Oh star, fall down on me

Let me make a wish upon you

Hold on, let me think

Think of what I'm wishing for

Wait, don't go away…

OoOoOo

Someone knocked on the door.

For a while Weiss convinced herself it had been her overactive imagination playing on fruitless hopes. Even if she no longer lived under her father's roof, there was little hope things would change. What a privilege to room alone, to not bother with any bunk mates. What an honor to receive a solitary room, with just enough space for her material possessions and little else.

Sterile white walls.

She entertained the idea of putting up posters. (Of what?) Art, then? (As if you didn't stick out already.) Making her bed, she tugged on the corners of the sheet the wrong way and had to do it again. Servants usually did this task for her. Outside of combat and crunching numbers and a slew of memorized facts about the proper combination and application of crystals and Dust, she had no basic knowledge or skills. But that wouldn't stop her. No, not at all. She came here to become a warrior, after all, not make friends.

"…Perfect," she said under her breath. Crumpling onto her freshly made bed, she cradled her head in her hands and bent over, breathing in through her nose and slowly exhaling through slightly parted lips.

Lots of kids wished they had this much privacy! You'll get used to it, he had told her, and that was true enough. People could get used to anything. Like living in constant fear of the monsters that prowled outside the city walls, or the way the walls fell more and more each year, or how little anyone ever actually spoke to her on a day to day basis.

Her first week had not gone well.

She didn't really expect it to, but reality proved even more harrowing than she'd feared.

Someone knocked on the door, again.

It startled her into motion, realizing that no, she hadn't imagined it. With both herself and her unpacked room in no state to be entertaining guests, she nevertheless opened it wide, standing straight at attention to greet whomever had come calling with proper Schnee hospitality.

What little hope she had got dashed against the concrete walls when she found that girl was the only one waiting on the other side. The one with the golden yellow eyes and the smart mouth. Hands buried deep in her black pullover hoodie, she peered out from under its cover, unblinking and solemn.

Blake. That was her name. Outside of their assignment together as team mates, Weiss hardly interacted with anyone in team RWBY outside Ruby herself. She'd made it clear that she wasn't in any mood to forgive Blake for their sour first impression of each other, and didn't intend to start now.

Shifting uncomfortably and crossing her arms, Weiss blocked the doorway, leaning against the frame and staring her down. "What," she asked, clipped, "Do you want?"

"Uh."

The other girl shuffled her feet. She broke their gaze first, glancing about.

"…Hi," she said after a good thirty seconds chewing over her words. "Weiss."

"Hello," Weiss responded with as much warmth as a polar cap. "If you're here to apologize for the mud you tried to smear all over my family's name earlier this week, I'll have you know it'll take a lot more than words."

Sharp focus snapped into her strange gold eyes. "Your family smears its own name well enough."

It pricked, and burned, and spread. Verbal abuse and criticism she could handle; this was something else. Without a word she stepped back to slam the door shut, but the girl moved in to her personal space, slapping an open palm against the door to hold it open. Her other hand emerged from the depths of her hoodie pocket at the same time. Pulling out handful of glossy photos, she held them up at eye level.

They were photos of Weiss. Sword in hand, blood streaming down her face. Rapier fully equipped with Dust. Her illicit fencing lessons, her attempts to brave the creatures outside the walls. The reason she really got shuffled off to Beacon— better to have it seem like her parents were behind her decision rather than admit perfect little Weiss Schnee had an adrenaline addiction and a deep-seated desire to rebel.

"I heard," Blake said, pushing in further and shutting the door behind her. "That you like to break things."

Stunned, Weiss could only snatch the photos away. Blake didn't resist; Weiss cursed herself. Of course these couldn't be the only copies of the photos in existence. Hell, the other girl probably still had all the negatives safely locked away.

"What do you want?" she asked, ripping the entire stack of photos in half with one smooth motion. "Money? Dust? Is this how things are going to be, then, am I going to be blackmailed by some faunus loving mongrel?"

"Racial slurs. Nice."

"Get over it. I'm not an idiot," Weiss motioned around her, trying desperately to keep a lid on how high pitched her voice was becoming. "And I'm not… not done unpacking." Somehow that made this all worse. An organized room was an organized mind, that's what her parents told her. "As you can see. I'm busy. Name your price and leave."

Pulling her hood down, Blake's lips turned in a frown. Her feet shifted again. "I was… actually kind of hoping we could swap notes."

Weiss stared blankly at her.

