"No no no no no no!" Jaune shouted as Nora began to wind up. The rambunctious ginger, however, paid no heed as she smashed the ground beneath her, sending Jaune flying through the air. Following through her swing, she set her massive hammer beneath her own feet, firing once more and propelling herself directly at the large Grimm before her.
The massive Deathstalker absorbed the blow she delivered, sending her flying back to join Pyrrha, Jaune, and Ren. After gathering itself, the scorpion struck out at the bridge they stood on, causing the group to stumble as the bricks beneath them began to fall away.
"We need to move!" Jaune shouted, earning a nod from those around him. Taking off at a sprint, Pyrrha threw herself in front of the descending claw of the scorpion, stopping its progress with her shield while at the same time, opening it up for a strike of her own. Roaring in anger, the Deathstalker lifted its other claw, swinging down at the exposed huntress.
"Oh SHI…" came a startled cry, followed by a fleshy smack as Jaune Arc tripped over an exposed brick, and fell in front of the descending claw, earning a smack across the back of the head as the automaton met no resistance. The was a moment of silence, before a sharp snap echoed across the set.
"Cut! Cut! Mr. Arc, you were supposed to block the strike with your shield. What is so difficult about this?" Glynda chided after filling the air with a loud crack as she broke her clipboard over her knee. The majority of the staff stood around her, eyes wide as they stared at the broken halves still in her hands.
Ozpin sighed as he passed his assistant a new clipboard, "Could you please refrain from breaking another one today, Glynda? I don't believe I've brought enough this time."
"I will try, sir, so long as Mr. Arc can remember how his shield is supposed to work." The irate woman huffed.
"I believe that we need a fresh start at this. Take a break everyone, we will reshoot on set in fifteen minutes." Ozpin called out from his chair.
As the cast left the stage an audible sigh came from the refreshment table that was placed nearby for the cast and crew. A small cluster of actors stood around the table, the colors of their clothes helping them stand out from one another. One Weiss Schnee was scowling at her bottle of water, a few white strands of hair falling in front of her left eye, only making the scar across it all the more prominent. "I can't believe you forgot your choreography again, Jaune!"
"It's not my fault I froze! You didn't have an automaton going for you, it looks way too real!" The blonde actor retorted, his hand shaking a little. The shoulder even began to raddle against the chest piece as the shake made its way up his arm.
"THE CLAWS ARE PILLOWS PAINTED WITH RED MARKS!" Weiss shouted back, her skirt jumping a bit as she grounded herself. "We have to fight a fake, invisible, CGI BIRD, but you can't handle the scorpion in front of you?!"
"Easy there, Ice Queen, it's not like we're doing much better. We had to reshoot that fight six times because you kept missing your cue." Yang remarked, leaning back in a chair. Her long mane of unruly blonde hair falling over the back of the piece of furniture.
"What about the times you fell out of that bird's mouth?" A short brunette countered with a small smirk. "Or that time you insisted you could climb up the prop without the rope and ended up not taking the reinforced path? Or that time…" She cut herself off with a small yelp as her sister lunged for her, grabbing for the furry appendage sticking out from behind her.
"Alright, Alright I get it, Ruby!" The lilac eyed actress relented.
A raven haired actress chuckled softly, "You're one to talk, Kitten. You were so hyped up on sugar the other day we had to reshoot the dorm scene because you wouldn't stop bouncing around."
"I couldn't help it, I was excited! That was our first shoot all together!" Ruby replied with a whine, wrapping her cat tail around the waist of her accuser. "What about you, Blake? You somehow took three tries to blow out the candle this morning."
The actress held back a blush at the cat Faunus' move. "You know Sun switched them for trick candles! I had to waste a glass of perfectly good lemonade to put them out so we could get the right ones."
"And it was hilarious!" A voice called from a distance away as a blonde monkey Faunus struggled with the harness strapped around a short ginger girl. "Nora get your hand off the buckle! I can't get you free if you're holding onto it!"
"But it took SOOOOO long to get on! Just leave it, I'll work with it like this!" The short woman retorted before starting to force her way over the the snack stand. The tension rope behind her started to pull tight, but the ginger was not deterred in the slightest, grabbing onto anything she could that was grounded, pulling herself along. However, when she was about 10 feet away, the safety mechanism finally kicked in, launching the small woman backwards, away from her friends and the solace of food.
