Author's Notes: I don't own any of the characters appearing in this work and only claim to do so when I'm drunk. First posted on 4chan's /RWBYg/ and inspired by the excellent comic Tonari No Seki-Kun.
Weiss Schnee was sitting in Professor Port's class, listening to him drone on about some youthful exploit that was at least half fictional and, as always, was taking diligent notes. It's not that she thought the lesson was particularly important, in fact she was a little unsure what the point of the lecture even was, though she had been transcribing it for the last half hour. She was taking these notes for her teammates. Not to share, though she didn't necessarily have any problems with doing so, so long as they admitted her scholarly superiority and that their own lackadaisical nature was going to be their undoing. She was doing this for appearances.
Because she wanted to set a good example.
For Ruby.
Because she was young and impressionable.
Of course.
Ruby, for her part hadn't written a thing this period unless you counted doodles of Nora riding an Ursa and what seemed to be either a fight between a Boarbatusk and Yang or something unusually obscene. Weiss couldn't tell, but she assumed it was the former out of politeness, if nothing else.
Now, however, she had put aside her pencil and didn't even have the decency to pretend to write notes in her notebook. Instead, she was flagrantly shuffling a deck of cards on the table in front of her. Professor Port, of course, was caught up in his own story too much to notice, but Weiss was finding it harder to concentrate with her team leader being so disrespectful right next to her.
Still, she tried. Head down, ears open, mechanical pencil scribbling, never mind Ruby fanning the cards face down for her...
Wait, what?
Weiss looked over and saw Ruby sitting, facing her with a giant smile and a twinkle in her eye usually reserved for getting the biggest slice of pie. She nodded to the cards spread in her hands, silently offering Weiss a chance to pick a card. Weiss regarded her with an icy glare and said nothing. Ruby waggled her eyebrows as if to make clear she meant any card.
Weiss continued to stare, stone-faced. She knew she had a reputation as an ice queen, but sometimes the world just needed a glacier, damn it!
Ruby shrugged, smile never waning or wavering and unfanned the deck. She shuffled a couple more times and cut the deck, revealing the middle card with a small flourish.
The Queen of Atlas.
Weiss pursed her lips. She glared at the black card, then turned her gaze ever so slowly on Ruby.
Ruby waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Weiss tried very hard not to read anything into the card selection, but, after failing, tried her hardest to psychically transmit the word "idiot" into Ruby's brain. It didn't seem to work, judging by how Ruby started shuffling the deck again. Weiss watched her with the same morbid curiosity that made people read comments sections online. She knew there was nothing good here, but she just couldn't look away.
Ruby stopped shuffling and turned over the top card on the deck with a showy flourish.
The Queen of Atlas.
Weiss looked from the card to Ruby and to the card again, regarding each with the same level of distain. Ruby waggled her eyebrows again, proud of her accomplishment. It was a neat enough trick, Weiss supposed. For a beginner. Not really impressive in the grand scheme of things, of course. Still, this was not the time nor the place for such foolishness and Weiss was going to have no part in encouraging it. Instead she turned back to her notes.
She'd missed quite a bit of what Professor Port had said while she was distracted, but honestly it couldn't be anything really important. Still, she hurried to scratch out what he was saying and at the same time figure out what she had missed. She wrote down to the very last line on the page and quickly turned it to begin on the next.
The Queen of Atlas.
Weiss' eyes bugged out. There on the next page was the card Ruby had drawn from the deck. It wasn't possible, she thought. She had been watching Ruby and her notebook the entire time, it just wasn't possible. Yet here it was, staring back at her, mocking the very notion of reality. Out of the corner of her eye, Weiss saw Ruby lean into peripheral view. She was wearing the same giant smile. She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Must. Not. React.
With one hand, Weiss grabbed the card and crumpled it into a ball. Without looking she tossed it into Ruby's face. She felt bad.
Well, she should feel bad.
She'll buy her a new deck of cards. But for right now she needs to take notes. She needs to take notes more than she ever needed to take notes in her life. Notes were reasonable. Notes were sane. Weiss was sane. Weiss took notes.
Weiss felt a tug on her elbow. She ignored it. Nothing good could come from seeing what Ruby was up to. Best case scenario, she was crying. Worst case, she had another magic trick.
No, scratch that. Worst case was she was crying and had a magic trick.
She felt the tug again, more insistent than the first. Weiss gritted her teeth and paid attention only to the words coming from Port and onto the paper. The thought that Ruby was probably going to be responsible for Weiss grinding her molars down to the stubs flickered to life and was quickly extinguished as she wrote down how Port used carrots to entice a Boarbatusk into pulling a sled one impossibly cold winter.
She felt the tug at her elbow again.
Weiss spun in her chair to face her antagonist with a scowl that could curdle milk. Ruby wore the same excited smile and gestured across the room. Several seats down, across the aisle, on the other side of the room sat Jaune. He was staring right into Weiss' eyes, wearing Ruby's grin. He was holding a card.
The Queen of Atlas.
He waggled his eyebrows.
Ruby waggled her eyebrows.
Everything went red for a moment. Weiss said nothing, fearing she popped a blood vessel but refused to show emotion. Emotion was the enemy. They fed off it. Show any and this will just get weirder. She couldn't even glare. A heartbeat later she realized that was literally true, her face was refusing to glare.
She turned back to her notes and tried writing the professor's words again. Two minutes later she realizes she had somehow lost him and looked over what she had written to find her place, whereupon she realized she had been writing the same four words over and over again.
The Queen of Atlas.
Weiss' scar itched.
Suddenly, an epiphany struck. She knew the trick! The cards were all copies of the Queen of Atlas! Ordinarily you wouldn't be able to pick up on it, but she had proof! She looked at the crumpled up card on the table next to her with a crazed grin. Jaune couldn't have the original Queen of Atlas! It was right there!
Ruby saw Weiss staring at the crumpled up card and smoothed it out against the table. With the same, unmoving smile she flipped the card over.
The Eight of Mistral.
Professor Port ended his lecture, but Weiss didn't hear him. Her mind was filled with the sound of shattering glass and screaming as if from far away.
Ruby waggled her eyebrows.