Ruby woke up suddenly when the body pressed into her side began to shift uneasily. She had come in around eleven and managed to climb into the bed without waking the girl up. It was only three now, but something was wrong.
Peyton had begun to shake and tried to curl herself into a tight ball. Then the mumbling started. Ruby was sitting up now and gently tried to wake her up. She must be having a nightmare she thought as she shook her shoulder and whispered her name quietly. Nothing.
The shaking soon turned into sporadic thrashing and the mumbling into quiet screams. Ruby's attempts to wake her up were not working and all she could do was sit and watch. Even though she was asleep, Ruby could see the utter terror contorting her face.
Suddenly, Peyton sat upright gasping for air, her small body trembling as she pulled the sheets closer to her. Ruby quickly followed her and gently pulled Peyton into her arms. Startled by the sudden contact, Peyton tried to pull away at first but Ruby only pulled her closer.
"Hey, it's ok." Ruby whispered as she rubbed small circles on her back. Peyton, too tired to fight, finally relaxed and leaned into Ruby, closing her eyes and focusing on the calming voice and warmth radiating from the waitress's body.
Peyton couldn't even remember what the dream was. She had no idea why she felt so terrified. Was it a memory? Or just one of those crazy dreams that your mind randomly decides to concoct for the sole purpose of scaring the shit out of you. She didn't think she wanted to remember. It takes a lot to get her in this sort of emotional state.
As Peyton's breathing steadied, Ruby slowly pulled them back down onto the bed, only releasing her for a moment to pull the covers back up. After a little while, when Ruby was certain Peyton had fallen back to sleep, she let herself drift off once more. She had to open the diner the next morning which meant getting up around five. She needed to get whatever sleep she could and try not to wake Peyton up then. However, after the crazy day before, Ruby didn't even set her alarm.
"Where is that girl?" Granny muttered under her breath. Ruby was very late for her shift and Granny was upset. She probably stayed out all night and was still passed out in her room Granny thought. Storming through the inn, she was going to get her granddaughter out of bed and to the diner. No excuses. Bursting into Ruby's room she froze, not able to even begin the long lecture she had planned out for Ruby.
Ruby and Peyton were sound asleep on Ruby's bed. Ruby lay on her back, one arm wrapped around Peyton who was curled up into Ruby's side and had her arm draped lightly across Ruby's stomach. Instead of waking Ruby up, she decided to let them sleep, knowing at least some of what had happened to Peyton. She decided to leave a note before quietly closing the door to allow the girls to sleep, smiling to herself.
Though she always knew Ruby had this side to her, it was nice to actually see it. She just hoped Ruby could look at herself in the mirror and see it too.
Ruby's heart almost stopped when she woke up and looked at the clock on her nightstand. It was almost noon. She began to work out her excuse for missing her shift but nothing seemed to be able to get her out of trouble until she saw the note that Granny had left her.
Ruby,
Take care of that girl. Don't worry about work today.
~Granny
Ruby must have read it five times before she was convinced it was actually Granny's handwriting and not a hallucination.
As soon as she returned the note to the nightstand and felt herself relax slightly, the small body cuddled impossibly close to her began to stir.
"Good morning." Ruby chirped.
"Morning." Peyton mumbled as she buried her face into Ruby's shoulder in a failed attempt to block out the light streaming in from the window.
"Who knew you were such a cuddler?" Ruby teased.
"I'm not. It's just cold." Peyton argued weakly, wanting to pull away but she really was too cold to move away from Ruby. She decided to throw in a shiver for good measure.
"I thought you don't like people touching you?"
"I don't. But as you said before, you're just one person so I can deal. Plus...this is about self preservation. I honestly don't know how you can survive living in here. It's like Antarctica." Peyton finally managed to sit up away from Ruby's warmth but immediately pulled the blankets all the way to her chin.
Laughing lightly, Ruby slid off the bed and walked to the closet, pulling out a red sweatshirt and tossing it to Peyton who raised an eyebrow as she inspected the sweatshirt.
"Living up to your name I see."