Ren sighed as he threw a bottle of water to her from the table and picked up a small plate of the food before walking over to his dangling girlfriend. "Next time I'd recommend getting out of the harness, Nora."
"I wonder if she's the reason the tension ropes seem kind of loose," Weiss said with a sigh. "I swear she does that once a day."
"I think it's just that the ropes themselves are pretty old," Blake replied between bites of a tuna sandwich, left out just for her.
"It is an older building," Weiss agreed. "But it has a lot of history, it's generally well maintained. Maybe we are just on the back end of their replacement cycle."
"Stage hands, clear the set! Actors, report!" Glynda's voice called out, significantly calmer as compared to earlier.
"That's our cue," Ruby said with a sigh, before turning to Blake. After a moment of staring, Ruby's face contorted as she tried to hold back her laughter. Confusion crossed everyone's face until they looked at Blake and couldn't hold it back themselves.
"What?" Blake asked, eyes darting around, then resting on her sandwich, wondering if something went wrong.
"We've hardly been off the set, how did you manage to do all that?" Ruby squeezed out between suppressed laughs.
Confusion crossed Blake's face, until she reached up and started to scratch the back of her head. Instantly, she noticed what everyone was laughing about. Currently, the bow affixed on the top of her head had fallen to the side, revealing a single cat ear. A cat ear that was twisted out if place, falling down next to her actual ear. The small foam prop had even managed to get bent inward, mimicking a hurt appearance.
"It was itchy, I guess I knocked it out of place. You know I hate this thing." The embarrassed actress grumbled.
"Just don't forget to put your contact back in this time," Ruby said jokingly, patting Blake in the small of the back. "We have some time till our next scene. Have Coco help you get it back in place."
"Not a bad idea, Sis. If anyone can keep us from making an earor, it'll be Coco." Yang chuckled from her seat.
Ruby was taking a quick swig from her water bottle when her sister made the pun. She started coughing, water spraying every which way. "N-no, d-do not do that now please." The brunette begged between coughs as Blake patted her back to help stop her coughing.
Nora, however, seemed to have heard it as well. She stood in her place on set, her shoulders shaking slightly as she fought back the laughter. Her pale blue eyes started to bulge as she fought the urge to laugh.
"Places everyone!" Glynda called out before stepping back to allow Ozpin to take control.
"Action!" He called, only to be met with a rackous round of laughter on set. With the exception of Nora, the entirety of the set fell silent, turning to watch the small ginger double over with laughter. And then there was a loud snap, as yet another clipboard cracked beneath the anger of one Mrs. Goodwitch.
"I still cannot believe that glare Goodwitch gave you for the rest of the day, Nora!" Yang laughed loudly as the group entered a local ice cream parlor.
Nora chuckled as she threw herself into a booth, "Hehe, well how could I help it? Earor was too good!"
"Was it though?" Weiss asked confusedly. "I don't think she put any actual thought into it."
"She never does," Blake agreed.
The lilac eyed actress feigned indignation, "Et Tu Blakey?! I always make the best puns!"
"Only when you're trying to kill me, Yang." Ruby chimed in, sliding into the booth opposite Nora.
"Wow, what did you do to make her hate you so much then?" Pyrrha quipped, a small smirk showing on her lips as she pulled a chair to the end of the table.
Blake slid into the booth next to Ruby, her blue and amber eyes sparkled as she replied, "She only tried to choke my girlfriend with a bottle of water. This time."
The tables echoed in laughter as the rest of the group slid into place, with Jaune and Pyrrha sitting at chairs they had pulled up. As the laughter died down at the round booth, Jaune suddenly seemed to notice a discrepancy.
"Wait, I thought Ren was going to meet us here? Where is he?"
The table settled down and cast their eyes about the parlor and as far down the street as they could see. "Thats a good point," Ruby agreed. "I thought he would be here by now."
"I heard he was going to met with some new cast members, maybe they just got caught up in traffic," Weiss suggested with a shrug. "Let's just order, since we don't know how long it will be until they get here."
After a few minutes a waitress walked up to their booth, "Big event planned today?" She asked.
"You could say that. We just got off work for the day and figured we'd all talk over how it went with a dessert or two." Weiss replied with a small shrug.
"As good a reason as any," The waitress agreed with a chuckle. "Who would like to go first?"
There was a moment of silence before Ruby started her order, and the group slowly began to work its way around the table, ordering from dark chocolate and cookie dough to cotton candy with gummy bears.