That seemed to tickle her, because she cracked a smile. A small thing; Weiss later wondered if she'd imagined it. "Keep your enemies close, right?" she suggested. "You're right about one thing— you're not an idiot. And you're talented, more so than anyone else I've seen at this school so far. So uh." A card appeared from her hoodie pocket. "Give me a call if you want. It's no skin off my back if you can't or won't. I'm simply giving you the option. And we're technically team mates now, so maybe we should start acting like it."

She hovered there for a second, looking on the verge of saying something else, but then turned abruptly and left as quick as she'd entered.

OoOoOo

She'd never had a friend before, so she couldn't say if Blake became one in the weeks that followed, but she liked to pretend sometimes that this was the case. Taciturn, but not solemn as she first appeared, Blake spoke only when necessary. Stripped of most of her agency for too much of her life, Weiss had the opposite problem. She was a chatterbox, and she spoke her mind loudly and often. Generally with a hint of disdain, to make sure everyone around her knew their place. It was a defense mechanism. She tried not to look too deeply into it.

And they did swap notes. A lot. Though they subscribed to different schools of sword play, they had a lot in common, more than first suspected. Through her, Weiss also started getting closer to Yang, which put her in even better standing with Ruby. The red head looked at their growing relationship with pride; since Blake was her room mate, Weiss her partner, and Yang her sister, it all felt like things were finally falling into place.

Things shifted into even stranger territory one night, though. They sat in Weiss' empty, lonely room, nose buried in borrowed textbooks. The walls still bare of any adornments, she kept the place as meticulously organized as her room back home. They hadn't exchanged many words that night, so Weiss flinched in shock when Blake casually reached over, brushed her finger tip against Weiss' scar, and asked, "So how'd you get this one?"

Jerking away as if she'd been burned, Weiss turned on her bed, pointedly facing away from Blake. The mark that marred her face zinged with old pain, phantom aches. "Accident."

"Yeah?"

"Yes." She sniffed, turning her nose up and trying to seem like she was still firmly entrenched in her lesson, but too much of her brain was busy scrambling around for something to say. "Go on, say it. It's gross. Something for a pretty girl like you to feel superior about."

Amused, Blake set her book down. "You think I'm pretty." It wasn't a question.

"I think you're a sad little introvert who occasionally needs a bone thrown her way."

"So generous."

Waiting to hear something more, Weiss wondered if the conversation was over when Blake stood up. A strange sensation nagged at the back of her head, making her set her book down and glance over to see the other girl casually unbuttoning her vest. That wasn't so strange, until she criss crossed her arms and pulled up the hem of her shirt, yanking it over her head and shaking her hair free from it.

Starting and standing up, Weiss forgot herself and grasped Blake's hands, stopping her from going any further. "Hey!" she said, keeping a tight grip on her wrists. "W-what's your malfunction?"

Eyebrows furrowing, Blake looked down at their hands, twisting them loose. "I'm just showing you something," she said, looking as comfortable in just her bra and pants as she had fully clothed. Turning around, she unhooked her bra, but didn't take it off. It wasn't necessary.

All along her back, cruel, poorly healed scars and welts stood out, stark red against her milky white skin. One stood out harsher than the rest, right at the base of her spine; her eyes were drawn to it.

"I'm not asking for a pity party or anything," Blake said, arms crossed to keep her bra in place. "I'm giving you a bit of a reality check. That little cut on your forehead can barely be called a scar, so don't get too hung up over it." She glanced over her shoulder. "Okay?"

Weiss held her.

OoOoOo

They didn't talk about it, but then again, they rarely talked about the things close to their hearts. That's not to say they didn't have serious, deep discussions— just none that involved how Blake started stripping in her room one day and Weiss had a few minor existential crises over her family's practice of business.

And, you know, Weiss never had any friends before Blake, but the more time they spent together the less sure she felt calling her that. And so it wasn't strange when one day, while she and Blake lay exhausted on the padded floor of their sparring area, Weiss reached over and held her hand. Their instructor yelled at them for their lack of focus. Afterwards neither of them could really recall what their lesson that day had been.

Feelings like this never turned out well. Hadn't Weiss seen enough of that from her parent's stone cold farce of a marriage, before her mother had left, before everything went south? Feelings like this got messy. And uncomfortably warm. And maybe a little wet.

No! Wait. Wet was bad. Wet was very, very bad.

Weiss pulled on her collar, swallowing nervously. "I'm sorry, Blake. What did you just say? I'm afraid I misheard you."

"You heard me right the first time. Sorry if it made you uncomfortable."

Pulling out a fan from the pouch tied to the back of her belt, Weiss flicked it open and tried to do something about the state of her bright red face. "Of course I'm uncomfortable. It's July and hotter than Satan's jagged, cloven hoof."

