Day 2: Monday

Love Like Winter (Ruby/Weiss)

"I can't believe I agreed to this," Blake muttered as she shivered under her thick winter coat, cupping her mitten covered hands over her mouth in an attempt to warm them up.

Weiss gave Blake a weak smile. "I guess you're feline instincts don't much care for the cold," she stated teasingly, dressed in similar attire, complete with a hiking backpack on her back.

"That's racist," Blake retorted.

Ruby was wearing equally thick winter clothes under her cloak, chuckling lightly at Blake. "C'mon, Blake. We're having fun, aren't we?"

Yang grinned widely, and was the only one who attire was not that much different than normal. She wore a thicker scarf around her neck and thigh high socks to cover her legs, but was otherwise indifferent to the snowy, icy weather around them. "Yeah! Besides, if you really want to blame anyone, blame Weiss!"

"Hey!" the heiress retaliated. "It's not my fault that I can afford to take us all skiing! I just thought that we could all use a break from Beacon during our vacation!"

Blake's shivering intensified for a moment. "And you never thought about going to a beach or something?"

Yang chuckled. "Well, she is the Ice Queen, so maybe she feels more at home on a snowy mountain." She turned to Weiss and flashed a teasing grin. "That about right, Elsa?"

Weiss growled. "Yang, I swear to God, one more Frozen joke about me and I'll make sure your body temperature hits Absolute Zero!"

The blonde grinned ever wider. "Nah, don't you see what I'm wearing? The cold never bothered me anyway!"

Weiss huffed angrily before she grabbed Ruby's hood and starting dragging her away in the direction of the ski lifts. "I think we should spend time with our partners. Let's go Ruby; Blake can take care of your sister."

Ruby chuckled nervously as she waved at her team mates. "Keep her out of trouble, Blake," she said to the faunus.

Blake simply shook her head before glancing over to Yang. "Sup~!" Yang said in a pseudo seductive voice.

The young faunus simply rolled her eyes. "We're going back inside. I saw some cocoa mix in the cabinet." Mirroring Weiss's actions, Blake grabbed the blonde brawler by the scarf and dragged her to their rented cabin, fully unprepared for what the day was eventually going to bring them.

"Weiss," Ruby said with a nervous, almost frightened voice. "I think we went too far up the mountain."

"Nonsense," the heiress replied. "I want to enjoy myself, and I say that this is how I do it."

"But...we're on the expert course."

"Of course. Do you think that just because I focus so much time training to be a huntress that I'd neglect my other interests? I'll have you know that I am a top notch skier."

Ruby nodded. "I-I'm sure you are, Weiss. But..."

"But what?"

"I...uh, I've never gone skiing before. Don't you think that this might be a bit too much for me to handle?"

Weiss froze in her tracks and turned to face Ruby with a concerned look on her face. "You've never skied before?" Ruby shook her head. Weiss sighed. "I'm sorry," she muttered. "I wish you'd have said something sooner." She put a gentle, reassuring hand on Ruby's shoulder. "Let's head back to the lift then. We'll get off near the beginner course and start teaching you how to properly enjoy a snow covered mountain."

Ruby nodded, but when she turned she saw that the lift was quite a distance away. It was rare that Ruby ever expressed a lazy side, but today would be that day. "N-no, I guess I'll try this course," she said, giving Weiss pause.

She stared at Ruby, worried. "Are you sure? It'll be really difficult. Probably too difficult, even."

Ruby flashed an award winning smile. "Trial by fire!" she declared. "Or, I guess 'ice' in this case."

Weiss continued to stare at her friend and leader with concerned eyes before she shrugged. "Try to go slow, okay? I'll stay nearby just in case you hurt yourself." With that, she went about to fastening Ruby's skis to her feet before working on her own. Standing up, she placed her ski poles into her hands and made sure Ruby had hers. "It's not too late to change your mind, Ruby."

Ruby was scared and nervous, but also excited. "Let's go!"