And then it arrived on Weiss. Taking a deep breath, Weiss began with "And I will have a dual order of the hidden menu special number seven and a Mountain Glenn supreme, volcano style. Both in Behemoth sizes."
The waitress had kept up in the beginning, but as Weiss had gone on, her eyes slowly started to widen, and a look of shock was just barely suppressed on her face. It took her a few moments to realized when Weiss had finished, before quickly apologizing and asking Weiss to repeat the order. Weiss compiled, as if she were used to this reaction.
"I haven't seen a range of orders like that in a while. I'll have them all out shortly." The waitress said still a little shocked at the amount of food that would be brought out.
A few moments passed as the waitress brought the order to the counter, then a shout from one of the workers could be heard from the table, "Weiss! We've talked about this before! You can't keep eating our whole shipment in one order!"
There was a moment before Weiss shouted back, "You won't let me take to-go anymore! I need to get what I can!"
"Didn't she literally buy twenty gallons straight from the freezer last time we were here? Where does she put it all?" Nora whispered across the table to Ruby.
The brunette glanced at the alabaster haired actress, "She ate it all. What I'm still trying to figure out is how she still looks that good."
"Hey now, you're not thinking about having a little bit of Heiress on the side are you, Kitten?" Blake asked, nudging Ruby jokingly.
"No, but if I asked her to join us you'd probably lose your mind." The cat Faunus chuckled, drawing a blush from her girlfriend.
As the group of friends continued to banter back and forth, a chime at the door announced the arrival of Ren, followed closely by a tall rabbit Faunus with dark brown hair and shorter long haired brunette with vibrant green eyes. "Sorry we're late everyone, we were held up in traffic." Ren said, pulling up a few more chairs just as the dessert arrived. "I'd like you all to meet Velvet Scarlatina and Neo, they're going to be joining the cast and before you say anything, yes, I know it's a little sudden. But I'm making the call for this."
In response to this, Yang gave a lazy shrug, before saying, "Man, this show is your brain child, you can do whatever you want. If we think something is stupid, trust us, Nora will say it aloud without giving it any thought."
Nora, caught with a spoon already in her mouth, simply gave a thumbs up. "I guess she approves." Blake said, arching an eyebrow slightly. "Welcome to our crazy little family."
"Wow, your eyes…" The rabbit Faunus muttered, before realizing she had said it aloud and quickly flushed red. "I mean… uhhhh… thank you for having us, we look forward to working with you!"
The shorter brunette nodded as well, before turning to the waitress, pointing to Weiss's two dishes, and saying "I'll have that."
The waitress, still unsettled by the orders she had already placed, hardly reacted at all, simply nodding and looking towards the other two newcomers, taking their orders as well.
Once the waitress left, the group's attention turned fully to the newcomers, particularly Weiss to Neo. "Well this is a first. I don't think anyone has ever matched my order before."
Neo smiled in return, and said "And I've never met anyone else with quite such a taste. I've been meaning to try number seven, but I always get myself caught up on number four."
"WEISS, I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU! YOU CANNOT ORDER SECONDS!" Came a shout from the counter.
"That's not for her, it's for me!" Neo shouted back.
"DAMN IT, NEO! NOT YOU TOO! WHEN DID YOU GET HERE?!"
"About thirty seconds ago! It's either number seven or number four, take your pick!" The emerald eyed woman shouted her reply. "Just don't forget the Mountain Glenn!"
The group burst out into laughter once more, causing everyone in the parlor to turn and look at them. Even passersby seemed to feel the joyful vibe coming from the table, and quite a few of them came in. Including one surprised monkey Faunus.
"What are you guys doing here?!" Sun called out as he came through the double doors, a wide smile on his face.
"Weiss drug us along here last week, and it's looking like this is going to be our new thing," Yang replied easily. "Apparently, she knows every ice cream place in town, and isn't allowed back in half of them."
"Apparently, informing them that their topping to ice cream ratios favors the ice cream far too much is considered 'in bad taste.'" Weiss added, unaware of her pun.
Nora was mid-swallow of a spoonful of her ice cream, she quickly reached for a napkin. After a brief coughing fit, she laughed out, "MY NOSE FEELS LIKE IT'S FULL OF ICE! WHY DO YOU DO THIS, WEISS?!"
