her voice is only a note below a shout, yet strangely hoarse, “Where did the desire go, why don’t you want me anymore?!”
It’s irrational, senseless, and Blake flinches again. There’s a hurt in her eyes, a hurt that cuts deeper through Weiss than any of their usual unkindness.
And she realizes what she's doing. Her hand finds the bridge of her nose, “I’m…sorry, Blake. I shouldn’t have yelled. I just- I just feel so…”
She grits her teeth and barks out a frustrated, animal sound, stomping around in a circle on bare feet.
But that fire does not disappear. It doesn't dim, or gutter. It doesn't fade with her frustration. No, it burns brighter-- even as she calms down, it glows with heat. It scalds her, blisters her.
It burns…
It burns!
And it consumes the ocean of dread within her, putting flame to the oily, cold emotion. The wellspring ignites, turning all her despair into hate, and the hate turns to something else entirely.
And she finds something within herself. A kernel. A seed. The beginnings of an idea, great and terrible.
She cannot win. There is no simply no winning in this situation.
But she can make damn sure her father loses .
She breathes, deeply, calms herself, and considers.
And a plan forms in her mind.
And just like that first night so very long ago, Weiss is angry.
It is insane. It is stupid. The path she now considers will throw her life into a tailspin, shatter every plan she's ever had for herself.
She exhales. That is fine. If it will burn Weiss free of this machine…anything is worth it. No change too great, no action too drastic. She will be the kindling if she need be.
She needs to break free, needs to burn free, and to do that…she needs to do something no one would expect. Something that no one would have planned for. A route that even her father would never have considered.
It would still damn Whitley, and that guilt stabs at her heart, but at least it would not be so clean for her Father. At least he wouldn’t be able to sit back and smile, satisfied. At least she could hurt him in turn. She hates the idea of forcing this burden onto her brother’s shoulders, but- but she just can’t carry it herself, and at least this way her father would not seek to further exploit her, would not attempt to guilt her into retaining her place in the company under his thumb like he would if she simply refused to return. No, this would remove her wholly as an asset for him.
It is idiotic, this whole idea, but Weiss’s heart burns, and she does not care for any of the consequences.
She sits next to Blake again. “I have…an idea.”
Blake had been sitting in silence, watching Weiss pace and process. Her penis has softened. Their nudity had become entirely desexualized in the face of Weiss’s strife.
But Weiss exhales, steam with it, and the air becomes charged again.
She puts a hand on Blake’s smooth thigh.
“You…know the situation I’m in, yes?”
Blake meets her eyes, “I do, I remember when you explained it to me before. Why? Have you thought of a way out of all of this?”
Weiss glances away. “No,” she begins, “But…but I will not go quietly.”
Blake blinks, “What do you mean?”
Weiss squeezes her thigh, exhaling again. Her mind is becoming soft and fuzzy with passion, with fire. Zest of life.
She will not be so quietly snuffed out.
“I want to burn it all down,” she confesses, shaking her head, and the words alone are enough to light a thrill inside of her, “I want to destroy this future they have planned for me. I want to tarnish their reputation, soil the company's standing in the eyes of Atlas.”
Blake shivers. The conviction in Weiss’s voice is harder than steel. “Weiss…how is that going to help you?”
Weiss shrugs. It doesn't matter to her anymore. “It won’t. It won't. I will burn alongside them.” Then, she shakes her head, reaching up. For years, she’s worn her hair like this. Orderly, tight, pulled into a perfect, off-center ponytail. It was meant to symbolize herself and her sense of self. Her intent to defy her family and Atlas’s conventions while still staying true to the refined, orderly rigor she’d grown up with. "I don't- I don't care anymore, Blake. Any future that isn't the one my father has laid out before me is preferable."
Now, she pulls her hair free and lets it fall about her head in wild strands. Abandon. She no longer cares for decorum. “But I will take just as much from my father as he is taking from me. I would rather this situation play out on my terms rather than his. He has planned for every contingency of my life. Every decision or mistake I could make, he has a way to profit from-- but this…he cannot escape this.”
She shakes her hair out, then turns to look at Blake. Their relationship is usually cold, nearly clinical. It’s an outlet, for both of them. Wholly aromantic, purely functional-- or, at least, that is what Weiss tells herself, fearful of allowing herself to believe otherwise. The fire in her eyes is new to Blake.
“And…” Blake begins, her breath shuddering as she exhales and her eyes so very wide and alarmed, “...what exactly are you thinking?”
Weiss commits. She turns in place and reaches out, taking Blake’s hand. She clasps it in both of hers, squeezes it tight enough that she can feel each and every callus on her palm and fingers. She cannot do this without her.
And so she exhales, “Get me pregnant.”
