Not a Fairy Tale Dream
A/N: Originally was part of my Thank Me Later! series but then it devolved into this monstrosity. Don't get me wrong, I do love the Apathy grimm but I'm still thirsty for that nightmare angst. Check out Chapter 6 of it for the continuation of this piece!
Ruby wakes up with a strangled gasp.
She doesn't remember falling asleep or whatever her dream was about.
But her body remembers what the dream felt like. She remembers it in the way her heart feels like it's about to burst. She remembers it in the way her eyes feel like they're about to cry. She remembers it in the way her whole body shakes with fear.
She doesn't remember the dream. Instead she remembers what it's like to wake up from a nightmare.
It happens so often than not only does she remember the feeling, she almost has it memorized. Almost. Memorization implies that it's the same every time. But it's not.
It's always a different horror, a different regret, a different pain, a different memory—
A different 'what if'.
A different 'almost'.
Still she wakes up terrified and exhausted all the same.
Sunlight peaks through the curtains. It's morning already. They overslept. Despite sleeping longer than planned, she doesn't feel rested at all.
With a tired groan, she treks to the next room to wake up her uncle first. Bottles litter the floor. Empty bottles. So many bottles even though it only took one man to empty them in one night.
She tries not to think about what Uncle Qrow was thinking as he downed each bottle. She tries not to be disappointed at how easy it seemed that he fell back on his coping mechanism. She tries not to see her hero fall apart so miserably because she knows just how much he doesn't want to be seen this way either.
She tries to but she worries anyways.
After shaking her own head, shaking those thoughts away, she then starts shaking her uncle too. He grunts. He refuses to wake up and if anything, he just burrows himself deeper into slumber. Irresponsible. Ruby feels her own hand shake with barely restrained contempt before she tries to shake him again—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
She jolts at the sound. Her body swivels so fast that she heard her cloak whipping behind her and her hand reaches for her weapon on her back. Whatever that is, she's not taking any chances.
But when she scans the room, nothing is out of place and nothing else makes a sound.
All is quiet...
Too quiet.
The only sounds she hears are her own frantic heartbeats.
The tapping doesn't return.
Nor does her heartbeat to its normal rhythm.
Not sensing any immediate danger, she lets out the breath she's been holding. She really needs to rest if she's starting to imagine things. Meanwhile Qrow just sleeps through her panic. Right. Ruby still has to wake him up. She reaches forward to shake him again, her hand just about to meet with his shoulder when—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
This time Ruby knows she didn't imagine that. This time she approaches the window in slow apprehension. This time she doesn't dare let her eyes stray away from the glass, her own reflection growing clearer as she inches nearer.
She's so close now. Her face is almost touching the glass.
It's just her in the reflection and nothing else.
When she blinks she swears her eyes turn beady red.
Red like roses. Red like wine. Red like the eyes of a certain bird she's seen before.
But when she blinks back, they're silver again. And for a moment, she believes she almost imagined it.
And yet she has a feeling that it's not all in her head or at least she has to check first. She has to know for sure.
So despite her loudly protesting heart, she leans in closer.
Closer and closer.
So close that she can see the smallest details in her eyes.
Blink. Silver. Blink. Red.
Thwack!
Out of nowhere, a crow crashes onto the window. It was flying so fast that when it hit the glass, Ruby feels as if the house shook with it. Or maybe it's just the shock that jilts her off balance. Concerned, she opens the window to check on the poor bird.
Except she finds nothing. Not even a single feather.
That's... odd. But there are more important things to worry about than crashing and missing birds. Besides, she has her own bird to worry about.
When she turns around, her uncle is no longer sleeping in his chair.
Instead she finds a crow in the middle of the room.
Bottles encircle him almost as if the alcohol had summoned him.
"At least you're awake now," Ruby mutters annoyed, too tired and too disappointed to sound anything but.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
She hears the tapping again. She practically growls in frustration because this is too early in the morning for this. She turns around, expecting to see nothing just like the few times before, only to find herself surprised instead.
There is a crow on the windowsill. Empty red eyes stare at her.
It opens its beak to caw—
"Arrrgh!"
Only instead she hears the pained cry of her uncle.
She knows what she heard. She knows she heard the human cry of her uncle from this bird in front of her. She knows for a fact that her uncle is supposed to be behind her.
She should be worried about how this doesn't make sense but she was more worried about how much in pain her uncle sounded.
So she forgets about the crow and recalls Qrow.
She turns around to find him on the floor...
Drinking.