The look of utter confusion on Weiss's face brought another round of laughter from the table, causing Sun to nearly double over clutching his sides. Yang, seeing he was about to collapse, scooted over, pressing Weiss up against Blake, and with a long reach, pulled Sun into the seat next to her before he collapsed.
"Easier there, Tree Climber. Don't go falling apart on us now. You know we can't trust Neptune with that boom mic."
Yang had a grin on her face as she looked around the table, expecting people to laugh about her last joke. Instead she was met with a few shocked faces and quite a few heads buried in their owners hands. After a brief moment, it dawned on Yang exactly what went wrong.
"NO NO NO! It's not like that! Sun was a helper at one of my stunt training sessions! And during breaks, he would always climb straight to the top of the nearest tree and take a nap! I call him that because he once challenged me to race up the tree and utterly destroyed me!"
Sun, finally recovering from his laughing fit, slapped a palm on the table and started laughing harder. "I keep… telling you… Fireball! How many… times has… this happened? I like it, but no one gets it the first time they hear it!"
Sun's laughter eased the table a bit, brining a smile to the faces of those closest to the two. When Sun finally recovered, he pushed himself up to a sitting position and gave Velvet and Neo a warm smile. "Sorry about that. I'm Sun, I'm a stagehand on set. I look forward to working with you." Both the girls nodded and muttered their greetings. At this moment, the ice cream for Ren, Neo, and Velvet arrived, causing the two girls to dig in with delight.
Ren, on the other hand, was eyeing Sun with interest. "So you free climb trees? How often do you do that?"
"Hmmm?" Sun was surprised initially at the question, before recovering and replying, "Oh, yeah, all the time. I was at that stunt camp as a free running volunteer. If there is something to climb or something to hurdle, I've probably already done it."
"Is that so? Meet me on set tomorrow before we start shooting, I've got a few things planned I might need your opinion on." The dark haired writer said.
As she finished her mouthful of ice cream, Nora chimed in, "Just don't be there too early. If I see you asleep at your desk again, Ren, then I'm locking you in our apartment till you're sleeping like a normal person!"
Once the laughter died down again, the group fell into an easy sort of silence, as everyone enjoyed some ice cream, with Sun stealing some from Yang. Velvet, feeling more comfortable with the group as the conversation carried on, asked, "So how did everyone here get into show business?"
Yang, while Sun was taking some of her ice cream, smiled lightly and said, "I'm actually a stunt double. Haven't gotten any huge parts yet, but I've been working my way up the food chain. I'm only taking a lead role here because I happen to know the lead writer," Yang paused to give Ren a knowing look. "Apparently, the role was something I was born to play."
"What can I say? I based your character around Goldilocks and you do fit the role rather well." Ren said, shrugging slightly.
Ruby piped up as her spoon clattered into her empty bowl, "I started out in film and production actually. But then Yang, in one of her acting classes, met a certain someone." Ruby paused to nudge Blake in the shoulder. "Yang introduced me to Blake after their project, and she was the one who got me into acting. A few classes later, and a diploma, and here I am." The brunette sighed, a little disappointed, her tail wrapping lightly around Blake subconsciously. "And not much taller than I was then."
"And yet you can still outrun all of us as if we were walking," Blake said easily, giving Ruby's leg a comforting squeeze under the table.
"Yeah, there is that," Ruby said sheepishly, her hand resting on top of Blake's.
"Guess its my turn then," Blake said with a chuckle in her voice. "Do you remember that really old drama years ago, 'Chasing the Cattails?'" This drew blank stares from most everyone around her. "Don't feel bad, most people haven't. It wasn't very good. But, as a long shot, my parents let me apply for the child role. And, I got it. Strangely enough, critics said I was the only good part of that movie. I got a decent amount from it, and even received a single commercial deal. Then my parents decided, rather than cut me off from the world and have me just focus on being an actor, they wanted me to have an actual life."
"That's good on them," Velvet said with a nod. "A lot of parents might have tried to force their children to keep going."
"I'm glad they did it, but I still wanted to be an actress. So, using the money from my two gigs, they paid for an acting tutor through my high school years, and then sent me off to Kuroyuri Academy, and I entered the acting program. Thankfully, I had been out of the scene for long enough I was able to lay low and slip under the radar as an established actress. While there, I met Yang, who introduced me to Ruby, who introduced me to Weiss, and brings us all the way back to Ren." Looking at Weiss for her to take over, Blake had to do a double take.