Weiss nodded with a small, happy smile. "Alright!" Pushing off with their poles, the two slowly began their descent down the frosty mountainside. Just as Weiss had instructed, Ruby maintained a slow, steady pace alongside her white haired partner, who was kind enough to coach her regularly to make sure that she knew what she was doing. She learned relatively quickly for someone who had never skied before, and she gradually began to speed up and take sharper turns. "Ruby," Weiss cautioned. "Slow down. You're getting too far ahead of me."

"Don't worry," Ruby declared happily. "I got this! Check this out!" Ruby saw a small ramp of snow and leapt off of it, spinning around completely before landing again; Weiss's heart skipped a beat. "Yeah!" the brunette seemed to cheer.

In that moment of lapsed attention, however, she failed to notice a large, jagged rock drawing nearer and nearer. "Ruby!" Weiss yelled, pushing off faster and faster to catch up. She even implemented the aid of her glyphs to propel herself forward to try and save her team mate.

Ruby looked ahead a moment too late and saw the rocks coming upon her. "Uh oh," she muttered, fully aware that she couldn't avoid the hazard.

At the last second, Weiss launched herself with her glyph once more and almost tackled Ruby, shoving her out of her collision course. Ruby became unattached to her skis as she toppled over and rolled down the hill quite a ways. As she began her tumble, which involved hitting several smaller rocks that cut and bruised her skin, she heard a loud, cracking thus, followed by a scream of agony that came from Weiss. Upon hearing the sound of pain from her team mate, Ruby began to level her tumble and finally caught herself.

Looking up to see if Weiss was okay, she could hear the heiress's cry echo off of the mountain face, but couldn't see her behind the rock. The snow higher up began to crack and fall off in sheets towards them; her cry started an avalanche. Struck by fear, Ruby stared in awe at the oncoming wall of snow. Somehow, over the roar of ice and snow that rocketed toward her, she managed to hear Weiss call out to her in a pained, strained voice, "Ruby!"

Putting all of her thoughts on hold, Ruby forced her body to ignore any pain that may have been in her system as she activated her semblance. Running, and slightly sliding, through the snow, she reached the rock where Weiss had clearly been injured. A large bloodstain soiled her left sleeve, and the heiress watched the avalanche with horror in her eyes. Ruby knelt down and picked her up bridal style. "Come on," she said in an easing, calming tone. "Let's get out of here."

"We can't outrun that," Weiss said.

"I can try!" Without any chance for Weiss to give her thoughts on the matter, Ruby activated her semblance again and hoofed it as fast as she could down the mountain. They seemed to be making great time. The problem arose when Ruby noticed that she was forcing her speed for too long, and she knew that any second now she would tear a muscle in her leg, or worse.

She had to think quickly to find a way out of their predicament when Weiss's right arm raised slightly. "There," she said. Turning her head, she saw that Weiss was pointing at a nearby cave. Not giving herself time to have a second thought, Ruby adjusted her trajectory towards the cave while the avalanche sped closer and closer.

Must go faster, Ruby thought wildly. Must go faster! Her body was screaming in protest as she began to push her limits even further than she had ever done before. While Ruby forced the image of the oncoming snow out of her mind, Weiss stared at it in awe and terror, and she silently began to pray that they would make it to the cave in time. Time was running out as the wall of ice and snow rushed closer and closer, and the sound became more and more deafening as it approached.

Ruby smiled widely as she approached the entrance to the cave; they were going to make it. Just as soon as they crossed the threshold, however, she felt a mind numbing, disgusting rip come from her right thigh. "Aagh!" she screamed as she stumbled, Weiss still in her arms. She forced herself to keep her footing as she made it deeper into the cave. Behind them the avalanche rushed by them, blocking the entrance and shrouding them in a pitch black darkness. Weiss couldn't see, but she felt Ruby spin around just before she fell to the ground; she made sure that she wouldn't land on the heiress.

A rough thud later, the two girls found themselves on the floor of a dark cave, each of them panting and grinding their teeth to fight off their own injuries. Weiss tried to block the pain out of her mind as she used her right hand to reach into her backpack and produced a flashlight. Thank goodness for that what if train of thought, the mentally noted as she clicked the button and shined it on her team mate.