Blake’s eyes blow wide, “ Weiss!” ’
But Weiss doesn’t flinch, she doesn't waver. She looks into Blake’s eyes, the fire within her burning brighter now than ever.
Blake shakes her head, “What- how can you-”
“ Please, Blake,” She pleads-- and it carries an impossible weight, because Weiss very rarely says ‘please’. She does not beg. She does not grovel. She asks politely, or she demands. There is no in-between.
But a matter like this requires a more delicate touch-- and, besides, she is desperate.
“Weiss, you don’t even- we aren’t even-” she stutters, and fails to complete the thought.
But Weiss does not yield, “You don’t need to do anything, Blake. I will handle the responsibility. Please, brothers,” her shoulders sag, “I can’t let him win, Blake. A Schnee born of wedlock? That alone would cause an uproar, and from the two of us? The Schnees are idolized by Atlesian culture. We would burn all of Atlas .”
Blake looks at her like she is insane. It’s fair, she may be right.
Weiss watches her shake her head, her free hand coming up to run roughly through her hair. Her ears are ramrod straight, and her eyes shine with both alarm and confusion. “You- you were so paranoid about losing your virginity that we only-”
“I know,” Weiss says, her voice far too thick with emotion, “I know , but I thought- I thought I would be satisfied. After Beacon, after my freedom. I thought I could return to Atlas and be content with what power over the company I could get in spite of the marriage. But…” Weiss shakes her head, and her voice turns desperate, “...but now the time has come and I just can’t -- please , Blake. This is the only way I can think of.”
Blake looks at her, and her pupils dilate. She shakes her head, sucking in air, and when she exhales, there's a barely-restrained raggedness in her throat. Weiss recognizes that expression, that sound. She glances down, and Blake is hard. She is more okay with this than she wants to admit. But still, Blake presses, “You can’t have a child like this, Weiss. Not when you’re expecting to get disowned. A person can’t just be a- a tool.”
Weiss knows. Gods she knows, “I would never treat a child like I was treated, Blake. Just because it would turn all of Atlas on its head doesn’t mean I wouldn’t give the child the life I’d wished I’d had. I will give them all the love I can, I swear to you that, Blake.” She shakes her head, her eyes not moving from Blake’s, “Money won’t be a concern. Even with a scandal like this, my father couldn’t just throw me out on the street. Atlas will shun me for this, but leaving me and the child to die is too far even for them. That would only make him look even worse. No, he will be furious, but I will be allowed to stay in the manor at least until the child is born and I have the means to support it and myself. Even if he pulls his support after that, I'll still be a huntress. I'll have work.”
Blake freezes. For a long, long minute, she does not move, breathing hard.
Then, she exhales, and her eyes lose a touch of focus, “You…really have this all planned out, huh?”
Weiss nods, then shakes her head. That is the wrong way to put it. She hasn't thought it through properly, hasn't made any contingencies or formed any backup plans and the logic she's applied is half-baked at best-- but she is not operating on logic right now. Panic and anger drive her heart.
They both know this is insane, unreasonable, stupid-- but Weiss is too angry to care, and from the foggy look overtaking Blake's eyes…this is speaking to her, in some queer way. “I want to destroy it all, Blake. I want to throw all of this away. This will be perfect , please. It’s the one thing my family cannot take from me. I will take any path but the one they’ve set out for me, and if I can burn them, too?” She chokes on her own breath, and begs, “I need this.”
And yet, even as she says it, she knows it's not true. This won't rock the company to its foundations, wouldn't take anything meaningful from her father, wouldn't tear Atlas from the sky. No, at best the scandal would cause a few months of grief for her family, a hiccup, an annoyance, something that would be swiftly forgotten once the tabloids found something else to froth over. The fire she'd start couldn't burn the whole system down like she wished it could.
But it would burn her free. It would remove her from Jacques Schnee's equation. In this moment, here, that is enough for Weiss. That is worth what she is proposing. That is worth abandoning all sense in favor of this path of chaos before her.
Blake opens her mouth, then closes it. She huffs a breath through her nose, and her shoulders quake, “I can’t…I can’t be a parent, Weiss. You know that, right?”
Weiss purses her lips, “I know. You won’t have to be. It will all be on me. I won’t even tell them who you are.” Weiss shifts on the mattress, squeezing Blake's hand and entreating her, "Tomorrow, I'll take an airship to Atlas, and we'll probably never see each other again, Blake. You'll have no responsibility. All you need to do is this one thing, and then I'll be gone, and you can go on with your life like it never happened. It will be a complete nonfactor in your life, I swear to you that."
Blake exhales, roughly, “ Gods , Weiss…”
Weiss doesn’t reply. She just waits.
After a time, Blake shakes her head, “You are absolutely insane , do you know that?”