In an easy, graceful motion, Blake tossed her chain scythe over a nearby tree branch and twisted one foot around the ribbon, balancing on it and swinging back and forth. The spires of Beacon peeked over the canopy in the distance. "I'm just saying, if you feel the same way, maybe we should kiss." There was something childlike and innocent about the way she said it, though maybe that was just because she was hanging from a deadly weapon like it was a tire swing.

"Are we forgetting your long-standing grudge against my company?"

"Your parent's company."

"Whatever." She clicked the fan shut to whack the small of Blake's back with it once before resuming. "I'm not playing into your hatesturbation fantasies about being in bed with the enemy. You and I have an arrangement; we are team mates, nothing more."

Blake's small lips twisted in a frown. Looking everywhere but at her mouth, Weiss fanned herself harder, wishing she hadn't agreed to go out with her today. Private training, yeah right.

"Yeah?" Blake said, quietly. And with a flair of her wrist, a painfully familiar notebook appeared in her hands. "So this is nothing, I guess."

Weiss lunged for it, but not fast enough. Scampering up her ribbon, Blake hopped into the trees and made it look easy. Lounging on a thick branch, she flipped open the book to a seemingly random page as Weiss shrieked obscenities at her from below. "I had another dream about her," Blake said, reading out loud. "Except this time she kept on taking off her clothes. I still can't believe that happened, it was so surreal. And her back muscles— hey!"

Latching onto her ankle, Weiss tried to pull her down. "I will burn you to a crisp—"

"I'm not done reading."

"Yes, you are! Give me my journal back!"

Slipping free and climbing higher, Blake hung just above Weiss' head by her knees, feeing at home in the foliage. "I think it's cute that you have a diary," she said. "It also confirms the fact that you're easy to black mail. Try not to leave such an obvious paper trail, rich girl." Before Weiss could do serious damage, she tossed the book at her as a distraction and slithered gracefully away. Weiss juggled it for a bit before getting a solid grip. By the time her feet found solid ground, Blake had vanished into thin air.

OoOoOo

"I'm not comfortable with this," Blake said, point blank. It was a little hard to take her seriously, though, when her hand was already half way down Weiss' pants. Still, her parents had raised a lady, not a brute, so Weiss froze as she tried to unbutton and unfasten the last of Blake's clothing.

"Then… let's stop?" she suggested, pulling away only to have Blake chase her with a few ill-aimed kisses, leaning forward to pin her down against her bed. Her parents had been right; a private room was a blessing, though not for the reasons they probably assumed. "Ok, let's not stop? Make up your mind, or I'll do it for you and kick you out onto the street naked and horny."

Setting her face in a fixed scowl, she didn't let herself slip when Blake tried kissing it away. Biting her chin when she wouldn't budge, Blake growled. "Your hands," she said, catching them with her own and locking their fingers together. "I want them where I can see them. You keep touching me, and it's nice, but a little weird. I don't like surprises."

If Weiss rolled her eyes any harder they were liable to keep on rolling right out of her skull. Then she remembered the scars, and sobered up at once. "All right," she agreed, softening a little to smooth back her thick, black hair. Blake seemed comfortable with that, at least. "But am I just going to lie here like a log while you ravish me?"

"No." The clock on her bedside table ticked, ticked, ticked. "…Maybe? I just want to see what you're hiding." She bumped heads affectionately. "No Schnee shenanigans lurking under your skirt."

"I'm scared to know where, exactly, you think such schemes will be lurking. But here." Sitting up, she popped open the buttons on her shirt, stripping down. "I'll make it easy. See any shivs hidden in my bra strap? No?" Taking Blake's hand, she held it against her breast, enjoying the way it made her cheeks redden. "Feel any grenades? Try the other one. No, still?"

"You're teasing me," Blake said through grit teeth.

"Hmm, a little." Reclining back, Weiss blew a strand of white hair out of her face. "But I'm not sure how else to do this. Or how to make this okay. So I want to stop here if that's all right with you, until we come up with something that'll make this less scary or awkward or whatever is ailing you."

She hadn't even noticed how tense Blake was until she relaxed.

She didn't even think to question the bow on her head, or why she refused to take it off.

OoOoOo

"No," Weiss said at once.

"It's only—"

"No." She ran her fingers through her hair, loose and slightly damp from a shower. "I'm not into that kinky stuff. If you're trying to butter me up for some freaky 50 Shades of Blake nonsense, you can just forget it."