Ruby was covered in scratches and bruised from their initial tumble outside, but now she was balled up and clutching her right leg. "Ruby?" Weiss asked. "Are you okay?"

Ruby shook her head. "No," she said through gritted teeth. "I think I tore a muscle." Ruby sat up, clearly not concerning herself too much about her own injury. "How about you?"

Weiss winced as a wave of pain washed through her arm. She shined the light on her own injury, and Ruby shuddered at the sight; the gash in Weiss's arm went straight to the bone, which had been fractured as well. Weiss, in spite of her pain, started to laugh at herself. "It's broken," she said between her laughing fits.

Ruby arched an eyebrow at her partner. "What's so funny?"

Weiss shook her head. "Nothing. Nothing at all," she said before another wave of laughter erupted from her. "I just can't help but laugh right now."

Ruby wanted to be confused, but she found herself slowly starting to grin before she also erupted into laughter. The two of them sat there for several minutes, cradling their injuries as they laughed at their predicament, yet neither of them truly found the situation humorous.

Once they settled down, Ruby scooted over to Weiss and retrived the flashlight to investigate the heiress's wound. "No," Weiss said in protest. "I already know my arm is broken, but what about your leg!"

Ruby shook her head. "My leg is injured internally, Weiss. There's nothing we can do about it here. Your arm, however, is exposed." She shined the light and leaned in to get a better look. "Weiss, I can see the bone."

Weiss frowned and leaned back against the rock wall of the cave, suddenly refusing to look at her injury; she looked as though she were going to throw up. "I didn't want to know that."

"What else do you have in the backpack?"

Weiss mulled it over. "Bottles of water, a couple of lunch sandwiches, a roll of paper towels..."

"Do you have anything that can be used as a disinfectant?"

Weiss thought for a moment. "Uh..." she went pale for a moment. "I have hand sanitizer." She met Ruby's eyes. "Please tell me you aren't going to use that to clean my wound."

"It's alcohol. It'll kill the bacteria and keep it from getting infected," Ruby said with a straight face. "Hey, we're already in a lot of pain, Weiss. We gotta do something, and that something is just going to have to hurt a little bit." Weiss leaned forward at Ruby's insistence, and the brunette slowly and carefully eased the backpack off of Weiss, careful not to touch her broken arm in the process. Digging through the back, Ruby found a small pocket knife. Opening the blade, she cut a long strip of cloth off of her cloak and set it aside before she returned to the bag and retrieved the small bottle of hand sanitizer. Ruby set it down and picked up the cloth again, twisting it so that it had a thick middle section. She leaned towards Weiss and presented her with the cloth. "Open up and bite down on this."

Weiss nodded timidly and did as she was told, biting down tightly on the cloth. Ruby opened the bottle and held it near the wound. "Ready?" she asked. Weiss grunted with another nod before she inhaled deeply. Not waiting for her partner to back out, Ruby poured as much of the hand sanitizer into the wound as she could. Weiss bit down even harder on the rag as the burning pain coursed through her system as the sanitizer touched every exposed nerve in the wound, releasing a loud, muffle cry of pain. Ruby used her fingers to gingerly move the liquid around a little bit before she opened a bottle of water to wash it out quickly. Moving as quickly as she could, she pulled out the paper towels and unrolled several to create a makeshift bandage. "There," she said once she tied the bandage tightly. "All done."

Weiss spat out the cloth and winced as she inhaled sharply at the pain. Tears were streaming down her face as she looked at Ruby. "I know I should be thanking you, but right now I just want to punch you right in the face," she said in an anger filled voice. "O~h, I never want to do that again!"

Ruby smiled and nodded, handing the now open bottle of water to Weiss for her to drink; the Heiress graciously accepted. "Yeah, I'd like to not ever have to do that again. Like, ever." Ruby looked around with the flashlight; the cave went a little further in, but ultimately it was a dead end. On the other side, a wall of ice and snow now blocked the entrance, and Ruby could tell that there was no easy way to get through it, especially now that both she and Weiss were seriously hurt. "We're not going anywhere anytime soon," she muttered. Retrieving her scroll from her pocket, she wasn't terribly surprised when she saw that she didn't have a signal. "We'd better get comfy."

