Hey guys! So, this is a new set of drabbles and oneshots, for RWBY this time! These drabbles are written to be prior to the ending of Volume 3 unless specified otherwise. I hope you enjoy! ~Cheylock
Mistletoe: an Arkos and Flower Power drabble
"Yang, are you sure this will work?" Ruby asked, standing precariously on the edge of a chair that was currently being supported by one of Blake's ribbons, which was being held in place by a well-placed hook in the ceiling. Or, well, a horribly placed hook, if you were looking at it from a logical standpoint. In retrospect, this entire plan was horribly unsafe, and if Weiss had been in the room with them, she would have had an aneurism. However, she wasn't here at the moment, so they had decided to commence with Operation: Arkos.
"Positive! Now come on, we only have so long until JNPR gets back from the training grounds," Yang encouraged, getting under the chair and hiking it up just a little further as Ruby stood on her toes, securing a single item at the top of the doorway before jumping off the chair and into her sister's waiting arms. "Nice job!" she grinned after she set Ruby on the ground, admiring their handiwork as she undid the chair rig they'd set up. She placed her hands on her hips and looked up at the plant they'd hung up.
It was the week before Christmas vacation at Beacon, so festivities were in full swing. Team RWBY had exchanged Christmas presents earlier that day at breakfast, various students had helped put up a Christmas tree in the main hall outside the administration building, and Velvet had managed to figure out the technology of the communication hub on campus and made the lights outside the building switched between red, green, and a twinkling white. The atmosphere was a truly magical one, and everything was wonderful. One could argue that things were perfect, except there was one thing that was off. And that one thing was composed of two people: Jean Arc and PyrrhaNikos. They had been dancing around each other since the start of December, attempting to figure out what to give each other for Christmas, trying to ask each other to the winter formal and failing, and it was driving their friends absolutely crazy. They just really wanted them to get together. Everyone could see that they were perfect for each other, but neither one of them would admit their feelings for the other. It was pure torture to watch. Hence the small sprig of mistletoe now fluttering lightly above the doorway of their dorm room, leaves rustling from the faint breeze provided by the heater.
"Oh, I hope this works!" Ruby squealed in excitement before her ears perked up as she noticed a faint sound coming from down the hall. Soft voices, progressively becoming louder as they were accompanied by the sound of footsteps patting down the carpeted hallway. "It could be anyone," Ruby said, though she hushed her voice as she spoke just in case, just as Nora's loud laugh rang down the cooridor.
"Scatter!" Yang laughed, grabbing Ruby's hand and quickly dragging her back into their own dorm room across the hall from Team JNPR's just as the team rounded the corner.
"…and that's how Ren and I slayed three Ursi all by ourselves! We were badass, right Ren?" Nora laughed, clearly finishing up a story that, much to Ruby's distain, she hadn't heard the beginning of. She wished she had; it sounded good! Oh well, she would probably hear about it over dinner tonight, while everyone recounted what they'd done that day; Weiss was down in the library studying for an upcoming History of Hunters and Huntresses exam along with Blake, who was nagging the librarian about getting the next volume of her Ninjas of Love series in, because "Why would you stock the first books in the series if you weren't going to stock the last ones when they were released? Have you no honor?" Yang had swiped one of Blake's ribbons from her dresser, come up with the plan with Ruby, and, well…now they were hiding in their doorway desperately trying to hear and see their conversations through the small crack they'd left for that purpose.
"She's been having this dream for weeks now," Ren said, clearly tired of hearing the same story over and over again, but he held a small smile on his lips just for her sake. He knew she was excited about the story, so she let her tell it. Again. For the fiftieth time. He had to repress a sigh, though. He really had heard this so many times now; it was getting tiresome, but the smile on her face when he agreed with her really made it worth it to him, no matter how many times he had to suffer through it.
"Weeks?" The cherry-toned voice signaled the fact that Pyrrhawas, in fact, with Ren and Nora, which was good. Now where was Jean? That was when they heard a crash that sounded an awful lot like Jean dropping his shield, and when they heard the soft mutter of annoyance, they knew that they were correct. They were all there.
"Yeah! It's been driving me crazy!" Nora said dramatically, rubbing her temples a little as the ginger came into view of the two girls. "Why can't we be that good in real life?"
Ren placed a hand lightly on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring, gentle look that seemed to work wonders. "You are that good, Nora. You just haven't quite gotten the hang of your semblance yet. Its more powerful than a lot of people's, and once you get the hang of it, I'm sure you'll be unstoppable."
