Just Sorta Happened
Summary: She just wanted to make an awkward situation into a not-so-awkward one...and then this happened.
It wasn't the usual set-up.
Ruby was sitting on her bed, as it hung precariously over Weiss's, trying to digest the mountain of information from Port's class. Although, she felt like it wasn't necessary due to, well, it felt like all the notes she took were of his life, not his subject. So, there went a paper flying from her hand to the other end of her bed.
Diagonally down below was Blake, leaning against her pillows with a book in hand and her knees up to hold it. Delicately, she pulled the corner of one page and turned it over, her eyes trained on the passages.
The red-schemed girl sighed with discontent, sounding bored as no one but these two lounged in the room. And well? The other two lives of the party weren't here to talk to - not that Blake was a hard person to chat with. Oh, no, of course not. If anyone was difficult to talk to it'd be either Yang or Weiss.
And if Ruby wasn't sisters with Yang, then she probably wouldn't be able to keep up with the girl's temperament. And if Ruby wasn't partnered up with Weiss, then the heiress would probably end up still hating her like there was no tomorrow.
So why didn't Ruby start idle chitchat with the black-haired female? Simple. She respected Blake by a lot to leave her in peace, and she'd feel bad distracting the girl from what could be some epic storytelling on those pages. Not that she'd say it allowed because their actions provide enough communication as is, but… Well… Okay, fine.
Truth be told, they'd never gotten into an one-on-one conversation with each other without the other two present in the situation so...how was she supposed to start a conversation? Heck, the leader of RWBY was beginning to think it'd be easier if Jaune was around to break the ice in her stead. He'd probably come off as something close to sauve or close to charismatic. Or something close to a guy hitting on a girl. Although, she never once seen him try to put the moves on her or Blake and, huh,
"...Weird…" Ruby had mistakenly said aloud, which caught the older girl's attention.
"Something wrong, Ruby?" Blake questioned, her eyes never leaving the book, but her voice directed at the youngest member.
Did she- Did she say that out loud?
"O-Oh, uh, well," she stammered, trying to be the sort of leader who didn't stumble over her words in the face of her comrades. Yep. She was starting to be like Jaune at this point. She could very well hear her first friend's protest. "Uh…"
"Just thinking aloud?"
Oh, she was good. Maybe Blake read detective novels from time to time?
"Y-Yeah," Ruby responded, chuckling nervously. Then she swung her feet over the side of the bed and rested her elbows on her knees. "S-So, what book are you reading tonight?"
The older girl closed her eyes for a moment, as if digesting the question would prove difficult. "Re-reading is the verb you're looking for," she corrected before closing the thick novel in hand and turning to look up at the other girl. Ruby felt a slight chill whenever she saw the other girl's eyes - yellow, calculating, mysterious. That's probably what described Blake the most - well, except the yellow part. Unless you're solely describing her eyes. Or the fact that she follows Yang closely because they were obligated partners in the school.
The leader leaned over and gave her a curious look with her usually big silver eyes, "Nothing new to read? Why not check out the library?"
Blake shrugged, "I wanted something simple to read tonight."
"Oh, like what?" she questioned, eagerly. Yep! She could start a conversation just fine! Although, she was getting wary on how to continue it without asking such simple questions.
"Something…" the black-schemed girl trailed, her voice dying out. This was causing Ruby to panic. Maybe she wasn't fond of talking to someone younger without another person in the room? Or maybe she didn't think Ruby would have the same preference? Or maybe- "...Fantasy? Heroic?" Oh good. The younger girl thought her heart was going to stop if Blake got bored of the conversation and unintentionally created an awkward atmosphere in the room.
Then Ruby would have to make some lame excuse such as going to the bathroom or probably saying she remembered that she needed to tell Yang about a teacher needing her. That didn't happen, so, she was relieved. Then Ruby poured in some thought in what Blake could read. A fairy tale would definitely be the first sort of story that'd come to mind; but which one? The older girl probably read all of them if she said she was rereading a novel as thick as three bricks stacked on top of the other. She squinted her silvery eyes, and spotted the cursive letters, oh, it was an anthology of fairy tales.
Blake was a really serious reader, indeed.
"Um...how about we try writing one?" No, wait, Ruby, that's such a stupid idea. Ugh, why'd you have to go ahead and say that? The leader of RWBY started to mentally scold herself, feeling anxiety build up within her fifteen-year-old body. Why would someone as mature and mysterious as Blake want to do something as whimsical as writing a story? Especially with an already mediocre writer like Ruby? The only thing she's good at are writing short answers to homework assignments or some, um, decent essays. Okay, that was a lie. Weiss has been bagging on her to write more than the minimum, but ugh, that's always been annoying to do.
And, oh for love of it all, why wasn't Blake saying anything? The red-schemed girl was already feeling dread ball up and gradually dropping into her stomach. This has to be the longest period of time that anyone has stayed quiet.