She shakes her head, “This is, but I’m not. I just can’t let him win, can’t let any of them win. Not cleanly. I will not make this easy for him or the company.”
Blake palms her mouth, squeezing her face, and goosebumps roll across her arms. She's flushed red, so deep it touches the tops of her breasts. She shakes her head. “I won’t…I- No responsibility? You know - really know - that you’ll have to raise this kid on your own?”
Weiss nods. She isn’t ready, not really. She has ideas, she’s thought about this sort of thing before, but this…
But that doesn’t matter. She knows it will be hard, impossibly hard, but it would be a better life than being enslaved in a gilded cage. “I will. I want it, Blake. I want this. I promise.”
And Blake swallows.
Then, she looks at Weiss, and says, for what Weiss believes is the final time, “...Okay.”
It's a mistake. Gods, it's a mistake. They both know it, even if they don't use the word. All of this is an enormous, life-altering mistake.
But just like two years ago, knowing it's a mistake doesn't stop them.
XXXXX
It is New.
Something they've never had.
By virtue of the Anatomy of their situation, they've never faced each other like this.
Oh, they've gotten creative more than once. Weiss has been on top and leaned back, she's been sideways with one leg on Blake's shoulders…
But never on her back like this. Never with Blake over her. Never looking into her eyes.
Maybe it's the heat, maybe it's the anger, maybe it's the abandon, or maybe it's just honest passion, but Weiss feels something burning low inside of herself. A smoldering ember. New.
She lays back against her pillow and spreads her legs.
Blake sucks in an unsteady breath. She's seen her vagina before. She's touched it, tasted it, toyed with it. It isn't new.
And yet, this feels new anyway.
And for once, the wetness that forms between her thighs will serve its intended purpose.
Blake moves forward, stalking on all fours. Weiss watches. Her heart is pounding.
When Blake crawls over her, Weiss's hands find her shoulders, squeezing. Her thighs find Blake's hips.
Blake trembles above her, whispers, "I can't believe we're doing this."
"Neither can I," Weiss admits readily. Reality feels at once distant and extraordinarily present. It feels like a dream. "But I want this." Her hand moves and caresses Blake's cheek. It's more tender than anything they've done before. "...don't forget that. I want all of this."
Blake seems taken aback by the touch, the tone, perhaps even moreso than by Weiss's plan. Still, something in her eyes shift, soften, and she says, "I won't. I think…well, I'm less opposed than I thought."
Weiss snorts. Blake's cock brushes against her inner thigh. She's harder than steel, twitching every time they touch, "I can tell."
Blake rolls her eyes. She shifts her hips.
When she feels Blake's dick press against the hair over her cunt, she exhales. Then, she slips down, and the head of her cock presses softly against Weiss's entrance. The sheer potential sears her nerves.
So often, they've had sex. So often, she's denied them this, and why? Because she had been scared of what her potential spouse would do? Because she had been scared of her father?
No more.
"Last chance," Blake breathes, because she's never even once pushed this boundary, never even asked-- never even questioned it. As unkind as they've been to one another, she's always shown the utmost respect for Weiss's boundaries, and Weiss has returned that respect in kind, "After this, there's no going back."
Weiss meets her eyes, "Do it, Blake."
She nods, and then presses forward and penetrates Weiss.
They've had sex, so many times. The feeling had been familiar, but now…
Weiss can't say why, not for sure. Perhaps it's because of the thrill, the abandon. Perhaps it's the emotion, the sense of finality. Perhaps it's just the absolute, simple Anatomy of using a different organ for sex.
…but whichever reason, when Blake sinks into her, it's like honey.
Blake moans, her voice turning high, her brows turning up, and she sucks in a slow, shuddering gasp.
Weiss arches her back, and she is strangely aware of the sensation of her lungs filling with air. Her legs spread, naturally, and her feet kick up off the bed.
Her Aura pulses as Blake sinks in. It will not reverse what they've done, but it removes any pain she might have otherwise felt.
And then Blake is inside of her. She's inside of her, and the sensation is so much… more than it's been before. She feels every twitch. Feels every shudder. It sends pure fire through her nerves, and she feels more wet than she's ever felt before. Her mind feels soft and pink, and it is Perfect.
Blake shudders, her shoulders quaking. Weiss's hands fall to fist into the sheets.
Blake grunts, rough in her throat, and breathes out, "You're so- so soft… "
Weiss doesn't know why, but it sparks in her heart.
Her legs hook on Blake's hips, and her lips move almost without her command, a breathy whisper, "All for you, Blake."
"Ngh…" she grunts, pants, and then asks, "Are you ready? I'm gonna move."
Sweat beads on her forehead, dampening her hair, but she looks up through her bangs with hellfire in her soul and says, "Do it."