Immediately, Weiss shivered from the cold air around them. "Well," she said. "We'd better stick close together to keep warm." Nodding, Ruby scooted a few more inches and rotated her body so that she was now leaning against the rock wall with Weiss, the two girls sitting shoulder to shoulder.

A few hours had passed, and the two girls were both shivering uncontrollably. Ruby had long since wrapped both herself and Weiss in her cloak, but they simply couldn't share their body heat with their current attire. They had eaten some of the lunch that was in Weiss's bag, but elected to save as much of it as possible for later, just in case they'd be in here for the long haul. They couldn't drink the water anymore, however, as it had recently turned mostly to ice. "O-o-oh, what I-I-I'd give to have Myr-r-rtenaster right now," Weiss said, her words stuttering through her clattering teeth.

Ruby nodded in agreement; with the heiress's rapier they'd be able to burn a hole in the wall of ice to escape, or at the very least start a fire to keep warm. "I-I-I have an i-i-idea," Ruby said. "B-but, you're n-not going to l-like it."

"W-what?"

"We need to g-get n-naked," Ruby said flatly.

Weiss's eyes shot wide. "I b-beg your pa-pardon?"

"O-our winter clothes are t-too thick. We can't sh-share our heat with each other a-as long as they're in th-the way." Weiss seemed to mull it over in her head; Ruby's logic was sound, but she really, really didn't want to admit it. "Weiss, we're g-going to freeze if we d-don't."

"Well," Weiss began. "I g-guess you wouldn't have a-any ulterior motives." Ruby nodded, and she untied the fastener that held her cloak on before she and Weiss began to disrobe. "J-just don't look at me, okay?" she said as she faced away from Ruby, slowly removing her clothes.

Ruby chuckled softly. "Weiss, o-our bodies are going to be t-touching. I d-don't think now i-is the time to preserve y-your modesty." Once the two were disrobed, Ruby retrieved her cloak and donned it as a sort of blanket. Weiss's clothes were piled onto the floor of the cave, and Ruby patted them. "Lay d-down, and I'll wrap you in my cloak." Weiss nodded and lay down on her right side so as to keep weight off of her broken arm. Ruby came from behind her and lay down next to her; the two girl girls flinched nervously as their bodies came into direct contact. Ruby, as she said she would, threw her cloak over the two of them so that their skin wouldn't be exposed to the cold air, and the two felt an almost immediate change in temperature. Weiss hoped that the heat in her face came from the fact that they were slowly warming up, and not because she was blushing. "Better?" Ruby asked uncertainly.

Weiss nodded. "Much better." Ruby smiled, and slowly wrapped an arm around Weiss in an attempt to gather more warmth. "But we will never speak of this again when we get out, do you hear me?"

Ruby nodded slowly. "Yeah, I hear you."

Weiss's mind was racing at light speed as the sensations her body was feeling all came rushing to her brain to be translated into thought, which resulted in an overload of stimulation. She could feel every detail in Ruby's body as their forms connected. She could feel the curvature in her chest, which is something she'd never, ever once thought about before because Ruby usually covered her chest in such thick layers of clothing that you couldn't tell what her size was, but now Weiss felt like she could make a ball park estimate on her friend's bust. She, naturally, tried very hard to force that train of thought from her head. She could also feel Ruby's surprisingly fit abs. Once again, this was a part of her team mate's body that she never got to see, so she never knew nor never thought to know what it would look or feel like, but now that she was in this situation she could tell that ruby was shockingly muscular for her small size. She didn't have huge, body builder abs, but they were still impressive. She's probably more muscular than me and Blake, Weiss thought, which immediately made her roll her eyes to think of. Of course she! She carries that bestial hunk of metal that she so lovingly calls a weapon around!

