A/N: Ruby and Weiss make such a beautifully tragic pair, I keep seeing really beautiful art depicting one mourning the loss of the other and my writer brain keeps going "That would make a good story" and I just suffer all like "But I'd have to kill one of them for that story stahp T~T The feels, they hurt." Also I apparently can't stop writing RWBY right now, I haven't done this much writing in a long time.
I don't own RWBY or any of its characters.
Nope I just write things.
The Messes we Make Together
"How did we get into this mess Ruby?"
"Uhhhh, because fate hates us?"
"… I'd believe that."
Team RWBY was away from Vale for a trip of sorts learning about Remnant's all important Dust trade. Blake and Yang were touring a processing plant while Ruby and Weiss we're touring a mine, supposedly to add their notes together to make their project and save time. Weiss just wanted some alone time with her girlfriend of six months.
Of course even simple things can become complex when chaos and mishap rear their ugly heads.
The miners had accidentally broken into a nest of Grimm, naturally Ruby and Weiss had gone into to help evacuate the miners, what they hadn't planned on were the enraged Grimm destabilizing the mine, the entrance to the mine was up an elevator and down a long tunnel from the main shaft they were in, the entrance tunnel was crumbling.
The last of the miners ran past them into the lift.
"There's only room for one more! Anymore and we'll break the lift!" One of the miners shouted to Ruby and Weiss.
"What?!" Weiss shouted turning.
"The motor is strained as is if we go over we'll all be stuck here!"
"Shit, Ruby what do we-" Ruby's red cloak wrapped around her shoulders as Ruby turned her around.
Ruby's pure silver eyes looked into Weiss's own crystal orbs. "I love you Weiss."
And then Ruby shoved her back into the lift and pressed the controls closing the gate and starting the lift up.
"Ruby!" Weiss shouted down as the lift began going up. "RUBY!"
The miners were silent as the lift creaked and groaned its way up the shaft as Weiss clutched the red cloak tight around her. The lift finally emerged into the entrance tunnel and the miners began sprinting down the crumbling tunnel.
"You dunce…" Weiss muttered.
"Come on the tunnels collapsing!" A miner shouted to her as she stood in the lift.
"Go, I have to give that dunce her cloak back." Weiss said pushing the miner out of the lift and closing the doors again, she saw him stare before turning and running barely making it out before the tunnel collapsed, sealing off the entrance, and only exit, as Weiss descended in the lift again.
Ruby reloaded her Crescent Rose again as more Grimm came pouring out into the lift room.
Well this is it I guess, the might Ruby Rose trapped in a mine alone against an entire nest of Grimm while studying for a school project. Ruby shook her head. This isn't how it was supposed to be.
Her cloak wrapped around her snapping back into place as Weiss stepped up next to her.
"Weiss! What are you doing?" Ruby asked un-believing.
"I'm dying next to you, you dunce, what's it look like?" Weiss replied with a small smile as she drew Myrtenaster.
"I'd rather you have lived Weiss." Ruby replied readying her scythe.
"I'd rather die alongside you than live without you Ruby."
Ruby smiled. "Well let's see how many Grimm a Rose and a snow angel are worth."
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Yang was wailing on the pile of crumbled rock like a demon possessed.
It had taken Blake and Yang an hour to get form the processing plant over to the mineshaft that Ruby and Weiss had been trapped in, the miners had been working frantically at the blocked tunnel but had to stand back as soon as Yang had arrived to avoid the plumes of fire and chunks of smoking rock that we're flying from Yang's assault but even after an hour of digging that hadn't broken through yet, and Yang was out of shotgun shells and out of aura. Blake had to pull her out before she broke her knuckles on the rocks, exhausted as she was Blake had sat her down while the miners went back to work. It was another hour before they finally broke into the lift, in that time Blake had sent someone to get more shells for Yang's bracers.
"They made it to the lift come on!" Yang jumped up pulling Blake with her into the tunnel.
"Keep clearing this out, make sure a medical hoverjet is standing by, we're going in to find them." Blake said to the head miner as Yang paced impatiently. They got into the lift and started the decent.
"You know what we're likely to find down there right?" Blake asked quietly as the slid downwards.
"A lot of grim and ruined tunnels." Yang replied choking on a sob.
Blake slowly nodded, they had thrown themselves into the rescue effort, but knew that even Ruby and Weiss we're outmatched by an entire nest of Grimm. Still she wanted to hope, not many people in her life had made as large an impact on her life as her two missing team mates, for the first time in a long time she felt like she belonged somewhere, like she had a family, and now two of her family were missing, and likely dead, but she wanted to hope.
Yang was trembling with rage, rather than breaking down into tears Yang was going to break some Grimm, she would cry later, but right now she was burning.
"Here we are." Blake said readying Gambol shroud.