Blake exhales, heat and steam, and her hands fist in the sheets by Weiss's head.
Then, she pulls back, and thrusts.
And Weiss sings.
Blake moans again, her voice vacillating. Each thrust, she pulls nearly entirely out before hilting again. Every time, her voice rumbles like it's the sweetest pleasure she's ever tasted. Every cycle is perfect, each thrust like her first. She is hard as steel, throbbing with virility, and Weiss loves it. It makes her heart pound. It makes her sweat.
And she watches Blake above her. Watches her move. Watches her, pleasured. She wonders if Blake has always looked this beautiful when they've had sex. She wonders why she'd never noticed.
The sight captivates her.
Each thrust sings, like Blake is trying to make up for every time she's fucked anything else. Her eyes lose focus, and she mumbles again, " Gods, you're so- you're so soft… "
Weiss keens and bucks. She feels overfull, stuffed. She is so very sensitive. So much more sensitive than she had ever been before. She doesn't know if it's due to lack of practice, or if this part of her body is just naturally that much more sensitive than the other part-- but it hardly matters. She takes Blake, and in this moment, her only regret is that they hadn't been doing this all along.
Blake trembles with each thrust, quaking like she's falling to pieces. Her hips change rhythm, and Weiss's breath goes out from her. In an instant, her hands are on Blake's back, her fingers clawing into her flesh and leaving red ribbons on her pale skin. She doesn't know why, but she pulls at Blake. She craves the feeling of their skin coming together, craves her warmth, her smell, her- her…
Weiss just craves Her .
Blake gasps as Weiss scores stripes across her back, falling forward, pressing her body to Weiss's. She crushes her under her weight, her chin on Weiss shoulder and her arms around Weiss. One curls around her back, hugging Weiss to her chest. The other snaps down to claw into her ass, pulling her up into each of Blake’s downward thrusts.
And she angles her hips, forcing Weiss down against the bed and moaning desperately. Her hips reengage, rutting hard and fast into Weiss. It's brutal, primal, overstimulating, suffocating.
And Weiss loves it.
It's nearly too much, but she can feel every fucking inch of Blake within her. She can feel the searing heat of Blake's skin, can hear her voice in her ear, can feel the puffs of warm steam that blow across Weiss's neck and shoulder as Blake wraps around her.
Weiss's legs come up naturally, wrapping around Blake's hips. They are so very intertwined in this moment. Blake's arms around Weiss, hands clutching her body. Weiss's arms and legs around Blake's torso. Blake's cock enveloped in Weiss's vagina.
" Ohhh-- Blake!" she sings, her voice softer and higher than it's been any other time she's laid with Blake.
They don't talk much, usually. Grunts, requests, sounds of pleasure, but not compliments, not appreciation, not… no, sex is purely functional. It's nearly empty save the warmth and the physical release. Or, at least, that's what it had been before. Not now. Now, it is so, so different.
It isn’t just physiological, Weiss realizes. That plays a part, surely, especially in Weiss's pleasure, but- but something else is different as well. When they'd had sex in the past, she's felt brief flights of passion, appreciation, maybe even tenderness for Blake before-- but nothing like this! Her heart is soaring , and she doesn't care what comes.
Come what may. In this moment, she is all she ever wants to be.
And she feels Radiant.
It had, at some point, become an unspoken rule between them that this… thing they had was to remain emotionally neutral. It was meant to be functional, a release, and to mix in the heart would be to destroy the status quo. If anything, this now should have reaffirmed that manifesto. On paper, it was even more purely functional than normal-- they were trying to get Weiss pregnant so that she could avert her fate from one of certain misery onto one of absolute uncertainty.
It should have been quick, empty, almost as if it were a medical procedure. But it isn't. It is so very far from empty and functional.
No, it seems that in her haste to throw out all of her family's rules, she's thrown out some of her own and Blake's as well. Her heart is here, it is involved, and it speaks profoundly. Weiss is left baffled. She does not understand. She is terrified to understand.
And yet, she pulls the other woman, impossibly, closer. She indulges in those emotions she’s refusing to acknowledge, because this is the last time she will feel this, and just once, she wants to allow herself that which she has forbidden herself.
Blake moans, desperately, humping and losing herself more and more. They're bucking and grinding together on their bed ( their bed? Why did she just think of it as their bed?) , fucking with more force and energy than they ever have before.
Weiss weeps at the sensation. It is pure and primal. It is wonderful and enchanting. She feels so right .
It feels as if Blake is trying to make up for all their lost time. Like she's trying to do two years worth of fucking in these few short minutes. Like she's trying to make up for all the years they won't have in the future.