"Well, I can just put it back and let you freeze..." Ruby stepped forward to retrieve the sweatshirt but stopped when Peyton scooted away towards the center of the bed and quickly put it on before burying herself under the blankets once more.
"You hungry?" Ruby asked as she walked over to the dresser for a hair tie before pulling her hair into a messy bun. The way she had her hair up almost completely hid her infamous red streaks and that coupled with her frightening lack of make-up made her almost unrecognizable. "I can make pancakes if you want."
Peyton was trying to understand the brunette. This was a side that she never knew existed. And not just the 'I just woke up and don't care what I look like' look. Shrugging it off, she responded, "It's fine, you don't need to."
"I didn't ask if you needed me to, I asked if you wanted me to." Ruby responded with a sigh, now sitting on the edge of the bed. "Come on, you can help."
Peyton looked a bit apprehensive as she pulled the blankets tighter, not really wanting to leave what little warmth the covers provided.
"It'll be warm in the kitchen." Ruby urged, trying to coax her out of bed.
After eyeing Ruby for a moment, Peyton rolled her eyes and slowly rolled off the bed. "I feel like you and I have very different definitions of warm." Ruby's smile grew exponentially when she realized she had won.
"I've never made pancakes before." Peyton admitted quietly once they were in the kitchen and Ruby was busy gathering the ingredients from various cupboards around the kitchen.
Ruby's head snapped so fast that she nearly dropped the bag of flour she was holding. Peyton instinctively pulled the blanket that had accompanied her downstairs a little tighter in response to the look Ruby was giving her.
"Please tell me you're joking."
"Would it make you feel better if I said yes?"
"Actually that would make me feel better."
"Well then...actually no. No, I'm not joking." Peyton grinned.
"I thought you wanted me to feel better?" Ruby asked as she arranged the ingredients on the counter by a large mixing bowl.
"I never said that I wanted you to feel better. I just asked if it would make you feel better...but I prefer not to lie."
"Whatever. Come here then. I am going to teach you the sacred art of pancake making." Ruby grabbed Peyton's hand and lead her to the bowl and talked her through how to get the perfect amount of the various ingredients to make the perfect batch of pancakes.
About thirty minutes later, they had successfully managed to create what looked like a cooking warzone in the kitchen. There was flour everywhere, a couple of eggs on the floor from Ruby's attempt at juggling and pancake batter that didn't quite make it to the griddle all over the counter. Ruby and Peyton were both covered in their fair share of flour.
Ruby had started their mini flour war by blowing a pinch in Peyton's face. At first Ruby was disappointed when she merely received an annoyed look from Peyton and began to periodically throw more flour at the girl. Peyton pretended like it didn't actually bother her, carefully biding her time until Ruby had given up trying to get a reaction from her.
Ruby had her back turned away from Peyton as she moved the bowl of pancake batter to the other side of kitchen. That was when Peyton quietly grabbed a small bowl and filled it half-way with flour. She stealthily moved across the kitchen while Ruby rambled on about how to make Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes. Once she was standing just behind Ruby, she waited for Ruby to turn around. As soon as she did, she was greeted with a face full of flour.
Taking a step back, Peyton took a moment to admire her handiwork. Ruby's face was scrunched up and her eyes closed tightly trying to avoid getting the tiny white specks in her eyes. Brushing the flour away from her eyes she opened the to see Peyton standing with a mischievous grin plastered on her face.
There was no way Peyton was getting away with it. And she knew it.
After several long minutes of insane giggling and flying flour, they were forced to call a truce when their ammunition ran out.
In the short time Ruby had known Peyton, she had never heard Peyton really laugh and be so carefree, even if it was only for a few minutes. Ruby didn't think that was a side that came out all that often, but she was glad she got to witness it. The sad and tired expression that normally covered the girl's face had been completely replaced by bright twinkling blue eyes that showed nothing but happiness.
After calming down a bit they managed to actually get some of the batter on to the griddle and they watched as the pool of batter slowly take shape.
"Now. you see the bubbles that are starting to form on the top? And how the edges are looking a little dry?" Ruby asked using the spatula as a pointer.
Peyton gave a quick nod of her head in acknowledgement.