Neo and Weiss had finished both of the Mountain Glenn supremes that they had ordered and were halfway through the number sevens. But what shocked her and the rest of the table the most was that the diminutive pair was keeping pace with each other. "Whaa… How… I haven't seen anyone keep pace with Weiss before." Jaune said, shocked almost into silence.
"Probably because Neo enjoys ice cream just as much, Jaune." Pyrrha quipped, sliding her bowl to the side of the table.
"Whatever gave you that idea?" Velvet asked with a laugh.
Nora chuckled, as she tapped Weiss on the shoulder, "Weiss, come on up for air. It's your turn to tell Velvet and Neo how you got into show biz."
"Mmhhrr? Oh, sorry." Weiss said, swallowing her mouthful of ice cream. "My family has been working in the film industry ever since my grandfather got into the business. So as you can imagine I kind of grew up around people who worked in cinematography. My sister actually is the lead producer of RWBY."
Once Weiss finished, Sun realized that, as if on cue, all eyes had turned to him. Giving a small smirk, he leaned back in his seat and put his hands behind his head, his shirt opening up to reveal his muscled torso. "I just needed a job. Living in the area, being a stagehand was just the easiest way to a stable job. Schnee Productions needed someone who could go all day carrying heavy equipment. I didn't build up these abs just for show." It was at this moment that Yang's elbow crashed into Sun's gut, knocking the air out of him.
"You've got the abs, that should have been nothing!" Yang laughed. "I'll show you how it should be! Go on, try me! Punch my abs!"
The group watched as Sun, without holding back, struck Yang in the gut, only earning a small flinch and a wink. "That all you got?" Yang teased.
Sun returned the smile, straightening up and visibly flexing once more. "Fine then, take another shot. You won't do much better."
The group gradually lost interest, as the two blondes proceeded to punch each other in the stomach repeatedly, neither one wanting to give way first. The table skipped over Ren, because his presence in the industry was obvious to anyone involved. And that, landed them on Neo.
Shaking her head with a chuckle, Neo focused her attention on the others, "I guess that makes me next. Not too much to say really, I've always had a love of gymnastics and that opened me up to doing stunts, parkour, martial arts, that sort of thing. A couple of bad calls by me had my dad at wits end and I wanted to do better, make up for past problems I caused y'know? My old man did help where he could of course. I took a few acting classes and here I am."
Next to her sat Jaune and Pyrrha, who both looked at each other, and laughed. "We actually just happen to be locals," Pyrrha said lightly. "We both applied for roles, ended up doing a test screen together, and got picked as characters. Ren just changed the names to match ours. Said something about how it was meant to be."
Nora, having just finished her ice cream, chose this moment to interject. "I'm actually the odd one out here. I know, you never would have guessed. But I started as a physical therapy major, and had nothing to do with film. But one day, the stunt double class managed to convince our department to wait on site as trainers and light injury personnel. And while we watched the maniacs throw themselves in front of cars, I noticed Ren watching too. I talked to him, he talked to me, we started dating, and he wrote me a part!"
The table laughed at Nora's candid response, but at the same time, all eyes turned on the last remaining party. Velvet sat at the end of table, enthralled by the stories. By the time she noticed that everyone was watching her, the laughter had long since died down.
"Oh me?" Velvet asked, pointing to her chest as she spoke. "Oh I'm nothing special. I just applied for a small role. Single line, two appearances, that sort of thing. But Ren came up to me afterwards, and started talking to me about long term plans for my character. Most of it went over my head, but from what I can tell, he really enjoyed my one line reading." Velvet laughed lightly, a slight blush coming over her face.
"Don't sell yourself short," Ren cut in, a small smile on his lips. "That one line was just to see who would apply for the character. It embodies the character. It displays who they are as a person, and how they would react in such a situation. I always had big plans for your character, it just had to be the right person in the role."
"I... Um... Thanks." The rabbit Faunus said, hiding her eyes behind her ears in embarrassment.
Ruby's voice disturbed the quiet words of encouragement from the others, "Weiss, no more. You're going to make yourself sick and the last thing I want to be doing tonight is scrubbing the stench of vomit out of my tail!"
"But it's all right there. I'll pay for it, they know I will." The blue eyed actress said, starting to stand up.
"Yep, we crossed that line. YANG, stop punching Sun and help me out here!" The silver eyed cat Faunus cried, her tail fluffing out in irritation.
