#ANYWAY ENJOY SOME WEISS PROCESSING THIS TRAUMA THAT THE SHOW WILL NEVER ENGAGE WITH

[anamatics]

From your prompts list - 81. “I feel like I’m being stabbed.” / “How do you even know what it feels like to be stabbed?” - this is Winter finding out about the time Weiss got impaled lol

okay first of all, ow. Second of all, enjoy my vague handwaving in some Bees Schnees directions.

Curfew, 1.7k

October in Atlas means the sun doesn’t come up until nine o’clock in the morning and goes down just after three in the afternoon. Weiss, the last time she came home, found herself unused to the long nights after spending much of her year in Vale hating how each day and night was, roughly, the same length. This time, she’s used to it in a way that no one else is. Blake hates it, hates the darkness and the cold, snuggling up to Yang each night once she thinks Weiss and Ruby have gone to sleep.

The problem is that Weiss doesn’t sleep well in Atlas. She sleeps better here, safely locked away behind the academy walls, than she has in her nearly two decades of life living in this kingdom. Part of it, she knows, is that Winter is two floors up in the officer’s quarters. This is the closest they’ve been to each other at night since Weiss was nearly eleven and Winter left and never came back.

Weiss turns over onto her back and stares up at the ceiling for a long moment. There’s no helping it. She shoves the duvet aside, tugs on a discarded sweatshirt from the pile on the floor, and slips out the door.

The hallways of the academy are dimly lit at this hour of the night, and Weiss wanders up to the balcony that overlooks the parade grounds just off the mess. She sits there, staring out at the city that’s been her prison for so much of her life.

A dream amongst the clouds and the cold, Atlas glows blue and beautiful the scant moonlight that breaks through the cover. Weiss’s breath fogs the window. She presses her palm to the glass. The coolness is grounding, it lets her drift.

The pressure at her side, the near constant ache since they left Mistral, rears its ugly head. Weiss curls her arm around herself, fingers curling against the glass. Close your eyes, push it away. It’s just phantom pain. Yang has it too.

If she doesn’t think about it, it will go away.

Yang told her that. You gotta just power through, it’ll pass.

Weiss inhales. Exhales. Counts the breaths.

This, too, shall pass.

The sound of approaching footsteps fills the hallway. Weiss’s fingers twitch already halfway to twisting the threads of her aura together to form a glyph. She stares at the figure in the reflection on the glass, still foggy with her breath.

“Technically, there is a curfew for cadets.”

Weiss’s lips twist into a lopsided smile. “Good thing I’m not a soldier.”

She’s met with a hum of agreement. Winter approaches, stopping just outside of Weiss’s reach. “It’s nearly midnight. Why are you awake?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Weiss tilts her head to look at her sister. Winter’s jacket is folded under her arm, her tie undone at her neck and three buttons on her shirt undone. She looks as wrecked as Weiss feels, dark circles under her eyes. Her hair is pulled back in messy bun, curling a bit as though she’s been out into the humid night air of Atlas this time of year.

Winter hesitates for a moment, before setting her jacket down on the bench Weiss is leaning against and settling down beside her. She smells a bit like smoke and a bit like booze and a bit like something Weiss cannot place. Perfume? No, that’s not quite right. Weiss’s eyebrows shoot up. Cologne?

A beat of comfortable silence fills the space between them. Winter’s thigh presses against Weiss’s. The traveler’s crease at the front of her trousers pulls flat as Winter stretches her leg out in front of them.

“So, why are you just getting in?”

Winter exhales. She definitely smells like cigarette smoke. “I had a social engagement.”

This is the sort of information that Weiss chews over, another piece of the secret life her sister’s lead since she left home. The one Weiss knows so little about, but the one she so clearly is still living. It is so alien, watching her sister interact with others – watching the easy way she speaks to Penny, the way General Ironwood trusts her implicitly and the Ace Ops clearly see her as a mentor. And yet Winter doesn’t seem to have friends outside of work. She seems to exist simply to work.

So it’s with some hesitation that Weiss nudges Winter’s shin with her foot, a teasing tone creeping into her voice. “You have a social life?”

“A… colleague asked me for a drink, catch up.” Winter shrugs, fiddles with her watch strap. Her eyes flick to Weiss, before they turn back to the shifting clouds over the city. “You haven’t been sleeping since you got here.”