Yang cocked her bracers as the door opened.
"Holy shit…" Yang swore.
The room was littered with dead Grimm, shell casings, scorch marks, and patches of frost.
"They've definitely been fighting here." Blake said crouching down next to a scorched area.
Yang looked around but didn't see a living thing, thankfully though she didn't see anything familiar amongst the dead either.
"It's been a while since they fought here, this is cold, Weiss's fire attacks are usually warm for about half an hour afterwards."
"They must have gone further in." Yang said looking into the mine shaft lit by the emergency lighting along the ceiling. "But why?"
"The Grimm have to get out to hunt, go far enough through them and there should be another exit." Blake remarked looking down the tunnel as well.
"Well, let's see if they found it." Yang walked into the semi-dark tunnel watching her step so as not to trip over the innumerous dead Grimm.
They walked for several minutes before Blake found something and called Yang over.
"What is it?"
"It's Weiss's jacket, or at least part of it." Blake said holding up the ruined garment.
There were dark red stains around three small holes in the left side and most of the left sleeve was missing another dark red stain tinging the tattered threads around the missing sleeve.
Yang looked around fearing what she might find, but only seeing more and more dead Grimm.
"They aren't here, and there aren't any Grimm here either, we need to keep going."
They moved deeper into the tunnel shell casings and scorch marks still marking their progress but becoming less frequent as ammo and dust must have run short.
"Yang there are hundreds of dead Grimm here."
"It wouldn't be like them to go down without a fight, and there's no fight like your last." Yang replied stiffly.
"We don't know it was there last yet." Blake said angrily tears threatening to spill over in her amber eyes.
Yang softened and hugged the distressed Faunus. "You're right come on we're wasting time here."
They moved around a bend in the tunnel and came face to face with a huge Death stalker.
"Sonuva bitch!" Yang shouted jumping back and readying her bracers.
"Wait!" Blake threw up her arm. "It's dead."
Yang lowered her guard staring slack jawed at the defeated beast. "It's gotta be bigger than the one we fought during initiation and that took four people to bring down!"
"Look in its eye there." Blake pointed to a thin sliver of light shining in the darkness.
Yang moved over examining the object. "It's Myrtenaster."
"What?"
"Well its part of it, the blade is snapped." Yang said wrapping her scarf around the snapped blade, and with some effort, yanked it out.
The top fifteen inches of Myrtenaster's blade came out, the other twentyish inches or so and the pommel were nowhere to be found.
"So after this point Weiss is fighting with half a sword." Yang said looking down into the still Grimm strewn tunnel.
"Come on, there's nothing else here." Blake said pushing on
"No way." Yang said a little later staring down at something amongst the dead Grimm.
"Yang?" Blake said rushing over as Yang slowly knelt.
"It's Crescent Rose."
Blake saw the shattered remains of what appeared to be the majority of the blade and part of the handle.
"The tip of the scythe and the receiver are missing." Blake noted.
"She must have kept using those to fight, but just… this is Crescent Rose shattered it feels wrong Blake, like it shouldn't be possible."
The corpse of a huge Ursa was on the ground not too far away. "Must have been that thing, fuck how did they keep fighting things like that?" Blake said staring at the defeated beast.
"Blake." Yang said rubbing a scorch mark on the ground. "This is still warm."
"They were fighting her less than half an hour ago."
Yang surged to her feet taking off down the tunnel. "Come on!"
They quickly found the body of another dead Death Stalker.
"Yang!" Blake said slowing to a stop next to it.
"What?" yang said coming back.
"Look, its Myrtenaster's pommel." Blake gingerly picked up the wrecked pommel.
The dust cylinders were smashed open and only about an inch of the blade stuck out of the mangled handle.
Blake looked down to the scorched ground and the burnt death stalker corpse. "She smashed open the dust cylinder on it."
"So it exploded while she was holding it?"
"It looks like the blast came mostly out the top, but I wouldn't want to have been holding this when it happened, it's still hot to the touch." Blake said stowing it in her satchel. "Come on they can't be too far."
"What was Weiss fighting with at this point?" Yang asked to Blake as they jogged further in.
"Most of the blade was still missing, she could be using that." Blake replied as they ran.
A flutter of red caught her attention.
"No…" Yang sprinted up to the tattered cloak.
"Yang?" Blake muttered as she came up next to the brawler.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Yang forced herself to look away.
Part of Ruby's cloak was hanging from the bottom half of Crescent Rose, the handle was embedded in a dead Ursa and the receiver on top was smashed. The cloak was missing about half of its length ending short in tatters of red fabric and the hood was split open along the right side dark red stains tinging the side of the tattered hood.
Yang was holding her head and still swearing over and over again, Blake grabbed her and shook her by the shoulders. "Come on! Get ahold of yourself they aren't here!"
