Rustling Rose

Darknessxxx

Author's Notes: So at one point I had a thought. What if someone had a crush on Yang? And what if this someone would constantly hit on her, but Yang would shoot him down without even realizing it? Then I thought, what if instead of Yang someone started flirting with young "Naïve and innocent" Ruby? And what if this person had a Mohawk? But that's silly, how would something like that even begin happening? … I wonder…

I do not own RWBY

"Stupid Cardin!" despite being little more than whispered, Russel Thrush's words could easily be heard in the empty hallway that led to Beacon's weapons workshop. Though he couldn't see past the sheer amount of weapons and armour in his grasp, he knew that there was a set of double doors at the end of the hall. He sighed before staggering through the hall, trying his best not to drop anything. Fortunately for him it was late in the evening, so the hallway was empty.

He somehow made it to the doors without incident where he shifted his load in such a way that freed one of his hands. He used his newly freed hand, carefully, turned the knob and used his feet to push the door inwards. He then quickly turned around and used the back of his shoulder to prevent the door from closing back on him.

He was just about ready to back into the room when he could just sense something about to slip from his precarious pile. "No, no no no, no, no" Russel cried in vain as, what turned out to be Cardin's mace, slipped and fell onto his foot.

"Yeowch!" he instinctively grabbed onto his injured foot, dropping Cardin, Dove and Sky's plate amour, sword and axe, along with, somehow, his own daggers, in the process. After rubbing his injured foot for a few seconds, he stood upright and looked at the scattered weapons and armour in dismay. His eyes fell on the spread wing bird design on Cardin's chest plate, and he was reminded of why he was in his predicament in the first place.

The four of them, Cardin, Dove, Lark and himself, were in their room. He had already taken off his gear, and had was just about comfortable in his bed. Cardin, meanwhile, had just taken off and was examining his armour. "Say, Russel…" Cardin said after he finished his contemplation.

Russel didn't even have to hear what he had to say, he knew that wouldn't be good for him.

"…Be a pal for me" Cardin went on saying. "Take this down to the armoury and buff this dent for me. I can't go around looking like some kind of vagabond bum, now can I?"

Maybe it was because he was already comfortable and didn't want to get up; maybe the symphony of swords clashing between the couple sparring on the roof had put him in a rebellious mood; or maybe he was just fed up with takin orders from Cardin; whatever the reason, Russel responded to Cardin saying "why not, you do it all the time anyway?"

"What did you just say!?" Cardin said angrily.

"I said, clean it yourself!" Russel said defiantly.

"Ooh…" Cardin said, making his way towards Russel. "Remind me again, just which of us is the leader of this little team of ours?"

"Well I uh…"Russel stammered for an answer. Cardin was now standing next to his bed, his particularly large frame intimidating whatever confidence Russel had right out of him. He looked around for support, Sky was deliberately trying to avoid eye contact, and Dove genuinely didn't care. "…You are" Russel barely whispered.

"That's right" Cardin said. "And as Team leader I am entitled to certain privileges. Such as when I politely ask one of you to do something, I can expect you to do it!"

"I err, well I…" Russel was stammering for words. Cardin was now leaning over him, his angry face menacingly close.

"So I'm going to ask again!" Cardin said, slowly. "Russel! Old buddy old pal! Would you do me a favour, and fix this dent in my armour!?"

"…Yes…" Russel whimpered.

"What was that?" Cardin said. "You say, that not only will you do that, but you'll also sharpen my mace for me?"

"Uh…" Russel continued stammering.

"In fact you are going to fix up all of our equipment!" Cardin was no longer asking.

Looking at Cardin's chest plate and thinking about how he had coerced him into doing his dirty work for him gave Russel an overwhelming urge to kick the thing as hard as he could. He brought his still aching foot back, and was just about to, when a voice called to him.

"Need a hand?"

Russel looked up to see a girl in a red hood watching him. At her side was a white sword that stood out against her black and red blouse and combat skirt. Over her shoulder was yet another black sword, and on her wrists were a set of yellow bracelets.

"What?" Russel said.

The girl lowered her hood, revealing that she had chin length reddish black hair, and silver eyes. Russel recognized the girl from his some of his classes, but he couldn't put a name to her face.

"I said, do you need a hand?" the girl said. "It looks like you can't carry all that."

Russel crossed his arms and turned his nose up at her "I don't need you helping me" he said, in his best 'cool' voice.

"Oh, it's no problem" the girl said, and before he could protest she started picking up what his team's equipment. Since he didn't want to look like she, he quickly picked up as much as he could. Once they had gotten everything they opened the doors and went inside.

Beacon's weapons workshop was a large room with aisles of workbenches. One of the walls was covered in hand tools and small power tools, such as: hammers, screwdrivers drills, saws and whetstones and files; another section of the workshop had the heavy, bolted to the ground, machines: sand blasters, drill presses, belt sanders, and the like; and on the far wall opposite the doors they came in, was a wall of DUST: vials, raw crystals, and ammunition.