"Uncle Qrow! What happened?! Are you okay?" She rushes to his side, checking for any injuries, looking for an explanation to that haunting cry.
"I'm fine." He dismisses her with a wave, his hand still wrapped around the neck of a bottle. He doesn't stop drinking.
"No you're not. You need help."
He finishes a bottle only to continue guzzling down another. There are more bottles on the floor than she remembers and so he drinks all the more.
"I don't need help. I'm doing just fine."
He drinks and drinks and drinks.
He drinks until he starts pouring alcohol on himself.
"What are you doing?!" She lunges at him, trying to pry the bottle from his hands.
But he just pushes her away.
He pushes her away and he drowns himself in alcohol instead.
Soon he is drenched in the stench of his liquor until he lies in a pool of it. He pours the red wine last. Red spills from the bottle and drips from his body as if he was bleeding.
Wine red. Red like blood. The dark liquid pools around him with every bottle emptied until the eerie red puddle finally reaches Ruby's boots.
Red clings to her soles where it stains.
"Why won't you let me help you?" She pleads, worry and desperation mixing into a nauseating blend much like alcohol if not worse. She ignores the disturbing squelch her boots make in the puddle when she steps closer.
Ruby just wants to help her Uncle Qrow. But she knows painfully well that she can't help him if he won't let her.
"Just mind your own damn business!" He snaps and throws the bottle in her general direction, only narrowly missing her by the cheek.
It shatters just as easily as their bond.
Red splatters on the wall and droplets stain her clothes. Wine red.
Red like blood.
"Do yourself a favor, kiddo. Leave me alone."
She hears the flapping of wings before she even sees him transform.
A crow— her Uncle Qrow— flies past her and out the window.
The saddest part is that this isn't the first time a parental figure has walked out on her.
Before Ruby could even give chase to her uncle, she hears something just as distressing.
"You're running away? Again?"
"I have to. It's not safe here."
"Bullshit!"
She hears arguing. She hears shouting. She hears fighting.
She hears the decision she has to make.
Ruby knows just how much her uncle needs someone right now but she also knows that her team needs her just as much too.
"Yang? Blake? What's going on?"
She bursts into the room, trekking red liquor on the floorboards with every hurried step.
"What's going on is that Blake is leaving us! Again!" Yang barks, her eyes flicker between restrained lilac and red with anger. She points accusingly at her partner's retreating figure.
Unlike Yang who voices her feelings of betrayal in her sharp shouts, Ruby inflects her hurt in heartbroken softness. With everyone on edge, she had to be soft.
"Blake? Is this true?" She asks Blake or rather...
Blake's shadow.
Blake is nowhere to be found in the room and yet her shadow exists on the wall.
It's her shadow that's left with them.
"I... I have to go." Her shadow turns her head away, ashamed. Even though it's Blake's voice, it sounds so distant. Like an echo.
So far away.
Already away.
"But... why?"
Why do they keep pushing away? Why can't she make them stay?
Why can't she keep her team together?
"I have to leave to protect you." Blake's shadow reasons, her voice echoes from a different wall where her shadow follows.
"Why can't we just protect each other?" Ruby turns to properly face her teammate's shadow—
Only to find that Blake's shadow has already moved to another wall entirely.
There it stood amidst all the other shadows she's left behind. So many shadows left behind. Her teammate's voice echo as if all of the shadows are trying to talk at the same time but some are just lagging. Each shadow is different yet in essence, they are one and the same. They share the same purpose, their only goal is to escape.
It's frustrating. She can't catch up to her if she keeps running away like this.
"It doesn't have to be this way, Blake. We can do this. We can get through this together."
Not for the first time since this morning, Ruby is pleading yet again.
"You don't understand. I have to do this. If we do this together, he will hunt us all down."
"But we won't go down. We're stronger than him if we stick together! You don't have to go."
Blake's shadow is already by the door, ready to leave them behind.
Her head turns as if looking back one last time.
"I'm sorry but I'm already gone."
Her shadow slithers through the doorway where it gradually disappears.
"Don't you dare walk out on us again!"
Yang roars and charges after Blake. But right before she could reach her, the door slams shut on her.
It slams shut on her arm.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
Blood gushes from where the rest of her arm is supposed to be. It pours from the wound and mixes with the liquor on the floor.
So much blood— Yang's blood.
There was just so much of Yang's blood flowing out of her that Ruby was worried that there wouldn't be much left in her.
Then Yang's eyes turn bloodshot red.
It's the only warning Ruby gets before the whole room bursts into flames.