Oh goodness. Oh my goodness. Blake, say something…!
Then came her smirk and that gave Ruby an entire spiel of confused feelings. What did that mean? Did that mean she was ready to tease her? Did Yang finally influence her enough to start tormenting the youngest of the quartet? Or maybe, yeah, the leader was just over-exaggerating everything? She does tend to do that, especially around older people.
"That actually sounds fun."
...That was surprising.
"R-Really?" Ruby managed to squeak, shyly. "I-I mean, y-you don't need to be nice. It sounds stupid and all and I-"
The other girl nodded, her arms crossed. "No, it sounds genuinely fun. How do you want to go about with this?"
"U-Uh…" How did she want to go about with this? Ruby honestly blurted it out without a second thought. "Maybe, um, base it on our lives?"
"Hmm…" Blake hummed, and for a second, Ruby could swear her bow made some slight movement, but that could be just a trick of the light. "...I think Yang could be a mercenary."
The scythe-wielder beamed, a grin forming on her lips as she climbed down from her bed, landing on the floor and sat on it, crosslegged. Her smile was practically blinding and caused the usually quiet girl to allow a chuckle to pass through her lips. "Oh! Oh! Then Weiss would be a mage!"
"Or more like an ice witch." Ruby stared at Blake, surprised, and the black-schemed girl quickly closed one hand over her mouth with her yellow eyes widened with astonishment. It seemed like that comment wasn't meant to have been thought aloud. "...Don't tell Weiss, please?"
The red-schemed girl nodded her head furiously, though, she couldn't help but giggle too. "It's cool - I think Yang being a mercenary is fitting to a ridiculously accurate degree! She's such a loose canon that she'd probably get kicked out of being a knight or something." They both started laughing, though Blake's was more of an amused chuckle.
"Then, I guess that'd make you a knight, wouldn't it?"
Ruby gave a surprised look at Blake, amazed that the girl would choose such a noble occupation for her. "No way, I'm too crazy and outta line and obviously reckless and-"
"You don't give yourself enough credit," Blake commented with a sore tone and the wave of her hand. She proceeded to getting up and then lowering herself to the floor until she sat with her legs to the side before Ruby. "You're noble to a weird degree and you're able to lead people. Also, didn't you tell me that making other people's lives better and safer was something you wanted to do?"
She couldn't help but become flustered at the sincerity in Blake's usually chilling tone. "Y-Yeah, then, um, you'd probably be a…" she trailed, trying to find a suitable class for her teammate. "A ninja! You're super quick and you do all of these swift combos like hi-yah and-" As she was explaining, the black-schemed girl watched her young leader flail her arms in a child attempt of making battle poses. Another chuckle passed by her lips like a whisper, though, she wouldn't admit that being called a ninja was flattering.
...And she'll never admit it.
"Maybe rogue?"
"Isn't that on the more antagonistic side?" Ruby questioned, then paused, and her eyes widened, "Oh! Are you suggesting that we have a double agent character? Are you going to be the double agent character?" she gasped, which made Blake's lined smile widen into a smirk. This was getting more amusing by the second. Ruby squealed, excited as the ideas started blossoming without warning. "That'd cause so much drama in the ragtag band of people!"
"Like trust issues on the horizon?" Okay, now she was getting into it too.
The younger girl nodded her head excitedly and looked around with great fervor. She stood up, rushing to a desk where the papers and pens were and quickly returned to her spot with the materials. She spread out the papers and started doodling and make notes. Blake watched with slight confusion to the lines and scribbles that made up Team RWBY and held a hand over her mouth to keep herself from laughing in the fact of her determined teammate.
She certainly captured the defining traits of each of them.
The red hood for her. The black bow for Blake. The uh… hairstyles for everyone at the very least. Although she could think of about fifty comments to make on Ruby's caricature alone, Blake refrained from doing so because she's always been fond of the whimsiness of others. She also became more tolerant seeing as how Yang has been her partner for about a month into the school year.
How she survived the girl's endless blabbering was beyond her.
"So what's the conflict?"
"Huh?" Ruby mumbled while labelling everyone's class status.
"Y'know, why they team up? We can't just say that it was for academic purposes since that would just be magical realism in a high school setting," Blake elaborated with slight exasperation. Who would want to read something like that anyway?
"Um…" After a few moments of silence, the leader snapped her fingers and the expression of realization was spread across her face. "Oh! How about they're magically bound to some contract? Each of them want to test her worth and have to pass some tests given by, uh, the great and powerful…"
"You mean you want to base a character off of Headmaster Ozpin?" the older girl questioned, bewildered. Again, Ruby thought she saw her bow move, but her mind was swamped with other thoughts to give it much thought. The younger girl blushed faintly, thinking of how stupid this was starting to sound, but she was getting really into writing the story.