And Weiss grins, wild. It’s toothy and wide, alien on her face. She breathes in the scent of Blake's sweat, the smell of their union, and hugs her close with nails and teeth. She's never felt this need for closeness before, never needed to crush Blake against herself like this. It is new and wonderful and her heart is so strangely full and she feels good. She squirms and writhes on her sheets as Blake pins her in place and dicks her. Blake's moans are sweet as sugar in her ears, and she is unreasonably happy that Blake is enjoying this as much as she is.
For a moment, she does not care that this is their last day. She could believe that this moment would stretch on for eternity.
Then, Blake throbs within her, and something shifts.
Weiss gasps, her eyes blow wide.
Blake moans, desperate.
Weiss cups the back of Blake's head, and Blake whines, "I-I-I'm close , Weiss, gods!"
Weiss whimpers, whines back.
"Please," Blake begs, rambles "Please, if you don't want this, tell me now. I'll stop, I'll pull out, don't do this if you don't want it. I don't wanna stop, but I will, don't make yourself--” She buries her face against Weiss’s neck, kissing her skin and screwing her eyes shut before pulling back and cursing, “ Fuck, fuck! Last chance, Weiss--! L-Last chance-"
Weiss's ankles cross over one another on Blake's hips, and she pulls her closer, as close as she can, and she exhales directly into Blake's ear, " Give it to me."
She doesn't know why, doesn't know where the instinct arises from, but she turns her head slightly, leaning away from Blake to bare her neck.
Blake exhales, moans desperately, and sinks her teeth into Weiss's pulse four times as hard as she's ever done before.
It feels like heaven.
And then, her hips snap forward.
And Weiss just clings to her and throws away everything she's ever had. She throws it all away for a new unknown.
And the senseless abandon of it all scorches this moment into her memory, as Blake buries herself inside of her and empties herself.
Weiss's mouth opens, her eyes blow wide. Her own orgasm crashes through her and a part of her tries to scream but she had no breath with which to do it.
And Blake shatters against her, howling into Weiss's shoulder as the first jet fires into Weiss. Her hips roll, not pulling out a single millimeter but thrusting regardless. She grinds into her with these pushing, rolling thrusts, burrowing as deep as she can into Weiss and filling her. Each pulse of seed is accompanied by its own thrust and rough moan, muffled in Weiss's flesh, " MMPH! MMPH! Mmph! Mmmph…! Mmmnnhhh…" her voice trails off into a long, drawn out, satisfied groan. It's so deep it vibrates Weiss's chest.
Weiss gasps for air, breathlessly, and accepts each and every drop. It is only fifteen, twenty seconds, but it seems to stretch on for eternity. Blake trembles against her, her whole form quaking, and it is easily the hardest, longest orgasm Weiss has ever seen from her.
And not a drop of her discharge escapes Weiss. It is thick, virile, fertile, and there is so much …
It is done.
There is no going back.
Blake moans, plaintively. Weiss echoes her.
No going back…
…she rather likes that.
Blake pants, raggedy, into Weiss's shoulder. She'd pierced Weiss's skin at some point. Weiss doesn't even notice until she draws out her teeth. Even so, she does not draw her cock out even an inch. She stays, so very deep inside of Weiss, throbbing gently in her warmth.
Weiss doesn't uncross her legs.
They are, together, a sweaty, sticky, fucked mess.
But it is warm. Weiss feels…good.
Blake sighs, idly licking the blood from her teeth, "I…can't believe…"
Weiss holds her close, "Thank you, Blake."
Blake stills.
Then, she sags onto Weiss, groaning.
And still does not make a move to pull out of Weiss.
They lay like that for a long moment. Weiss's mind is empty. Blissfully, inexplicably empty. She feels at once like an animal, but in a completely different way to normal. No, no, it is… so different …Weiss does not understand.
Then, inside of her, Blake throbs again. She makes a small, high-pitched sound deep in her throat, then says quietly, "...oh."
Then, she begins to hump again.
Weiss's eyes, which had slipped closed, snap open, "Oh, uhm…Blake?"
"Sorry," she groans, her eyes screwing shut, "Sorry, just- just-"
She manages five more rapid half-thrusts before groaning throatily and locking their hips together again.
Weiss's eyes widen, and she stares up at Ruby's bunk as Blake finishes again.
"Oh." Weiss says.
"Nngh…just…" Blake mumbles, before shifting. She works her legs forward, framing Weiss's ass with her thighs and forcing her legs up at a more extreme angle.
"...Blake?" she asks, her voice unsteady.
"I'm, uh…" Blake mumbles, her voice distracted and her eyes unfocused, "I don't know… Here, just let me…"
She begins to thrust again, this time straight down into Weiss's body.
Weiss stiffens, moans. She's so sensitive it nearly hurts.