Nora flushed the slightest bit at the compliment and smacked him playfully on the shoulder. "Ren…" she giggled softly. "You'd better be careful saying things like that. People might think you've got a crush on me," she teased, giving him a playful little wink.
"The horror," Ren said sarcastically, wrapping an arm around his friend as the two of them went to walk into their dorm. Jean and Pyrrhahad just come into view of Ruby and Yang, having been just behind Nora and Ren as they walked.
"This is it!" Ruby whispered excitedly as Ren went to open the door, only for Nora to stop him.
"Wait!" she exclaimed, holding up her hands to halt him in his motion. Ren withdrew his hand and turned to look at her quizzically.
"What is it?" he asked, clearly befuddled by the fact that Nora had stopped him as he raised an eyebrow at her in confusion.
"Look!" she said, gesturing up to the top of their doorframe. The rest of their eyes followed her finger, revealing the plant that Nora had spotted cleverly placed in the doorway to their room.
"But we need our books for our next class," Ren sighed, rubbing his temples as Yang and Ruby tried their best to stifle their giggles behind their hands, watching the display in amusement. They knew that both couples were sticklers for superstition ever since Jean had broken the window of their dorm and shrugged it off, then later in the day he'd been absolutely obliterated in a duel with team CRDL. Ever since then, all of them adhered to every superstition in the book: throwing salt over their shoulders when they spilled it, avoiding walking under ladders, everything, and they knew that the mistletoe they had placed would be no exception. In the old days of Remnant, it was believed that if you kissed someone under the mistletoe, you would have good luck, happiness, and, eventually, a blissful married life. If you avoided it, though, you would have bad luck follow you around forever. These stories, along with many others, had been told to the children throughout their lives, and the sisters assumed that team JNPR knew them too. And sure enough…
"We can't have bad luck, though," Jean said, his face bright red as he looked between the mistletoe and his teammates. "And we don't have long until our next class, so we need those books." He glanced around the hallway to make sure that his team was the only one present, causing Ruby and Yang to scramble for cover so that they wouldn't be seen. Thankfully, they weren't too loud in doing so, so Jean remained ignorant to their presence.
"Oobleck will kill us if we don't have them," Pyrrha sighed, her voice betraying her nervousness a little bit. Whoever had done this had managed to throw her mind into a tizzy, the organ whirring with possibilities as to what was going to happen in the moments that followed. She needed to calm down, but she couldn't avoid the fact that she overthought things, and seeing as there were only two men with her, and she was hopelessly in love with one of them, this was quite the conundrum.
"Well then, what're we going to do?" Nora asked, looking over at where Jean and Pyrrha stood. She knew how both of them felt about each other, obviously, so maybe this was a good thing. Maybe it'll finally make them get their butts in gear… she thought to herself
"I think it's pretty obvious, isn't it?" Ren asked like it was the most blatant thing in the world and effectively snapping Nora out of her own mind for a moment, causing her to look over at him now as opposed to the two beside her. Before she could get a word out, though, he had taken her hand and led her under their doorframe. "Merry Christmas, Nora," he whispered, so that just she could hear, before leaning in and pressing a soft, loving kiss to her lips.
Nora's eyes blew wide open at the sudden kiss, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest to the point where she almost worried that Ren could hear it. She'd loved him since they were kids, but now…now it was real, and she felt like she could burst from happiness. After she adjusted to the feeling, though, she smiled against his lips and stood on her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck to hold him close to her.
The sight before Ruby and Yang was one that surprised them, and when Ren had pulled Nora into a kiss, Yang had to restrain the gasp that threatened to pass her lips by putting her hand over her mouth. We should have seen it before… she thought to herself as she watched the two of them part for breath after a moment.
"Yang…did we just make that happen?" Ruby breathed, looking up at her big sister with watery eyes and a happy smile. She was just so happy for the two of them; she'd never imagined that the two of them might have romantic attractions to each other, but when she saw the bright, albeit kind of shy, smile that graced Nora's lips, as well as the rare, gentle smile that showed on Ren's, she knew she'd been stupid to think that at all. It was so obvious, and yet, it had managed to fly under all their radars, which somehow made this moment between them even sweeter. It was safe to say that those two wouldn't be going to Oobleck's class today.