"Uh, er, well…"
"Then we should add in the other professors as guardians for each of the tests our main characters have to go through in order to prove her worth."
Ruby stared at the other girl, astonished at how she casually accepted the idea without a second and even piled onto it. With a grin, she nodded and they spent the rest of the evening polishing up the idea and even the characters. Blake had decided on making Professor Ports the first 'boss' of sorts, by testing the patience of their version of "Weiss" while Ruby wanted to try to write out an event similar to their experience with the Night Terror and Deathstalker back in the Emerald Forest.
"The first trial is actually trying to get the wizard to listen, right?" Ruby questioned, twirling the pen between her fingers. She took to lying on her stomach with her legs kicking in the air. Blake still leaned against her bed, though, she was lower to the floor than the previous hour.
She gave it some thought and nodded, "How about only a select few can see the wizard and they need to travel across the oceans to see him?"
"Oh, just like our ride on the airship!"
"Yes, and how about his assistant…"
It started going from characters to setting to exposition then back to characters to plot and continued on an inconsistent pattern from then on.
The two kept bouncing ideas back and forth until five to seven pages of actual writing and somewhere between three to eight pages of poorly done doodles littered the space between the bunk beds and with the two sprawled on the floor, unexpectedly passed out. At around eleven, the rest of Team RWBY entered the premises; Yang with her hands on her wide hips and Weiss with her fingers pressed against her temples.
"Guess this is why I didn't see Ruby sprint into the cafeteria," the blonde commented with a slight halcyonic expression on her face. However, the shorter girl didn't seem to take any serious notice in the seemingly uncharacteristically soft look on the other girl's face. Instead, she focused on the sleeping half of their disorganized team. Both were still dressed in their uniforms while Blake and Ruby were in their pajamas, already prepared for bed, but not entirely on their bed.
Ruby was curled up into a ball, a pen in between her fingers with papers around and beneath her while Blake was in between leaning against the side of her bed to sliding onto the floor completely. A paper was on her lap, though, some were precariously falling off. Both were breathing softly, and nearly in unison.
"What a headache- she even dragged Blake down with her!" Weiss half-whispered and half-shouted, causing Yang to laugh sheepishly.
"Aww, don't be like that Weiss. It's just some good old team bonding!" Yang defended with a hearty tone, even when it came to other people being asleep, she never lowered her voice. Not that it affected the other two as they continued sleeping in peace.
The ice heiress rolled her eyes before stepping into the room, approaching the two snoozing team members. Her eyes scanned the papers that had scribbles of passages written on them and drawings of what looked like to the be them before promptly groaning. These two really needed to clean up this mess or else they'll have a terrible time waking up in the morning and slowing down her morning routine.
"Hey you two," she called, nudging both members roughly. "Wake up!"
They didn't move an inch and Weiss was growing increasingly annoyed. Yang sighed, knowing how Ruby got when she used up her energy enough to pass out without a second of consideration with her sleeping condition. Usually, she wouldn't bother, but that was because Ruby needed up sleeping on either an actual bed or a couch. Never on a floor. Although this was a nice sight to see in the perspective of a worrisome older sister to her troublesome younger one. She didn't think she'd ever see a sight like this when Ruby climbed up the scale by advancing two years ahead of her friends and getting put in with upperclassman. She had always been an...awkward girl, having trouble talking to others who are more confrontational than necessary - a reference to the unpleasant first encounter with Weiss could properly display Ruby's incompetence in the field of friend-making.
So when seeing her so at ease with someone besides Yang to the point where she passed out without a second thought was really reassuring. It meant that she could take her anxiety over her little sister's well-being down a few pegs and breathe easy. Ha, like she had anyone to impress, Yang was definitely going to keep on worrying about her precious little sister regardless of the number of friends she made. But, at least, for tonight, she'll feel more at ease.
She closed the door behind her, with a grin and silent chuckle while Weiss was irritably trying in vain to wake up their sleeping teammates.
"Aww, c'mon Weiss, just relax." Her light and easy tone returned to lighten the mood on the white-haired girl's soured air.
Weiss rolled her eyes once more, shaking the other two even more with a growing scowl. "This is just annoying!"
I thought I'd try doing a RWBY fanfiction.
Honestly, I was hoping for more character interaction between our four lady protagonists than the action in the series (who am I kidding - I watched the series for the action because of Haloid and Dead Fantasy after all.) so to try to satisfy my desire of character interaction between characters who don't talk to each other, I'm gonna assume the role of...being a fanfiction writer and doing what I want.
This idea has bugged me once I realized that Ruby and Blake could be really good friends, y'know, after getting past the awkward stages of initiating and carrying conversation. Then, I realized, that I should just translate their love for books and get them to work on writing one since they like them.
May as well, right?
I'm gonna try to write some more friendship fics between characters who don't interact. Until then, later everyone!
~Ventus
