Blake stood before the mirror and tried not to think about the fact that he was in the girl's bathroom. He got enough flack for being a recently outted faunus; no need to draw more attention by coming out as a guy too.

He'd hidden one part of himself for well over a year; so he could hide this, too. Easy enough.

Except generally hiding his faunus heritage didn't directly harm him. In fact, there were a number of benefits to not being recognized as such. Even if he hated the implications of that. But this was…different. Phantom pains and discomfort to the point of nausea, especially in classes where he had to pretend everything was alright when it wasn't. He couldn't even stand being looked at like this - it was all wrong, everything was wrong-

"Blake?"

The feline jumped at the sound of his teammate, even though normally his faunus hearing was sensitive enough to pick any extra noises up. He was just so distracted lately, didn't even notice Ruby in the damn reflection-

"I said I'd be back to class-"

"Class sorta kinda ended…like fifteen minutes ago?" Ruby breathed a laugh, rubbing at the back of her neck in a way that for once reminded the feline that the redhead was in fact related to Yang.

"Is - is everything alright?" Ruby stepped forward, took her other hand out from behind her back and Blake's eyes flashed to the wig. His wig.

He cowered back against the counter, ears flicking in distress. "Yang told me so I'd stop worrying," Ruby rushed to explain, cheeks burning, and Blake relaxed a little - his leader sure knew how to worry, but that didn't stop her from being cute - "and when you disappeared from class I thought maybe…"

She trailed off, hand still outstretched. Blake took a step forward, gingerly took the wig from his leader, settled it over his ears, finally getting that damned long hair off the back of his neck where it prickled like some overgrown weed.

Now that he could think straight, it hit him harder that Ruby was blushing. And it was sorta cute. Of course, he thought everything Ruby did was cute, the way she looked out for her team no matter how ridiculous or small the problem, that stupid, reckless belief in happy endings, all of it gave Blake something to hope for, something to latch onto and believe in again.

"Sorry, I-I couldn't find the binder, and I didn't wanna go through all your stuff, and that was just sitting out so-"

Blake hushed the girl with a swift hug; regardless of the tightness at his chest, the wig had been more than enough. "Thank you, Ruby," he said, his voice coarse and low, sincere and quiet.

"Anything for you," Ruby breathed, contented, eyes drifting shut as she took in Blake's scent - and then snapping open as she realized what she'd said. "I-I mean - anything for a teammate, of course, and not just cuz you're my team, cuz you're my friend too and-"

Blake pulled back with a light smirk, his leader's stammering helping him forget the lack of a binder for the moment. And then an idea - an extremely inappropriate idea, and totally selfish idea, but Ruby obviously wasn't going to say anything about this sort of thing so - why not?

He crushed Ruby back into another hug, right against his chest, taking the pressure off for a moment, and hot lips ghosted the startled younger girl's mouth.

But Ruby didn't jerk away, thank god, only pushed against him harder, blushing furiously, and Blake realized with some amusement that this was probably Ruby's first kiss.

Oops. Not exactly the most romantic spot, but he'd done worse.

They broke apart, and the redhead barely stopped to catch her breath. "Um - so - yeah, we can go back to the room to get your binder, Weiss isn't there so-"

Blake just rolled his eyes. He'd definitely have to talk to Yang about letting his secret spill like that to her little sister, but then again, it was hard to resist their leader's charm. Ruby was everybody's weakness.

As proven.

Oops.

"-and I can check the halls to make sure no one is there-"

Blake cringed as he focused back in on the conversation. Right. He was still technically hiding this from everyone. Except Yang, and thanks to his partner's inability to resist her sister, now Ruby.

Though Yang had been trying to talk him into opening up about it; part of the reason Blake believed he'd told the blonde. If anyone could convince him of the positive side of coming out, it'd be his partner. And it had started to work; he was seriously considering it, more and more now.

But - it was still scary.

"Ruby?"

The girl paused, and Blake was partially satisfied cuz that blush was still there, and deepened when he said her name.

"Yeah, Blake?"

"Thank you."

Ruby's face was turning the color of her cloak, and frankly the feline was impressed she hadn't passed out yet. "Anything for you."

And this time, she didn't try and qualify it. She hugged Blake a second time, relieving the uncomfortable pressure against his chest, and nuzzled under his chin.

Blake, for his part, absolutely melted.

And for a moment, the walk back to their dorm seemed like a distant nightmare.