Fire licks at her skin, hot and angry. But it's not the fire engulfing her sister that worries her. Fire has always been her sister's power to control and to set loose upon those who hurt her. But fire could only add, it doesn't take.
It doesn't take away the hurt or the feelings of betrayal.
It just burns.
It burns until nothing is left, not even ashes.
It burns until all that's left is the burnout.
"Yang!" Ruby cries out and reaches forward despite the flames daring to ensnare her. She refuses to let her sister burnout like this.
She steps closer.
"Just go!" Yang snaps at her, her left hand clutching what's left of her right arm— shaking.
The house shakes and the floor cracks.
"I can't just leave you behind! You're hurt!"
The crack grows.
"Oh so now you care?"
The crack grows until there is an angry split on the floor between them.
"What...?"
The fire burns angrier. Tendrils of flames wrap around her feet, scorching her and keeping her in place and out of reach.
"You're just like Blake. You're just like my mom." Her sister growls at her. Embers crackle and spark every word she barks. Every accusation pours gasoline into the fire, enraging it.
In the midst of the flames, her eyes glow menacing red like burning coal.
A searing fury that refuses to be tempered.
"You already abandoned me before. Who's to say that you won't do that again!"
"But I won't!" Ruby promises with a desperate cry.
"You left me just like everyone else."
With every rise in temperature, Yang's voice softens.
It softens until there is no more rage fuelling it.
"You left me when I needed you the most."
Until all that is left is heartbreak.
"You're my sister, Ruby. And you still left me."
The worst part is that Ruby can't even argue back because she's right. She abandoned her when she needed her the most. She abandoned her own sister for the sake of a mission. She knew she had to do both but she was forced to choose one over the other.
And she had chosen to pack up her things and leave her behind.
"I know and I'm sorry," Ruby croaks and feels tears prick in her eyes.
She can't tell if she couldn't breathe because of the asphyxiating smoke or because of the suffocating regret.
"Me too," Yang whispers. The softness in her voice feels like a deadweight in Ruby's chest because it is not the right kind of softness.
It's the softness of resignation— the softness born from being battered and bruised too much.
"Yang..."
"Just go already."
She takes another step closer.
The floorboards underneath splinter.
"No. I'm not leaving you behind."
Yang doesn't even look at her.
"But you will. You already have."
The floor caves in and splits open from the cracks between them.
Flames burst forth from the crevice like a wall of fire separating her from her sister.
"Yang!"
Ruby shouts and cries and calls for her.
But she only hears the fire answer back.
She shouts until her shouts turn into coughs. It's only then that she remembers to care for herself too. No, not care but rather survive.
The house is on fire and she is suffocating.
And there's still one member left on her team who hasn't been accounted for.
"Weiss!"
Ruby makes a mad dash towards her partner who's still wrapped in her blanket, asleep.
"You gotta wake up! Everyone's leaving and the house is falling apart! And a lot of things are wrong and I'll have to fix that later but we have to leave now! And how are you sleeping through all of this?"
Despite her violent wake up call, Weiss continues to sleep. Unperturbed. No matter how much Ruby shouts or shakes her, she won't wake up.
She just won't move.
She wasn't moving at all.
"No no no no no..."
Ruby feels her own heartbeat more so than Weiss'. She tries not to think of how she couldn't feel the latter at all.
She swipes the blanket off of Weiss only to see her in a pool of blood, a hole in her dress— a hole in her stomach.
The wooden floorboards have turned into marble. The cramped living room has transformed into a spacious receiving area. The fire has been miraculously extinguished and now replaced with a different and more urgent threat.
They are no longer in Brunswick, they are in Mistral.
They are in Haven Academy and Weiss is on the floor bleeding her life out—
And dying.
"Stay with me, Weiss!"
This time there is no liquor to blame for the large pool of red.
All of this red is Weiss'.
"This isn't happening. I can't let this happen. I can't lose you too!"
Red stains Weiss' dress and in a heartbeat that doesn't belong to her, it stains Ruby's hands as well.
Red slips between her fingers much like how Weiss' life is slipping.
Red is warm but her body turns white and cold.
"Please. Please oh, please! Stay with me!"
She knew she was losing her. She felt it through her fingertips as she desperately grasped for anything that could save her. She tried channeling her aura but it wasn't enough. Weiss was losing blood faster than Ruby could bring her back.
There was just so much red.
Red cloaked her in the same way that death claims.
She couldn't protect her. She couldn't save another friend.
...Another?
"Salutations, friend Ruby!"