Yang, on hearing her sister's voice, stopped her punch mid-swing, turning around and seeing the look in the young heiress' eyes. "Oh not this again…"
In an single movement, Yang grabbed Weiss's arm, stepped out of the booth, and lifted the smaller woman over her shoulder. With Weiss yelling and kicking, she made her way to the counter, and with a small nod behind her, she said "Ren will cover us." With that, she turned and made her way out the door, Weiss shouting at her to put her down.
While all of this was happening, and while Ren was paying, no one noticed a small brunette step behind the counter in a completely confident manner, and make her way to the freezer in the back of the store. As the group turned to leave, the green eyed brunette slipped back into place, carrying two tubs of ice cream, one neapolitan, and one blueberry.
Twenty minutes later, a cry of alarm went up in the back room. The missing ice cream had been noticed. And in their places rested two fifty dollar bills. Thirty dollars more than the ice cream was worth. Nonetheless, the manager swore, loudly, and for the rest of the night, insisted that there would be hell to pay next those two came in.
It was a few blocks, and a quite a few strange looks, before Weiss calmed down enough for Yang to put her down. Weiss indignantly straightened out her jacket and smoothed her blouse flat, ignoring the chuckles behind her.
"I don't know why Yang stopped, we were enjoying the show," Blake said with a laugh, only to receive a light elbow from Ruby.
"Maybe because she would have ended up hitting her with her purse again? I wonder what she keeps in it to hurt so much? Maybe buckles?" The cat Faunus pondered aloud.
It was at this moment that Neo slipped through the crowd of people to rejoin the group, silently handing Weiss the tub of blueberry ice cream. Weiss stood in shock for a moment, starting are the plastic tub in her hand, before suddenly throwing her arms around the shorter woman.
"I don't know what you did, or how you did it, but today you have become one of my favorite people," Weiss whispered in the brunette's ear.
"Don't mention it," Neo whispered back, before the two disengaged, holding their treasures close to their chest.
There was a moment of silence as the group all stared at the two girls, not quite sure what they had just seen. A couple of them had seen the small plastic bin transition from one girl to the other, but beyond that, they couldn't tell what had happened.
Sun was the first one to break the silence. "Soooo… Velvet, what were you saying about needing a place to stay? Because I know Yang has an empty bedroom she has been looking to rent out."
"I was actually just about to ask about that," Ren said lightly. "The company is currently housing both Velvet and Neo in a hotel, but if any of you can take them in, I would greatly appreciate it."
"No, that's great!" Yang said excitedly. "I've been looking for a new roommate ever since Ruby moved out!"
"Yang, you and I both know that apartment can't fit more than two! That and you know I still visit almost everyday!" The silver eyed cat Faunus interjected.
"But it does make for some killer parties," Sun cut in.
"Sun, don't go getting any big ideas. It can still hardly hold the group, we don't need you to try to invite a few dozen people again. The landlord is still mad at me." Yang replied flatly.
"But it was fun though," Sun said with a wink. "But that solves one problem, if Velvet wants it."
"I'd have to look at it first, of course," Velvet replied shyly. "But if Yang will have me, I'd be happy to accept."
"Of course you're welcome, roomie!" Yang laughed, throwing her arm around Velvet.
"One down, one to go." Ren chuckled. "What about you Neo? Do you have any plans yet?"
Weiss cleared her throat, while trying to hide the tub of ice cream Neo had handed her, "Actually, ever since I moved out of Qrow and Winter's place my afternoons and nights have been rather… well boring. Neo I have plenty of space in my apartment, if you're willing?"
Neo coughed, as she hid her tub of ice cream, a little surprised at the offer, "Are you sure about this? Not that I don't appreciate the offer, I mean. I really do. But we just met today, and I don't want to intrude. Its your place, I'm sure you're not used to having a flatmate, and I would feel so bad if you were forcing yourself to do this. I mean-."
"Positive," Weiss said, cutting her off. "Besides if for some reason you get tired of me, I'm pretty confident we could find you another apartment."
"Alright then. If you're sure. Let's give it a shot." The green eyed acrobat said, shrugging slightly. "Thank you," she whispered much more lightly.
"The ice cream is thanks enough." The alabaster haired actress whispered in reply.