Weiss felt one more thing as well. This feeling wasn't natural as far as Weiss could tell, or at least not natural in the sense that it was supposed to feel this way. Simply put, it was not supposed to feel the way it did. Ruby's thighs were touching and slightly rubbing up against her own legs in an attempt to create more heat, and Weiss felt the strangest thing from Ruby's right leg; a lump just under the skin. "Ruby," she started, noting that she had stopped stuttering from the cold now that she was warming up. "What am I feeling on your leg?"

"Hm?" Ruby moved a hand to feel for herself, clearly being unable to feel the misshaped flesh any other way because of her pain. After she accidentally touched Weiss's posterior, which the heiress graciously ignored, Ruby felt her own leg and went still for a moment as pain shot through her system. "I think," she said in a wince. "That might be my muscle."

"Oh," Weiss stated. "Oh, Ruby, we need to get that checked out as soon as possible!"

Ruby chuckled, trying to brush it off. "Sure, just call the doctor. He'll rush over and check it out."

"Ruby, I'm serious! That's a serious muscle injury! What if you can't walk on that leg ever again?"

"I...I...Uh, I dunno. Didn't think about that. Still, we can't exactly leave here and find a doctor." Ruby went quiet for a moment. "In fact, unless someone finds us soon, we may not get out of here at all."

Weiss's heart skipped a beat at the sound of Ruby's depressed voice. "Ruby, you can't think like that. We'll get out of here. We'll get my arm in a cast, get your leg fixed up, and we'll be on the next airship back to Beacon in time to finish our homework. I promise."

Ruby nodded, but didn't immediately reply. "Just in case," she said after a moment. "What if we don't get out of here?"

Weiss sighed. "Ruby, please, stop being so..."

"I don't want to waste any time, Weiss. Especially if there's even the slightest chance that I'm not going to get out of this alive, I want to know that I did everything I could in life." Once again she went quiet, as if in deep thought. "And that means that I have at least one last thing do."

The heiress shook her head, trying her best not to absorb any of Ruby's doubt; it wasn't working. What if we die here? In the cold with just the two of us? she found herself thinking.

Ruby giggled. "I realize that my saying this is going to be awkward on so many levels. Namely, the fact that we're both naked right now."

"I could live without the reminder, thank you," Weiss retorted.

"But," Ruby continued. "Can I just say that you are the nicest, most amazing, and most beautiful woman on the planet, Weiss?"

Weiss blushed heavily. "W-where is this coming from, you dunce?"

"W-well, I don't want to regret not telling you how much I love you!" Ruby's eyes went wide and she put a hand over her mouth. Weiss's reaction was very similar to Ruby's. "I blurted that out, didn't I?"

Weiss blushed even more. "Y-yeah, I'd say that counts as blurting. And you left your tact somewhere in a dark corner, I believe."

"Oh, I'm so stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid! I always hoped that I'd be able to say that more smoothly, maybe surprise you with a gift and a date proposal or something. Hell, a vase full of roses even! Oh, stupid avalanche! Stupid cave! Stupid Ruby!" Ruby yelled near the end of this outburst, suddenly referring to herself in the third person.

Weiss forced herself to quickly organize her thoughts given the situation. Risking further pain and possible injury, she rotated her body so that she was facing Ruby; this had the unfortunate side effect of putting her broken arm beneath her weight.

Face to face with Ruby, the brunette blushed and looked away suddenly. "Uh, Weiss...I thought we, uh, didn't want to see each others, uh...lady bits."

Weiss's face became slightly redder, but she shook her head. "One: Yeah, you could have gone about your confession a little better. Two: I'm the only one who's allowed to call you stupid, you dunce! Three: I-I'll show my lady bits if I want to!" Probably shouldn't have said that. That was weird. It got a laugh out of Ruby though, so it wasn't that bad. "And lastly..." Ruby sat there in anticipation. Glancing back at Weiss, she saw the heiress had broken into a smile. "I didn't say that I hated your affection."

Ruby spent about three seconds process information, and Weiss could have imagined a ding like sound when the realization hit her leader. "So...does that mean that you, you know, also..."