In her frantic mind, Ruby doesn't even think to question where she came from. She's just relieved to get all the help she could get.
"Penny! You have to help me!" Ruby clutches onto her shoulders as if she was a lifeline— not her lifeline but Weiss'.
Red stains where Ruby touches her.
"Your distress levels are concerning. How can I be of help, Ruby?" Despite Ruby's obvious panic, Penny remains cheerful and smiling.
How could she smile so easily when someone was dying?
"It's Weiss! I don't know what's going on but she's bleeding and she needs help!" Ruby explains in a rushed breath because they can't afford to lose any more time not when they're losing Weiss by the second.
But Penny doesn't act with the same urgency.
Instead she just looks at her, confused.
"I do not understand. Where is this emergency that you speak of?"
Ruby couldn't help but raise her voice along with her panic.
"What do you mean? Weiss is dying! Just look at her and help me—"
Her sentence dies on her lips as soon as she turns around...
To find nothing.
No trace of her realized fears. No bleeding partner. No haunting pool of red.
No Weiss.
"What the...?"
The ceiling unfolds and gives way to an open sky. The walls around her crumble and bleachers upon bleachers rise instead.
They are on the Amity Colosseum now.
"W-What? What's going on? Why are we here?" She covers her eyes when a spotlight shines on her. She could hear the crowd loud and cheering.
Cheering for what?
"This is going to be so much fun!"
The blood left from Ruby's touch drips and trails all over Penny's body until hauntingly familiar lines form.
"Do not worry, Ruby! I'm combat ready!"
Ruby remembers this. She remembers this place. She remembers something off about this event. She remembers seeing all the signs and piecing them together.
She remembers what she was supposed to do— what she had failed to do.
She remembers it all too late.
"NO! PENNY, DON'T!"
Red lines turn into red strings and red strings tighten and coil until—
Until Penny is torn into pieces.
"No..."
And from Penny's pieces, Pyrrha rises.
"Do you believe in destiny?"
They are on top of Beacon Tower now.
Pyrrha is still here and alive and Ruby has to be quick if she wants her to stay that way. She doesn't see Cinder or the Grimm, she doesn't see anything other than her friend. Her senses focus onto her like tunnel vision. She could already feel the wind and the petals, her semblance kicking in like so many times she's envisioned this before. She can make it this time.
And for a moment, Ruby believes that maybe this time she won't be too late.
"Pyrrha! Move! You're in danger!"
But the arrow gets to Pyrrha before Ruby does.
Then Pyrrha falls away too.
"NOOOOOOOOO!"
The tower crumbles and falls and Ruby falls along with it.
She falls down alone. She falls alone because no one else is left. She is all alone because she couldn't protect the people she loves.
And so with no one there to catch her, she keeps falling.
"You've been burdened with a daunting responsibility, Ruby."
Professor Ozpin's words taunt her, remind her of her failure as a leader.
"If you are not always performing at your absolute best, then what reason do you give others to follow you?"
But she is doing her best! She is trying.
She is trying her best and she is absolutely failing.
She wanted to be a hero. But she's just a kid. She wasn't prepared to fight in a war. She wasn't prepared to lose her loved ones to a war that can't be won.
And so just like a kid, Ruby cries. She cries because everything is just so messed up and she doesn't know what to do. She cries harder because she's been bottling up all of this and now she can't stop them from pouring out. She cries so hard until it hurts.
Until her eyes start to glow— another responsibility.
They glow until all Ruby could see is silvery white.
White like her mother's cloak.
"I don't know what I'm doing, mom. How do I do good like you did?"
Ruby falls on the only cliff that matters, her tears continue to rise to the sky as if she's still falling. There's only one reason why she would ever come to this cliff. But this is different from her usual visits. There is no grave for her to visit. The grave is merely a placeholder. Now in its place was a figure standing strong and wearing a nostalgic white cloak.
White is slowly soaked in red— red like roses.
And thus kindly they scatter.
"Please... help me."
She just wanted to help people and save the day.
Ruby dreamed of a fairy tale but real life turned out to be a nightmare.
She wakes up with her scream still choking in her throat.
She wakes up but the nightmare just continues.
A/N: If you made it until the end then please accept my sincerest thanks for reading this whole nightmare! I hope you enjoyed it (as much as you could enjoy a nightmare in a way)! Thank you so much and let me know what you think of it!
Side note: If you happen to love Ruby and Weiss (and them together), feel free to give Thank Me Later! a read too!
Anyways! Which part of the nightmare did you think was cool?