The group walked for a short distance more, until Ruby and Blake stopped on a corner, hugging people goodbye and saying farewell to their new coworkers. It wasn't long before the couple disappeared around a corner in the opposite direction as the larger group trudged on. Yang and Velvet left next, with Yang insisting on having Velvet test drive the apartment tonight.
"Alright this is where I leave you guys too. I've got a few friends to meet up with before I head home." Sun said, nodding to nearby bar.
"Just make sure you still show up tomorrow before we start shooting. I was serious about wanting your opinion." Ren said, nodding slightly, with some difficulty as Nora had effectively taken the use of one of his arms.
"I will, catch you all bright and early!" The monkey Faunus said, waving as he entered the bar.
The remaining group carried on for a short distance before coming to once last corner and turning to face each other. Ren smiled and was about to say something, when he noticed exactly what it was that the girls were carrying.
"Weiss, Neo," Ren said flatly. "Please tell me those are at least paid for."
"Of course I paid for them. I mean, I did get them from the freezer, but they are paid for." Neo replied, without a hint of remorse.
Ren was at loss for words at the brazen act, the most he could manage to convey his displeasure was a deep frown. "Lighten up, Renny. Neo paid for the ice cream, it's not like she robbed a bank or held up an orphanage." Nora said, poking the writer lightly in the cheek after a minute.
Ren didn't say anything for a few moments as he just stared at the two girls across from him, neither one of them ashamed about what they had done. Eventually he sighed and said, "Fine. I still think we aren't going to hear the end of it from that manager, though. He's already annoyed with you."
"Oh he'll be fine," Weiss laughed as she waved her hand dismissively. "I know I already keep that store in the black by myself, so I think they can let this slide."
"Just… just don't let me see it happen again. I don't want to be held as an accomplice if either of you get in trouble. And that goes for you too Nora." The pink eyed man said, looking pointedly at each of the three women.
Weiss and Neo both looked at each other and then at Ren before answering almost in unison, "No promises."
"Then I guess that will have to do. We'll see you both tomorrow on set then, hopefully Glynda will have more than two clipboards around. The next scene has… more intensive choreography than the last." Ren sighed, as he rubbed the back of his head with his free hand.
There was a collective groan as all of them remembered exactly how well the day had gone. Even Neo, who had been a casual observer, could already feel her heart sink.
"But that is another day," Ren said lightly. "You two get some rest, enjoy the night. Neo, let me know if it doesn't work out, I can work with you to find something. And please, for the love of everything I have worked for. PLEASE, do not eat all of that ice cream in one sitting."
Weiss and Neo shared one more collective glance, before smiling and replying, "No promises."
As Weiss and Neo walked around the corner Nora let her feet start to drag. "Carry me?" She asked, giving her boyfriend her best puppy impression.
"Sure." He replied, unable to hold back a small smile as he swept the orange haired woman up into his arms and continued to walk down the block toward their home.
AN:
BurningPeace: I'm sorry… I think I need a moment to deal with this.
Phoenix Commander: I don't and I'm not apologizing for this. Mostly because it gets you writing again and because let's face it we are going to have a lot of fun with this.
Peace: But its just so… meta.
Phoenix: At least it's not breaking the fourth wall.
Peace: In the most roundabout way possible. This is what I get for drinking with you.
Phoenix: I'm just happy we finally got this started. I mean we've literally been planning this since April!]
Peace: I'm sorry, what part of me makes you think I work fast anymore?
Phoenix: I blame your day job. We also have that other thing we need to work on too.
Peace: Its on the list. Along with this, my other two stories, and sleep.
Phoenix: As I told you, as long as we write one day a week I won't complain. And neither will our versHIon of the cast.
Peace: I write every day of the week. Unfortunately, sometimes it's only like a dozen words. That I delete the next day. BUT IT HAPPENS DAMMIT!
Phoenix: Come on you're having fun working with me and you know it.
Peace: Of course. It's not like I left a hidden code in the story for people to find what basement you are keeping me locked in. I get fed daily, why would I do that.
Phoenix: … I actually have no words for that. But we are starting to ramble.
Peace: Were we doing anything else?
Phoenix: No, but I don't think our readers need to see this devolve into a drunk writing spree. We should save that for when we're working on another chapter.
Peace: I look forward to it. Until then, I hope that everyone here has enjoyed the chapter. Let us know what you think, be it by review, follow, favorite, or just pming one of us. We'd love to hear your thoughts.