Yang hugged herself shaking her head violently. "You… you're right come on… we've gotta find them."
Yang stumbled off further into the tunnel Blake following close behind.
After a little while they came out into a large natural cavern, the nest the miners had broken into, it was well lit from a hole hundreds of feet up. To the right the tunnel would have continued but was blocked by rubble crushing an absolutely massive Death Stalker and effectively blocking off the rest of the nest.
"There they are!" Blake shouted scrambling down the steep slope into the cavern heading for the far side where Weiss and Ruby sat leaned against one another.
Ruby's eyes slowly fluttered open; she was still leaned against Weiss where they had sat down after collapsing the tunnel on the Death Stalker alpha. She looked up expecting to see more Grimm.
"Weiss, Weiss come on you can't die on me now its Blake and Yang!" Ruby grunted shifting herself to wake the unconscious heiress next to her.
Weiss's eyes slowly opened and she groaned. "What? We aren't dead yet?"
"Come on you've got to help me stand up, Blake and Yang are here."
"What?" Weiss looked up seeing her rapidly approaching team mates. "Holy shit did we make it?"
"As long as we can not bleed to death on the way out of here." Ruby grunted as Weiss shakily got to her feet pulling Ruby up after her and supporting her.
Ruby grabbed Crescent Rose's tip that she had been fighting with the very end of the blade and just enough of the top curve to act as a handle looking like some kind of demented kitchen knife, and noticed that the broken sixteen inch shard of Myrtenaster Weiss had been fighting with was still tucked into her belt, a piece of her cloak wrapped around the shard to stop it from slicing into her hand.
Ruby leaned heavily on Weiss as they hobbled towards Blake and Yang, Ruby had part of her cloak wrapped tightly around her left leg where dark red stains had bled through the cloth, and another piece was wrapped around the right side of her face, blood slowly seeping out and running down her face. Weiss had the torn sleeve from her jacket wrapped around her left arm and her right arm was burned up to the elbow, there were dark red stains on her left side and she had another long cut across her left cheek, as well as blood seeping down from her hair on the right side of her head.
Ruby held up the broken tip of Crescent Rose pointing it at the approaching Yang. "Don't even think about giving me one of your bear hugs! I've got at least two broken ribs and gods know how many more bruised, if you hug me I will stab you!"
Yang slowed her advance just as she came close to the wounded huntress, seeming to debate internally whether or not it was worth getting stabbed over. "You're alive!"
"Barely, you can thank Weiss for that; it's her fault for being a dunce and coming back for me."
"Oh so I'm the dunce now for saving your sorry ass instead of escaping?" Weiss replied rolling her eyes.
"Yeah… "Ruby breathed out with a smile. "And I know you love my ass." Ruby smirked.
Weiss rolled her eyes again a smile on her face.
"Good to see you two are alright." Blake said gingerly hugging Weiss.
"Yeah but can we save this for later? I still feel like I'm dying." Ruby groaned.
"Yeah come on there should be a hoverjet waiting at the mine entrance."
A little while later they hobbled out of the mostly clear mine entrance to the cheers of the rescued miners and we're taken to a hospital in Vale by hoverjet.
Four days later.
"They're awake?" Yang asked as she followed the nurse down the hall Blake close behind her.
"Yes, Ruby woke up an hour ago and Weiss a little after her." The nurse replied opening the door to a room.
Two beds were pushed together Ruby, wrapped in a lot of bandages, in one Weiss, also wrapped in bandages, in the other their hands together in the middle. Ruby looked over as they came in smiling, she gently squeezed Weiss's hand, Weiss's eyes were closed but she smiled and opened them looking over as well.
"How are you Rubes?" Yang asked sitting next to her sister and squeezing her free hand gently.
"Everything hurts." Ruby replied smiling weakly.
"You don't have a burned arm." Weiss remarked.
"But I do have more broken ribs than you, its was four by the way." Ruby said the last part directed at Yang.
"Kinda glad I didn't hug you now." Yang replied rubbing the back of her head.
"Yeah you might have broken one of the other four ribs that were only fractured." Weiss said.
"Shhhhhhe didn't need to know that." Ruby smiled nervously at her sister who was on the verge of tears at hearing the extent her sister's injuries. "Really Yang I'll be ok."
"According to the doctors report it'll take a while for them to heal fully but they shouldn't have any lasting damage." Blake said looking at a pair of clipboards.
"Just some new scars!" Ruby said.
"I've got another scar on my face." Weiss groaned shaking her head.
"You know I always liked your scar Weiss." Ruby reassured her.
Weiss just smiled and squeezed Ruby's hand.
Blake sat down in the seat next to Weiss smiling at her injured team mate, tears in her eyes.