Blake only thrusts ten times, then her whole body stiffens. Her thighs quake and quiver, and she presses down until her balls are flush with Weiss's skin. Then, she finishes again, a few fresh jets of seed pumping into her.
"O-oh…are you…do you need more?" Weiss asks, dumbly. Blake has never done anything like this before.
Blake shakes her head, pressing her hands to the bed either side of Weiss's shoulders, leaning up far enough to let Weiss see the unfocused haze in her eyes. A drop of sweat runs down her nose, drips, and lands on Weiss’s chest, "I…I don't know…this is new, I've never felt like…" she grunts throatily, "Sorry, I don't…"
Then, she clenches the sheets in her fists and begins to shallowly thrust again.
Weiss's arms snap out and grasp against Blake's forearms, gasping.
Blake finishes almost immediately. Each pulse is hot inside of Weiss, and she takes it without complaint.
Blake repeats this cycle four more times, her voice becoming progressively more hoarse. Weiss watches her with wide eyes, baffled by this new, bizarre behavior.
It is strange, frankly, and Weiss remains quite confused, but…something about it…even as Weiss twitches from overstimulation, the way Blake seems to lose herself…it is oddly endearing, and strangely flattering on top of it. Weiss watches her, with wide eyes, and wonders.
Blake finishes for the final time, choking on her breath and forcing her trembling hips down against Weiss's, then collapses.
Weiss's shoulder throbs were Blake tore into it. She feels full, used, and…
Good.
She feels cold, but so very warm in spite of it.
She has not averted her fate in the slightest, not really, but she has sowed some chaos with it.
And tomorrow, she will return to Atlas. By this time three months from now, everything will fall to pieces. Perhaps even sooner.
And Weiss takes some pleasure in that.
But…there is something else too. Something that rests, uneasy, in Weiss’s chest.
This time had been different. They’ve been very close friends for four years, and had this sexual releationship for two, but-
But something about this time, this final time, thrums with a kind of… potential .
It’s not what they’ve done. Not the danger or the insanity of what they’ve just done together. It has nothing to do with the sex, her plan, or the fact that Weiss may become pregant.
No, no, it’s something in Blake’s eyes. Something in the tone of her voice. Something in this queer, profound warmth that burns in Weiss’s chest. Weiss fears she may have overindulged her own heart.
Blake doesn’t move for a long time. Then, she whispers hoarsely, “S-sorry, I know you don’t like me laying on you. One second…”
She isn’t wrong. Weiss has chastised her in the past for wearing herself out and resting on top of her. The sticky sweat, the claustrophobic pressure, the uncomfortable, suffocating heat-- it had always aggravated Weiss.
But again, this is so very different. Weiss feels…warm, even still. Her chest feels full, and she can't get that look in Blake’s eyes out of her mind. Had she always looked at her like that, and Weiss had just not been aware? Or is that look new as well?
Weiss doesn’t know, but when Blake shifts to begin getting up, Weiss tightens her arms around her shoulders and her voice breaks forth, “W-wait…”
Blake freezes.
And Weiss exhales. She doesn’t understand what she’s feeling or why. She is certain it is not because of the different form of sex they’d just had, but from something else entirely. Something deep within Weiss. She does not understand this new desire, is not even sure if it truly is new or not, yet she finds herself asking, so very gently, “Please, Blake…just…hold me, for a while?”
Blake stills. She is bewildered, surely. Weiss’s voice is vulnerable, soft, and so very unlike the cold woman Blake knows.
And yet…Blake breathes out, “Of course,” and lowers herself back down onto Weiss, pressing their bodies close.
Weiss breathes out, pressing her nose to Blake’s temple. It is physically intimate in a way Weiss had never felt any interest in before, and something in her chest burns with a fresh, new potential that she doesn’t understand in the slightest.
…That word again. ‘Potential’. A future is possible here. A path she’d never considered. She sees that now.
And somewhere, impossibly deep within her, despair wells up. That potential will never be seen through.
Maybe…maybe this feeling isn't new after all. Maybe it's always been here, and Weiss only accepts it now because she knows this will be their last time together. She should have realized it sooner.
If only they had all the time in the world, maybe they could walk this path. See it out. Understand why Blake holds her so close, understand why Weiss burns inside. Maybe Weiss could understand why she feels this way, and what it is she’s even feeling.
But Weiss returns to Atlas tomorrow.
It is like seeing a brief glint of gold in a handful of sand as it spills from her fingers.
She should not have let herself feel. She should not have allowed herself to indulge in those emotions. She should have kept this time cold and clinical, should have kept herself ignorant, because now, she knows - whatever it is she is feeling - that she is losing something even greater than that which she’s known.
Weiss knows they will never be able to have whatever this is, and that undeniable fact fills her with sorrow.
So she holds Blake, and stretches this moment out for as long as she can.