Letting the cool steel cuffs clink in her hands, Blake worried the latch with her thumb. "It's just handcuffs. What, did you want fuzzy pink ones?" She tossed them aside, shrugging loosely.

"Maybe." Catching herself, Weiss shot her a poisonous glare. Rummaging around Blake's room for a comb, she eased it through her fine hair, perched on the edge of the other girl's bed. "Consider yourself lucky I'm too tired to go back to my room. And I need a cuddle buddy tonight."

Setting down next to her, Blake touched the small of her back, an unexpectedly intimate action. "Did your father call today?" she guessed.

"Wow, great deductions, Holmes!" Weiss said, feigning excitement. "And yet the fact that I ran in here crying, and wouldn't stop my inconsolable weeping until I scalded myself red as a lobster in your shower— you shouldn't use such cheap shampoo, by the way— didn't stop you from propositioning me like a second class hooker." Pausing for a breather, Weiss thought about it. "Must be the boots. And the fact that our peppy red head is bunking with her sister tonight. Opportunistic little mongrel, aren't you?"

Blake retracted her hand. "I thought you'd laugh," she said. "Worst case scenario."

Turning her bloodshot gaze over onto her semi-friend, Weiss smiled thinly. "And the best case scenario?"

"I get to make you feel better."

Stroking through her hair a few more times, Weiss stayed quiet. That was strange enough, but when she started leaning towards Blake and relaxing against her, inch by inch, Blake truly felt like she was in Weird County. Putting the comb aside, Weiss hooked her arms underneath Blake's, squeezing her tight. "Is that really what you want?" Weiss asked, voice cracking a little, but not breaking. Nodding quickly, Blake swallowed a lump as Weiss kissed her neck, careful to only suck under her hem, or where it would be easy to hide. She was a proper girl, after all.

Everyone had an ulterior motive with her. Friendship rarely came without any strings attached. But with Blake, she could pretend that maybe, this time, someone just wanted her to be happy without expecting anything in return.

But when her hands slid underneath Blake's nightgown, groping at her breasts, the other girl stiffened up again, instinctively going for Weiss's throat. She held it but didn't squeeze, eyes wide with fear as she said, "Weiss, hands!"

Inching her thumbs into Blake's grip and prying her free, Weiss sat back. "Christ's sake, Belladonna! What am I supposed to do? I don't want to hurt you. I just want to touch you." A dark cloud passed over her features as she scowled, pinching the bridge of her nose and breathing as even as she could. Eyes focused on something else, Weiss's expression looked the same as when puzzling out a difficult math problem in class, before finally lighting up with the answer.

Leaning in again, she kissed Blake hard, nipping at her lower lip before kissing each of her cheeks. She kept her fists balled up at her sides as she angled lower. "Take off your own stupid clothes, Belladonna," she said against her ear before pulling on it with her teeth. Turning red but nodding, Blake did as she said, pulling her night gown over her head in a quick motion.

Weiss paused to look at her, how she sat there without shame. She half expected her to modestly cross her arms, but Blake just looked at her with expectation. Wondering if she was really going to go through with this all the way, Weiss threw caution to the wind and carefully kissed down the sharp line of Blake's collarbone. All the while she kept her hands either at her side, or flat on the mattress when she told Blake to lie down. The only time she touched her was to slap away her hand when Blake tentatively tried to stroke the top of her head.

"If I don't get to touch you, you don't get to touch me," she said primly, tossing her hair over her shoulder and narrowing her eyes up at Blake.

"That's not fair," she said quietly.

"It's perfectly fair. Besides, you're always nervous when I touch you, but since I'm soooo nice, I'll let you do whatever you want once I'm done here." To punctuate her sentence, she chomped down on Blake's hip, leaving a faint indentation there that could be seen when Blake flinched.

"Jerk!" she gasped, angling her hips away, but she didn't ask her to stop, which was more progress than they had gotten before.

And she kept her hands still.

"Underwear," Weiss said in response.

Blake did that too. Showing a hint of shame for the first time, she averted her eyes, keeping her knees pressed too close for Weiss to do anything. Or see anything, for that matter. Her first instinct was to pry them apart, but she had promised not to touch her. "All right," Weiss said after a moment, kissing the top of each knee. "With this current position, given the placement of the planets and the stars, and the tilt of the Earth's axis in orbit, I can, hmmm, I can do absolute fuck-all without my hands here."

"No one said you had to do anything," Blake snapped, turning on her side. "And since when does Princess swear?"

Lying on top of her, Weiss flopped with her arms outstretched so that her hands didn't land anywhere on Blake's body. "When I'm incredibly frustrated and I don't know how to ask my girlfriend to open up her legs without sounding like— like someone I'm not."