"Yeah, we did, sis," Yang smiled affectionately, her eyes still fixed on the girl who clung happily to Ren's arm as the two of them made their way inside of their dorm room, leaving Jean and Pyrrhaalone in the corridor outside. "But we're not done yet…"
Once Ren and Nora were safely inside of their room, the sound of their voices filtering out into the hall as they sat down on their beds to have the important what are we to each other now? talk, Jean was the one to break the silence between him and the red-head standing in front of him. "Wow…I never knew they liked each other," he said softly after a moment.
"Well, you see how they protect each other during training," Pyrrha chuckled softly, looking down at her feet to hide her blush from Jean. The two of them were normally so sweet to each other, and their kiss had been no exception. Seeing them together, she had to admit, made her a little envious. She wanted something like that, but not just with anyone; she wanted that with Jean, so badly.
She'd liked him on sight when she'd met him; even though he had been flirting with Weiss at the time. She had thought he was funny, and she knew his heart was in the right place, even though she watched Weiss subsequently shoot him down. When he wasn't trying so hard, he could be charming too, but he didn't realize the things he did when he did them. He would bring her coffee when she was studying late in the library. He had written a song at one point, and he had played it for her when she'd asked about it. He knew her scarily well, and knew how she was feeling before even she did sometimes. He would crack jokes during their private training sessions up on the roof that made her double over laughing. And somewhere along the way, she had decided to acknowledge the fact that she did have feelings for him, even though she'd tried to ignore them for a while when she had first befriended him.
"Yeah, I guess," Jean said, nodding in thought for a moment and effectively snapping Pyrrha back into the present instead of the past she had been remembering. He laughed, nervousness lacing his voice as he looked at Pyrrha. "Way to raise the bar, guys."
"What do you mean?" she asked, cocking her head slightly to the side in confusion.
"I don't know," he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly and averting his eyes from Pyrrha for the moment. He'd thought about this for a while, but he never thought the opportunity would be put right in front of him so bluntly like this. And now that it was, well…he had no idea what to do. "I guess…I'm just not quite sure I know how to have a sweet moment like that. They did it so naturally."
Yang ran her hand down her face in frustration, gritting her teeth. Was he really going to let the moment they had set up so carefully go to waste because he was awkward? It was looking that way, and she was about to say something when a voice from across the hall beat her to it.
"Pyrrha, just kiss him already," Ren's disappointed sigh drifted out into the hallway. "We're all sick of seeing you two dance around each other, and whoever put that mistletoe up had to have put it there for you two." The man in question came to the door then, looking between the two expectantly. "And he's clearly not getting the hint. So just do it already, for everyone's sakes."
"P-Pyrrha, what is he talking ab-" Jean began, only to be cut off by a suddenly emboldened Pyrrha leaning down the slightest bit and pressing her lips against Jean's while he was still mid-sentence. Jean froze; how was he supposed to respond? His teammate, the woman he admired, even loved, had just made the first move and kissed him. Well, he supposed he shouldn't have been all that surprised, in retrospect. She had always been so strong and independent, so why should this have been any different? Still, the surprise of the action had washed over him like a wave against the shore, but just like cresting waves caressing the sand of a beach, the feeling receded after a moment, and once it did, he couldn't help but kiss her in return.
Pyrrha felt like she could die of happiness when she felt Jean's lips begin to move against her own. She had to admit, she had been rather nervous upon deciding to kiss him, but Ren's words had been the catalyst to her decision, and before she'd even processed what she was doing, she had leaned in and pressed her lips to his. But feeling her action reciprocated was like heaven. Unfortunately, that heaven was only temporary, as a loud cheer of victory rang through the corridor around them.
"YES! See, Ruby?! I told you it would work! Fuck yes!" Yang cheered, pumping her fist in the air in victory until it managed to hit the wood of their door, effectively knocking it open and revealing her and her elated sister to the eyes of team JNPR. Pyrrha and Jean had broken apart, blushes that matched the shade of Pyrrha's hair present on their cheeks along with shy smiles. Ren looked faintly amused as he crossed his arms, and Nora had only just peeked her head out to see what was going on.
"So, it was you two," Ren hummed, the smallest of smiles on his lips as he looked between the two, waiting for their answer.
It was Ruby who ended up answering, peeking out from behind Yang with an embarrassed little smile on her face. "Uh…yeah," she chuckled, waving at their friends sheepishly. "Hi guys…"
Alright, so there you have it! If you have any ships for RWBY, or any scenarios you'd like to see come to fruition, leave them in the comments! I read all of them, and I'd love to fulfil some of your requests! Thanks for reading! ~Cheylock