She does not feel cold, here.
XXXXX
“You’ll call, right?
Ruby is optimistic as ever. She’s bright, sunny, and is trying so hard to instill some kind of hope inside of Weiss.
And, for once, she fails.
Weiss’s back is to the airship. Blessedly, none of her family had accompanied it to receive her. Had this final parting been denied to her, her heart might have finally given out.
Her feet root to the airdock as she looks at the three of them. Ruby Rose. Blake Belladonna. Yang Xiao Long.
Her family.
She scorches those names into her mind. Burns their faces into her memory. She will never forget them, whatever comes next.
She tries for a smile, but she’d lost the ability to fake one convincingly so very long ago now, “I will try.”
Yang puts an arm around Ruby’s shoulder. Ruby has grown so much in the past four years that they’re nearly the same height, but Yang has always had a way of seeming even more imposing than she already is, “Quit nagging her, Ruby. She’ll do what she can.” Then, she turns her eyes to Weiss. There is an ache, deep in them, to echo Weiss’s own. Yang had always hated goodbyes. “When you’re queen of Atlas and all that, make sure you remember us, ‘kay? I want that superbike you promised me.”
She tries to deflect the pain with humor, the same way she always does, and against everything, Weiss's smile becomes a touch more genuine.
She’d destroyed Yang’s bike in an accident sophomore year, during a phase where she’d wanted to learn to ride motorcycles. She’d promised to replace it with a bleeding-edge prototype once she’d taken control of the company. She’d thought, then, that she might find a way out of this. Might be able to writhe free of this machine, or, at the very least, make something of herself within this hell she's living.
Maybe she still might.
But if one thing is certain, it’s that what she and Blake had done yesterday has removed any certainties from Weiss’s life. The future is a true mystery, now. In a year, two, or three's time, she may be impoverished, or homeless. She may be given a token of her inheritance and a small place to live, or perhaps she'll stay at the manor as a glorified decoration for the rest of her days. The only one she can rely on for help now is Winter. She can expect no one else to advocate for her. Not after this-- and even Winter's support isn't a complete certainty.
No, nothing is certain anymore.
She feels cold, impossibly cold, but she takes some measure of comfort in that mystery. Fear of the unknown is nothing compared to the devil she’s known.
Ruby squirms out of Yang’s hold, takes two steps forward, and throws her arms around Weiss’s shoulders.
The contact, as always, shocks her. Still, it only takes Weiss a moment to return the hug. She has to fight not to cry.
There's a million things to say. A million more beyond that. There's so much Weiss needs to say, so much Weiss should say.
It's too much. She doesn't have enough time to say it all, and isn't sure she could muster the strength regardless.
But then, Ruby pulls her even closer and says, "Partners."
And that's all that need be said. That one word is worth ten million all on its own.
So Weiss whispers back, "Partners."
They stay like that for an impossibly long time.
When Ruby steps away, Weiss nearly clings to her. Holds tight. Begs her to save her from Atlas.
But, miserably, Weiss is too strong. She resists the urge.
But then, there is Yang. Even if Ruby is nearly as tall as her now, Ruby has nothing on Yang’s bear hugs. Weiss braces, she’s been the victim of many a spine-breaker by this point. She knows what to expect.
Only, that doesn't happen.
Instead, Yang’s arms settle softly, gently, but heavily around Weiss. One wraps around her back, the other around her shoulders with her hand coming up to cradle Weiss's head against Yang's neck. In an instant, all the tension bleeds from her, and she sags into Yang's embrace.
It is soft, warm. Half an instinct forms inside of Weiss, one she doesn’t understand, but then Yang whispers in her ear, “You’ll always be my sister. Whatever happens. Don’t forget that.”
Oh. That’s what she’s feeling. Kinship. Familial love. It's nearly alien.
Weiss returns the embrace. This time, a tear escapes her. It is absorbed in Yang’s hair before it even leaves her cheek.
She can’t feel her feet, so cold they’ve become.
When Yang steps away, Weiss shivers from the contrast. Sunfire to hel’s frigid winds.
And then-
And then there is Blake.
A cool wind tugs at her hair, and it dances around her pale face. Those sharp golden eyes bore into Weiss, and her expression is entirely unreadable.
Weiss’s shoulders shift. The bolero she’s wearing moves over the bite in her shoulder. She could have focused yesterday. Snap-healed it, and it would have been gone forever. Instead, she’d let her aura gently brush over it, knitting it together. It had left a scar in the shape of Blake’s teeth. Weiss doesn’t know why she had done that, but she doesn’t regret it in the slightest.
Blake stands there across from her. She says nothing. Neither does Weiss. A minute passes, two, in silence.
Then, behind her, the engines kick on as the pilots begin their pre-flight checks.