The whole place had a distinct smell to it that caused Russel to rustle his nose. The girl with him, however, inhaled loudly. "Ah, I just love coming here" she said. "The smell of hot metal and oil!"

"Yeah it's…" before Russel could articulate his opinion, the girl kept talking.

"Not to mention there's everything you need to maintain all of our gear!" she squealed.

"…Right, it's …" once again Russel was cut off.

"And if you come during the day you get to see all sorts of neat weapons, and just… ah!" by now the girl was practically dancing on the spot. She had a wide grin on her face and was hyperventilating.

Russel stood dumbfounded. He still wasn't sure who the girl in front of him was, but she was clearly passionate about… well Russel couldn't tell exactly what she was passionate about, but he did find it kind of endearing. "Are you okay?" he heard himself saying.

"Yeah, yeah sorry about that" the girl said "Just silly Ruby being overzealous over weapons again. I can be a bit of a dork sometimes." She lightly hit herself on the head to emphasize her point.

"Ruby! That's her name!" Russel finally remembered. He recalled that she was the leader of her own team. Looking at her he thought that she was actually kind of cute, and her silly me gesture, wasn't about to convince him otherwise. He realized that he was staring, and promptly placed the CRDL equipment on the nearest workbench, Ruby did so as well.

Now, seeing the workload in front him, Russel let out an exasperated sigh. He figured he should start with the dent in Cardin's armour, since it was why he was there in the first place. He placed the front of his chest plate in the table's built in rubber clamps, and went to get the tools he needed to beat the dent out.

A short while after beginning his task, he "coincidentally" glanced over to Ruby. In the short time since they started she had already taken the black sword/gun she had, and had already completely disassembled it, with its finer parts in neat lines, and was running a whetstone over the blade. Then she looked up at him, and he immediately went back to hammering out the dent.

"So are you working on your whole team's equipment?" Ruby asked.

"Not by choice" Russel admitted. "But our fearless leader can't go around looking like some sort of vagabond bum. So here I am, bumping out dents and polishing armour."

"That's ridiculous!" Ruby said. "The weapons I can understand, but in what possible situation is how someone looks going to stop a GRIMM?

"Maybe if I polish it enough, it could blind them" Russel joked. Ruby let out a small laugh, which Russel considered a small accomplishment. "Hey, mind if I ask you something?" he said.

"Shoot!" Ruby said. She must have finished working on the gun/sword because she had moved on to removing the DUST from the white sword she had with her.

"Aren't you the leader of your team?" Russel asked.

"Yup!" Ruby answered, while she cleaned the glass casings. "And together with my best friends Weiss and Blake and my sister Yang, we make up Team RWBY! Why'd you ask?"

"So if you're the leader…" Russel began. "Then shouldn't you not have to...? I mean couldn't you get someone else to…?"

"Why didn't I appoint someone else to weapon's duty?" Ruby finished his thought for him.

"Yeah" Russel nodded.

"Two reasons" Ruby said. "First, if you haven't noticed, I am all about peoples' weapons and equipment!"

"Right" Russel nodded.

"I mean take this" she indicated to the white sword she was working on. "How many times do you get to see a 'Multi Action DUST Rapier…?" She must have realized that she was starting to monologue, and stopped before she could really get started. "…Ahem… anyway, the second, and most important reason that I'm the one is thanks to Team RWBY's Unbiased Errand equalizer (RUbEE for short)… Patent pending!"

Russel confusion couldn't be clearer, a look that Ruby seemed to have counted on. She gave him a sly smile and leaned closer to him. He did as well.

"It's also known as…" she whispered. She was close enough that Russel could now smell the scent of chocolate chip cookies that surrounded her. "…The Chore wheel!" Ruby finished.

The silence between them lasted barely a second before Ruby's sly smile broke into a small laugh. Her laughing caused Russel to start laughing. He had forgotten how mad he had been when he was first sent down to the workshop. Now here he was, laughing with a cute girl and having a genuine good time.

They moved on to her telling jokes about her team that went over Russel's head. He joked about his team, which went over her head. She showed him her High Caliber Fully Customizable Sniper Scythe. He said "That's a big scythe".

Eventually Ruby finished cleaning and calibrating her team's weapons, Russel still had some polishing left. She packed up and got up to leave when Russel called out to her. "Hey before you go" he said.

"Yes?" she said.

"What do you say you and I, this weekend maybe the two of us we…" he took a deep breath and let out what he wanted to say. "You want to go see a movie or something!?"

"No" the speed to which she answered put a lump in the pit of his stomach. "I'm busy this weekend" she said. "Maybe some other time. Anyway, see you around Brussel." And then she left.

"Some other time…" that small string of words inspired quite a bit of optimism in Russel. "Sure I didn't score that date…" he thought. "But maybe…"

Author's Notes cont.: Now you're probably thinking "She's only fifteen... etcetera etcetera…" But… I doubt Russel knows that, plus it never came up in conversation.