Weiss interrupted her leader by planting a kiss on her lips. When the two parted, Ruby was left in a state of bliss. Weiss smiled and said, "As far as I'm concerned we might be dying in here. Live or die, I'm not wasting any opportunities." She quickly glanced down at her own body, as well as Ruby's, and added, "However, I would like to request that we don't go any further in our injured states. Let's save that for some other time."

Ruby nodded. "First base is good enough for me," she said before she planted another kiss on Weiss's lips.

Suddenly there came the sound of muffled grunts from the wall of ice and snow. Ruby and Weiss parted once again and turned their heads to see what the noise might have been. A minute later they saw yellow flashes of light beyond the snow, and the grunting got louder. "Oh, thank God," Weiss said. "I think we're saved!" She and Ruby shared a happy smile before they turned and continued to watch as the light got brighter and sound got louder still.

Finally, with one final, angry grunt, the snow came crashing down. In the cave's entrance stood Yang with Ember Celica equipped. She saw Ruby and Weiss and she smiled with tears in her eyes. "Blake! Blake we found them! You were right!" She came running in with Blake right behind her. She knelt next to the girls on the cave floor. "We were so worried about you when we saw the avalanche!"

"Yang!" Ruby exclaimed. "How did you guys find us?"

"We spent hours climbing the mountain searching. It was about to get dark and we would have been forced to give up, but Blake said she heard something in this direction, so I started melting snow to dig. And here we found you."

Weiss looked between Yang and Blake. "How did you hear us?" Blake simply responded by wiggling her cat ears.

"Well, enough dilly dallying! Let's go!" Yang grabbed Ruby by the shoulders and started to pick her up.

"Wah! Sis, wait! Don't move us!" she cried; it was too late.

Holding her sister bridal style, she noticed an odd color as the cloak that covered her dangled loosely; it was a pinkish, fleshy color. Arching her eyebrow, Yang looked to Weiss and got the answer she was looking for.

Weiss was left alone on the floor of the cave, laying on a bed of her own clothes, balled up to retain some semblance of warmth in her nude form. Weiss cursed the blonde. "Thanks," she said sarcastically. "Now could you please turn around so I can get dressed!"

Several hours and explanations later, the four girls sat in a around a fireplace that was built into their cabin; it was one of the more expensive cabins. Weiss's left arm was covered in a white cast from the bicep down, and had three signatures written on it; one red, one black, and one yellow. Ruby's right leg was wrapped in a bandage; the hospital had rushed her into a corrective surgery to return her muscles to their proper locations, and said that as long as her Aura stayed strong she would be back to full strength in about a week or two; for now, she was crippled and walking on crutches.

The night had come, and soon the clock had struck midnight. Yang had long since turned in for the night, and Blake was about to follow. "Do you two need anything?" she asked Ruby and Weiss.

The two of which were sitting on a couch in front of the fire, sipping at cups of hot chocolate. "I think we're good," Ruby said. "Good night, Blake."

"Night." The cat faunus exited to her shared bedroom with Yang.

Ruby smiled and quietly leaned into Weiss's chest, laying comfortably against her love. "I think we're good," she repeated.

Song: Love Like Winter- AFI

Author's Notes

Firstly: This may be my favorite ship fic that I've ever written.

Secondly: GOD DAMN IT, OCTAVIA! So, Winter storm Octavia hit us yesterday, and knocked the power out repeatedly. I couldn't even write this friggin story, let alone upload it. So, I ventured to finish it today, as well as Tuesday's story, but it took me so long to write this one that I don't know if I'll be able to write two stories today! I'll be damned if that's going to stop me, and I'll try anyway!

But, most likely, this week of stories will be on a stupid one day late delay. Just pretend that today is Monday, please. Please!

Fun Fact: Me, my sister, and my nephew all bundled into the same bed last night to keep from freezing. Did you know that a five-year-old's body temperature will rise to nuclear like levels when they sleep? Because I sure as hell didn't! That kid had me sweating all night!

Leave a review and let me know what you thought of this story, if you'd be so kind.

Till next time! :D