And it is the catalyst.
“Weiss-” Blake begins, taking a half-step forward.
But Weiss beats her to the punch. A single long step forward and she’s thrown her arms around Blake.
Blake doesn’t even hesitate to pull her close, her ears folding back tightly against her skull and her eyes screwing shut.
Weiss buries herself in her neck. It’s a fleeting imitation of yesterday’s embrace, but…but Weiss finds herself at once so very warm.
That warmth wars against the despair she is drowning in.
It is a losing fight.
But Weiss would rather fight and lose than kneel and submit. Even when her opponent is herself.
They don't move for a terribly long time. Weiss isn't counting the seconds, but she's begging, praying, that this moment will extend into eternity. Failing that, she prays that the imprint of Blake's arms will stay with her. She feels so very, inexplicably safe here.
Something had shifted within her, yesterday. Something important. She isn't sure what, it has nothing to do with the sex, but…but it was something in Blake's eyes. Something in the way she'd held Weiss. Something that told Weiss they could grow, develop, evolve what they've been to one another. Something that, Weiss thinks, has always been there, hidden away inside of her. Something she'd shied away from, ignored, dismissed so as to not complicate their arrangement.
And she weeps into Blake's shoulder, because she knows she will never see where that leads.
But, after a time, her tears dry, and they part.
And Weiss steps onto the ramp. Her feet are like lead. It feels like she is leaving her soul on the airdock behind her.
And yet, each step comes in rhythm, and soon she is off the ramp and onto the airship.
She hesitates there. The air in the ship is frigid.
She turns, and looks back.
There they are. The three of them. Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long.
She feels Love when she looks at them. Real, tangible, and more precious than even Time itself.
And yet, here she is. Abandoning it for Duty. A duty she's already scorned.
But she cannot bring herself to flee. She cannot move. So, she just looks, scanning across her family with her eyes.
Ruby waves. There are tears shining wetly in her eyes, but she is smiling through the pain. She hollers over the wail of the engines, "Make sure you eat plenty! And sleep a lot! Take care of yourself, I'll be mad if you don't! See you soon!"
So very optimistic, even in the end. Weiss smiles sadly. A parting grace that carries with it a fragment of her heart.
Yang is softer, more hurt. She's never handled parting well, but she knows Weiss wishes she could stay. Her lips are pressed tight, and her eyes shimmer somewhere between purple and crimson. She's barely restraining herself.
One of Weiss' hands finds the handrail as the airship shudders slightly. She meets Yang's eyes, and is almost overwhelmed by grief. She remembers that embrace, remembers what Yang had whispered to her.
Yang sees the look in her eyes. She places a fist over her heart and mouths the word 'always'.
Weiss smiles again. The expression agonizes her, but it is a bit more real.
Then…she turns to Blake.
They look at each other.
Her hair is ebony, and the jetwash whips it about her head. Her clothes ripple as well, but she is otherwise still as stone, and her face is impassive, but her eyes…grief-stricken.
She takes a half step forward, but no more. She wants to follow. Wants to stay with Weiss.
The thought disgusts her. She never wants Blake anywhere near that accursed place--
And it is that thought that does it.
That is the thought that strikes Weiss with revelation like a lightning bolt.
That Manor is a place that devours love, perverts it, destroys it. There, love is a tool, a weakness, an implement. It can be twisted, sharpened, manipulated. It is no place for love.
'Oh', she thinks, numbly, ' I love her.'
It is a cold emotion. Glacial. The sheer value of the revelation is tortuous, because it is far too late for it to be of any use.
Her shoulders sag. Even with as unkind as they've been to each other, that must have been why they'd maintained this strange relationship of theirs for these two years. They were in love. A strange, twisted, stilted love. Unique to them, but all the more precious for it.
Weiss wants to explore it. To know what it means. To know what they really are to one another.
But she knows that won't happen.
So she just stares at Blake and remembers yesterday, remembers being in her arms.
Blake's expression cracks. Her eyebrows turn up. Her pupils dilate.
And she is beautiful. Statuesque, placid, agonized, and so very breathtakingly beautiful.
Weiss looks at her, and instinct guides her hand to her own abdomen. She rests a palm there on the flat expanse of her stomach.
Blake's eyes track her hand. Her whole form visibly trembles.
Weiss lips part, just a hair. She wants to say the words. Wants to declare the emotion she's just discovered. She wants Blake to know that these past two years hadn't been meaningless after all, that it wasn't just physical, that Weiss was just so out of tune with her emotions that she'd never realized what it was that she'd been feeling, that she’d simply been too much of a coward to face it until now.
She opens her mouth.
But the turbines are so loud. She hesitates.
And then it is too late. Far too late.
The ramp raises, closes, and the airship takes off.
And Weiss is gone.