Yellow eyes studied her, unblinking.

Smiling thinly again, Weiss pressed her forehead against Blake's. "…Touch yourself," she said after a moment, breaking their rule and holding her hand. "If you don't want me to do it. I'll just hold you."

Though she hesitated at first, after a moment Blake took Weiss's hand and carefully led it between her legs. Weiss cupped her hand, just following her movements until Blake started using her fingers instead of her own. Her other arm looped around Blake's neck, fingers brushing against Blake's lips. She kept her full weight off of the other girl's body until Blake started pulling her down, hips arching up against her as her breathing started to hitch. She was careful not to do anything unexpected with her fingers, letting Blake guide her and keeping her eyes closed like she usually did when they kissed. But when she creaked one eyelid open to catch a glimpse of her, she found Blake staring at her, strange yellow eyes wide and intense. It sent a jolt down her spine, a rush of excitement. Blake seemed to feel it too, groaning into her mouth the next time she kissed her.

She allowed Blake to position her fingers the right way, trying to stay limp enough that Blake could give her direction without talking, but still firm enough that she could feel like an active participant in this. It felt good to be allowed to please her, touch wet folds and warm depths. "Weiss—" She twisted underneath her, one hand still using her to pleasure herself, the other tangled in her hair. Hearing her own name, hearing someone call out to her, fulfilled her in a deep, soothing way that she couldn't yet define. "Could you— Do you still want to— go down on me?" A gasp.

Her first instinct was to say something snappy, oh, nowwww you want it, huh? but she was too far gone herself to even be snarky. "Yeah." She cleared her throat. "Yes, sure." It was frustrating to still not be able to run her fingers over Blake's skin the way she wanted, to feel her pulse, to grab and hold and pinch. But Blake trusted her not to do that, and the idea of letting her down now was almost impossibly devastating.

This time Weiss didn't need any help. Blake's thighs, streaked with wetness from when Weiss had wiped her fingers across them, clenched tight around her neck. Not one to go into a battle unprepared, Weiss had done her best to look up and read whatever she could about how to have sex. Spreading Blake open with her tongue, she reminded herself about how what worked in theory didn't always translate well in practice, and allowed herself to admit she was terrified. One half of her busied itself with a diplomatic way of getting out of this if it turned out she was terrible at oral sex, or if Blake's vagina tasted ten times grosser than her own, for some reason. And yes, she had tried herself, on lonely nights when curiosity overcame her and, well, it would be unhygienic to just clean her hands on her sheets and go to bed wouldn't it?

The other half of her mind was too busy focusing on Blake. Listening to her breathing getting heavier. Seeing the sweat shine on her body. The faint white lines of scars Weiss hadn't noticed before, popping out on stretched skin as she arched and whined, both hands on Weiss's head and pushing her closer without a word. "Is this, em, is this okay?" she asked a few more times than necessary, making Blake laugh once. Ready to leave in a huff at first, she accepted the fact that Blake's laughter was not easily won, and couldn't deny that hearing how it petered off into a trembling sigh made her chest hurt. In a good way.

She had a deep voice. It rumbled and hummed, peaking high and fragile when she came, surprising Weiss enough that she stopped sooner than she should have to watch Blake bring her fist to her mouth, biting down most of the noises that threatened to escape. Then her hand opened, spreading out to cover her face as she caught her breath, chest heaving. She twitched, each time bringing her hand back to her mouth to try and catch it, but she was always too late, and Weiss loved it.

Wiping her lips off on her sleeve, Weiss grinned, proud of a job well done. "Was that… okay?" she asked, lying down beside her to twirl a thick black strand of hair around her index finger, biting her shoulder impatiently when Blake took too long to answer.

Blake turned towards her, nuzzling her, full of warm affection and hazy bliss. "You're sweet," she said, head tucked under hers. Weiss braced for impact, for the expected zing afterwards, some snippy last remark. But it didn't come, no sarcasm. Just Blake, genuinely saying something kind to her.

Pecking her forehead, Weiss desperately searched for some kind of response. "Th…thanks," she said, kissing her again to stall for time. "You're uh, you're also. You're kind of nice."

"Kind of— Kind of? You—" Blake blew a raspberry against her throat, and it snapped whatever tension might have lingered in the air. They both started laughing wildly, at their own incompetence, at the absurdity of their relationship, at how much fun they had just had, even if they were still a pair of awkward introverts. It was too soon to put a name to the ache in her chest, and no explaining how much she longed for it, but Weiss never wanted it to abate.