"Oh you can't tell me you're going to cry Blake!" Weiss said.
The tears broke and flowed down onto her cheeks as she smiled. "You guys are the only family I've got, and I thought I lost you." She mumbled out.
Weiss's demeanor softened and she lifted her free hand off the bed where Blake grasped it in both of hers holding tightly. "You really don't know how much that means to me Blake."
Blake smiled in return wiping away her tears.
"Well they aren't letting you guys out for at least a week, do you guys need anything?" Yang asked.
"Did they finish counting how many Grimm we killed?" Ruby asked a little too excitedly.
Yang scratched her head. "Last I heard it was getting around four hundred give or take fiftyish that we're burned or sliced up beyond recognition."
Ruby smiled widely, while Weiss shook her head.
"There's something else I'd like to ask." Weiss said.
"Name it." Yang replied.
"Could you guys stick around? I'm afraid my parents are going to show up and try to take my back to Atlas."
"Yeah, we can do that, weren't gunna leave you guys anyway." Yang replied smiling.
A few hours later…
Yang was asleep in her chair, Blake was reading, Ruby was slowly turning the tip of Crescent Rose over in her hands, Weiss was dozing in her bed when a nurse poked her head in through the door.
"Mrs. Schnee's family is here, will you see them now?" The nurse asked.
Weiss pulled herself from her rest and nodded to the nurse. "Yes."
Ruby elbowed Yang who woke up with a snort, and Blake closed her book and set it aside, Weiss grabbed Ruby's hand again.
Weiss's parents came in shortly after, her father prim and proper in a fancy business suit and her mother, wearing an expensive looking short dress. Her mother was in tears rushing over to Weiss's side as her father stood at the end of the bed.
"Oh are you alright Weiss?" Her mother gushed at her side.
"I'll be fine." Weiss replied.
"Oh we're taking you home Weiss, no more of this dreadful fighting or, school you'll be safe in Atlas with-"
"No." Weiss said firmly interrupting her mother.
"What?" Her mother asked confused.
"I'm not leaving, and I'm certainly not going back to Atlas." Weiss squeezed Ruby's hand. "I'm going back to Beacon as soon as they let us out."
"Weiss, we've allowed you this huntress nonsense long enough your place is back in Atlas learning to be head of the company." Her father replied.
"No, my place is right here, next to Ruby, as a huntress." Weiss replied not wavering.
"This isn't your decision Weiss, we have to do what's best for the company and for you, and you're coming back to Atlas with us."
"No I'm not, and it is my decision because you can't force me to do anything, I don't give a damn about the company, not anymore."
Blake stood up behind them and Yang across from them, Yang crossing her arms over her chest.
"You'd abandon your family and the company for them." Her father spat.
"I'd do a hell of a lot more than that for them, they're more of a family to me than you've ever been, and I love Ruby, I'd sooner die than leave her."
Her father balked and her mother broke into sobs. "This is absurd You're coming with us and you'll learn to do what you're told."
Weiss grabbed her father by his shirt and yanked him down towards her, the silver bright shard of Myrtenaster slipping into her hand as she shoved it in his face.
"I'm going to stay right here, and nothing you do will change that, I just fought through an army of Grimm to stay by her side, what makes you think you have any power at all over me?"
Weiss's mother made a distressed squeak as her daughter brandished a blade at her father.
Her father paled, Weiss just stared at him for a long while the blade digging slightly into the skin of his cheek, after a while she shoved him away.
"Leave, consider me disowned I don't want anything to do with you." Weiss said evenly looking away.
"Weiss!" Her mother said.
Blake put her hand on her shoulder and pushed her slightly. "You heard her, I suggest you leave."
"Come on, out, before I make you get out." Yang added.
Her parents shuffled out of the room her mother being pushed gently by her father.
"Are you sure you're ok with that Weiss?" Blake asked after a minute.
"I wasn't lying, I've been with you three more in the past two and a half years than with them in my entire life, honestly it feels good not to have that shadow looming over me anymore." Weiss shrugged.
Ruby squeezed her hand smiling.
"Gosh what a bunch of misfits we are." Yang said with a wry smile.
"Sounds like family to me." Weiss said sighing contentedly as she closed her eyes again.
Ruby smiled twining her fingers between Weiss's. "I love you Weiss."
Weiss smiled turning to Ruby. "I love you too you dunce."
Ruby leaned her head against Weiss's shoulder and closed her eyes; Weiss leaned against the top of Ruby's head closing her eyes as well and they fell asleep together, never to sleep without the other again.
A/N: Shit… I just wrote that whole thing in one sitting without saving, I was one miss-click away from tears, BECAUSE I TOTALLY WASN'T TEARING UP WHILE WRITING THIS OR ANYTHING. T~T
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed.