"So then Jaune went for the dive kick, but he never saw the yardstick coming!" Nora cheers. She always attracted more than a few stares or glares around dinner, but Ruby had just learned to cope with it. Nora's stories always seemed a tad more grand when they were shouted anyhow. "Mister Blonde messed up the formula for Linear momentum on question seventeen! So then I took my shot; I grappled him into the butt smash and sent him packing with a perfect KO!"
"That's bunk!" Jaune said, the faint outline of the yardstick still imprinted across his face. "I hit you twice with the leg sweep at the start of that round!"
Nora gasped in exaggerated horror. "Jaune, you monster! You all heard it: Jaune takes his frustrations out on women!"
Yang snickers, "Only virtual women. A real one would kick his ass up and down the dorm." Yang and Nora let out an unrestrained burst of laughter while their more modest teammates gave a few chuckles. Nora, who'd been jumping between standing and leaping onto the bench, plopped right back down between Pyrrha and Jaune with a soft giggle. "So I take it your study sesh went well? No broken controllers or bones?"
"Not-a-one!" Nora cheered as she stabbed a fork into a tender red meatball. "Tomorrow we're going over Field Studies and I'm gonna whoop him again! Mister Blonde can't even tell the difference between Bark Fungus and Moss." Nora and Yang snickered to each other.
Ruby was still baffled Jaune and Nora got any work done playing games, but according to Pyrrha and Ren it all checked out. Somehow they managed to devise a system of punishments and rewards revolving around fighting games and study questions. Progress aside, Ren didn't support their methods.
Ruby threw a glance his way, Ren was sitting to Pyrrha's left in complete silence. He made it look like he was trying to eat and read,but Ruby's gut was giving her mixed signals. That's not to say her gut is any kind of authority on whether or not a person is pretending to read or not. In this specific instance though her stomach was probably on base or, at the very least, close to some kind hypothesis.
"Ruby!"
"Huh?!"
Ruby swiveled to Weiss who'd clearly been digging into her head with a little frumpy frown. "Can I have my hand back?" Ruby looked down and quickly unlaced her fingers from Weiss'.
"Oh, sorry." She said. The young brunette brushed her hand over her skirt a couple times. Ruby had been sweating profusely. Weiss always told her she didn't mind, but she knew it was gross to sweat all over her and ended up stepping away guilty.
"You okay, Sis?" Yang chimes.
"She's been spacing out all day." Weiss says as she rifles through her bag. Her voice packed thick with indignation.
"Hmm," Yang purrs, setting her lavender eyes on Ruby. "Gotta wonder what's goin' on inside that head of hers. Do you and Weiss have something in mind tonight, Sis? Gonna go over your oral tests?"
"Guh! Yang!" Ruby's whine received with a short chuckles and giggles from Jaune, Nora and Pyrrha. It was a poorly kept secret that everyone from Jaune to Penny loved a bit of schadenfreude at Ruby's expense. How could they not? Ruby always went red like a fire truck with every insinuation.
"Yang, keep your mind out of the gutter!" Weiss snapped. Naturally unamused by Yang's connotation that she and Ruby would be practicing spelunking late into the night. This led her to give Yang a swift, solid knock across the head with her text book. The Juniper members knew they were in for a show tonight.
Ruby on the other hand was less invested than Ren.
She let out a low sigh. Like a trail of ants, thoughts of midterms marched through her head. On and on and on, one assignment followed by another and another and another and another. She'd be working for days, and when she wasn't going to class, or working she'd need to practice formations. The playbook was riding on her and she'd only had a few strategies to show. They were a few months into the year and she was behind. She knew it.
The dry sigh that past her lips pulled up from her guts with a sharp tug. Dinner hadn't helped weight them in the slightest. She'd honestly come out feeling worse, she was going to end up wasting her plate. It wasn't bad food either, she enjoyed the seven and a half bites she took. It was savory, mildly sweet. Seven and a half bites was all she could take though. She wasn't craving anymore.
Why the hell did that make her sad?
"Ruby?"
"Hmm?" It was Weiss who broke her from thought again. She'd stopped arguing with Yang, at some point, to give her yet another scowl. "What?" Her tired response did her no good.