And there’s no answer to that, other than the truth. Weiss pulls the sleeves of the sweatshirt – Yang’s sweatshirt that smells like Blake’s deodorant: earthy and crisp, like rosemary just pressed – and curls her hands around the fabric. “When I close my eyes in this place, it fells like all the air goes out of the room.”

“It was months before I slept soundly,” Winter confesses. Up close, Weiss thinks her eyes look like Mother’s at mid-day. Not quite all the way to drunk but not exactly sober. “I got caught out after curfew – one I had to mind – often because sleep wouldn’t come.”

“What did you do?” Weiss asks.

“Got a running habit.” Winter looks to Weiss. “And then some other, far less healthy ones.”

Nose wrinkling, Weiss hums. “You’d think you’d avoid it entirely, given how much it ruins things.”

Winter draws her knee up and wraps her arms around it. She rests her chin on her knee, eyes fixed straight ahead. She says nothing for long enough that Weiss wonders if she shouldn’t have said that at all. Her mind races, think for something she can say to fix it, when Winter says a non-sequitur, but one which recalls the original intent of her question. “There are restrictions as to who can access these premises, Weiss. With good reason.”

And as much as she wants it to matter, it doesn’t. He’s father, he can open any door, he can sniff out any lie. “It doesn’t matter.”

A warm weight settles over her shoulder and Winter’s fingers curl around her arm. Weiss leans against her, head tucked up under Winter’s chin like she did so often when they were children and hiding in some unused part of the house from Father’s rages.

“Sometimes,” the words are like sandpaper in Weiss’s mouth, “when I think about being back here, my heart beats so fast I feel like I’m being stabbed.”

“How do you even know what it feels like to be stabbed?”

Oh.

“Winter, something happened in Mistral.”

Weiss retreats from the warmth of her sister. She turns, sitting cross legged, and pulls her hand away from her side and tugs off the sweatshirt. The tank top she’s wearing underneath has already ridden up her stomach a bit and she tugs the hem up and looks away. Lets Winter see the scar. Lets Winter see her shame.

Eyes wide, Winter leans in, brushing her fingers against the raised skin at Weiss’s abdomen. With her hand there, Weiss is remined, yet again, that the scar is the size of Winter’s fist. “Weiss, this is…” Winter drags her eyes up to meet Weiss’s and her expression turns deathly serious. “What happened?”

“I looked away.” Weiss lets her tank top fall down back over the scar and pulls the sweatshirt over her head. “I was too slow and I looked away.”

“That wound would have – would have—”

“It didn’t.” Weiss knows her voice sounds harsh, but she refuses to admit what happened in that context. “But it was a close thing. If Jaune—"

Winter pulls her close again. “I should have stayed in Mistral. We could have delayed the withdrawal a few more weeks. I could have – I should have been there.”

There’s no reason for that, no reason for Winter to blame herself for this. “This isn’t your fault. I was the one who was too slow. I was the one who turned my back on Cinder Fall.”

“It’s my duty to protect you Weiss.”

“You said you wouldn’t always be around to save me,” Weiss points out.

“That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get the chance to try.”

And Weiss has nothing to say to that, because there is nothing to say. Winter will always talk a big game, but still want to be there, still want to try to do the right thing. It’s lost time, it’s making up for a lifetime of silences like the one that stretches out between them. One that’s uncomfortable when they’re so used to trading comfortable silences as a currency for survival.

It’s nice, leaning against Winter like this. Where Winter can be a solid, tangible object of support. Weiss inhales, Blake’s deodorant and Yang’s shampoo mingling with the strong, crisp scent of her sister’s cologne. Cologne. It’s then the question bursts, unbidden, from Weiss. “Were you on a date?”

Winter freezes, body stock still.

“Why… would you ask that?”

“You smell nice.”

“Are you implying I usually do not?”

“No, I mean that it’s nice. Your um…” Is it wrong to say what Weiss thinks it actually is? “Your perfume is nice,” she hedges.

“Well,” Winter says at length. “It’s not mine – and I’m pretty sure if asked, you’d be told it was cologne.” Winter’s fingers tangle in Weiss’s hair and she rests her cheek against Weiss’s head. “Someday I’ll tell you about her.”

And though she’s burning with a desire to know, though the her throws Weiss to the point where she feels like the ground is shifting underneath her, Weiss lets it go. “Can I stay with you tonight?”

“If that’s what you want.” Winter gets to her feet and collects her jacket.

Weiss follows.

(Weiss is pretty sure she’d follow Winter to the end of the world.)