Weiss just groaned and rolled her eyes. The Juniper girls tried to stifle their snickers, but it was no use. Ruby had clearly missed something, pushing Weiss past her limit for the evening. "I'm going to bed. Goodnight!" The princess snapped, flipping her hair and strutting off.
"G'night Weissy!" Yang called to her, waggling her fingers in a posh wave and honeying her words just so she could rub it in a bit more.
"Alright, I think that's enough." Jaune waving Yang off, still smiling from a comeback Ruby must've missed.
"Now you say that?" Yang chuckled. "She's already cleared the exit."
Jaune simply chortled and trailed off into laughter. Nora and Pyrrha were chuckling along with him, so all Ruby pulled from this disaster of a dinner was that pretty much everyone enjoyed themselves. Except herself of course.
The rest of the conversation was a bit of a blur to Ruby. The young captain hardly said much the rest of the night. It wasn't a particularly long talk by any means. It just floated through Ruby's ears like lukewarm alphabet soup.
There was a mention of teasing here.
Modeling came up.
Her name.
Her name again.
Her name a third time.
'Wait, what?!'
Ruby snapped back to the conversation like a rubberband pulled to the limit. "Huh, what?!"
Yang smiled at Ruby; Jaune, Nora, and Pyrrha watching her from across the table with grins. "Tired?" Yang said, resting her chin in her palm. "You've been a bit spacey today."
Ruby looked at Yang and forced a smile. Glancing across at the others she did her best to make it look good. "Y-Yeah, I didn't get good sleep last night."
"Oh, don't worry about us." Pyrrha staring at Ruby with her calm, green eyes. "You don't need to stay on our behalf."
"You should go get some rest Ruby." Jaune added before Nora pushed him off the back of the bench.
"Exactly, a good night's rest will have you feeling better." The bombastic Ginger chirruped with a winning smile.
Ruby passed a small sigh under her breath and returned the smile. "You're right, I'm going to head up to bed." She stepped over the bench and looked back at them with her cheerful facade. "Goodnight, Nora, Pyrrha, Jaune, Ren, I'll see you in the morning."
"Goodnight Ruby!"
"Goodnight, see you in the morning."
"Goodnight! Don't let the bedbugs bite!"
"…"
Ruby felt sickly. She could still feel their eyes on her as she left the table. Her own eyes glazed over as she stared at the plate of food she'd wasted. She stopped only to dump her wasted meal.
After that she pushed open the cafeteria doors and staggered out. Her head was pounding. She couldn't tell until she stepped out into the Autumn night but a headache had creeped in. The rush of cool air and the mild scent of dying leaves did nothing to help. The abrupt shift turned her head into a swamp.
Her thoughts swelled behind her eyes, pressing against the front of her skull like thick putrid fog. Between the pounding in her head and the growing murkiness there wasn't a chance she would have noticed the crack in the pavement. Her shoe caught it with a sharp scratch that woke her from her daze right before the fall.
It was a swift tumble. She landed on one wrist and her face with a pained wheeze. Right now she only had two thoughts. The first being 'Ow, that hurt'. The second being 'I hope no one saw that.'
"Oh my gosh!"
'Well crap', Ruby's cheeks beginning to flush with embarrassment. With a groan she started to pick herself up.
"Are you okay?" A girl asked as she came to Ruby's side. Looking up Ruby set her eyes on none other than the second-year rabbit Faunus; Velvet Scarlatina. They shared Oobleck's course, and she'd heard passing comments about her now and again, but they were only acquaintances at best. "Wait... I know you from somewhere." Velvet said, looking at Ruby curiously.
"Uhm, yeah, we share a class." Ruby still too flustered to be look her in the eye.
"Oh, sorry. I'm a bit distracted sometimes. Sorry if we've met before." Her voice sincere as she helped Ruby up. "Are you alright? That was a nasty spill."
"Y-yeah, yeah I'm okay." Ruby muttered.
Velvet, illuminated under the Fall moonlight, stared at her. "Are you really?"
...
Hey y'all, sorry for the late cross-post! I posted it to AO3 first but completely forgot to post it here because a few things have been going on. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it, there's more to come.
-CS