"Ok. Good. They'll be ready to flip when the bubbles pop." Ruby demonstrated the proper technique when flipping pancakes. She turned the spatula over to Peyton who less than graciously managed to turn her pancake into a mashed up ball in one smooth motion.
They sat in silence for a moment, happily enjoying their makeshift breakfast, before Ruby spoke up.
"Can I ask you something?"
"You can ask, doesn't necessarily mean I'll answer. But, you can ask anything you want."
"What's with you and the pain meds?" It was a simple enough question but Ruby had a feeling the answer wasn't as simple, or easy. "I mean...I'm just assuming that you have a reason for putting yourself through all that pain."
"I have a very high pain tolerance." Peyton shrugged and focused intently on the ball of pancake resting in the center of her plate.
Ruby just tilted her head slightly and watched her, never once looking away. After a moment, Peyton realized that Ruby was still staring, much to her annoyance. Looking up with a slightly exaggerated eye roll, she met Ruby's gaze.
"What?"
"That may be but that's not the whole story." Ruby figured she would get a vague answer but she was not going to let it go.
Fidgeting uneasily in her seat, Peyton sighed as she leaned back. She knew Ruby wouldn't let it go, ever.
"Well, Storybrooke doesn't exactly have a foster system, right? So, my entire life I've been pretty much passed around to people temporarily while higher authorities tried to figure out what to do with me. I think I was supposed to get shipped to Boston, but something hiccupped and I got stuck here. I don't know what happened."
"OK. But what does that have to do with you and your 'high pain tolerance'?"
"Well, if you would let me finish...you would find out." Peyton shot back, not even trying to hide her irritation. "As I was saying...I bounced around a lot. I guess it was pretty much foster care, in principle anyway, and let's just say that for a small town, there are some pretty messed up people. One couple I lived with was into a bit of recreational drugs. I was little and weak and they pretty much shot me up with that crap whenever they could. And now..." Peyton trailed off with a shrug of her shoulders.
"you don't want to risk a relapse." Ruby finished her sentence quietly and let this new information sink in. She knew this kid had problems but she had no idea just how many.
"I'd just rather stay away from anything...addicting. Better safe than sorry, right?" Peyton said with a bitter laugh as she slid the remnants of her breakfast on the plate.
God Ruby. Say something. Ruby usually always had the right thing to say to people for any occasion, but now she was at a loss. People are Ruby's forte, yet this girl had Ruby stumped for the moment. The only thing she was ever good at had just blown up in her face. The little voice in her head commanded her to do something to relieve the tension in the room. A hug? No. She doesn't like being touched. A reassuring smile? Too awkward. Pretty much screams 'I have no idea what to say'. There were no words Ruby could muster that would help. Thankfully Peyton broke the silence.
"Don't you have work or something?"
Ruby snapped out of her train of thought, happy the awkward silence was broken. "What?...oh, no. Granny gave me the day off."
Trying to find something to occupy herself, Ruby remembered the mess in the kitchen and cringed at the thought of having to clean it up. Almost as if she read Ruby's mind, Peyton stood up and gathered their dirty dishes and shuffled over to the sink.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"...cleaning? I'm pretty sure your Granny would not be happy to come home to this." Peyton said waving a hand around the kitchen.
"You're right. But we also need to clean ourselves up. Tell you what, you can go grab a shower first and I'll start the cleaning process. When you are finished, you can start the dishes while I shower." Ruby smiled to herself, proud of coming up with a solid plan on her own.
"Wait, do you need me to change your bandages?"
"No, I think I can manage."
"Alright, let me show you how to get the water running. It's an old building and the shower is surprisingly complicated." Ruby explained as she lead the way back upstairs. Once she got the shower started, she began to head back downstairs but stopped before she had left the room. "Hey, leave the door unlocked please. Just in case anything happens."
Sighing heavily, with a not too subtle eye roll, Peyton nodded before closing the bathroom door.
Less than an hour later, they were both showered, the kitchen as clean and the dishes were done as Ruby swept up the last little bit of flour. No one would have ever guessed that flour and splatters of pancake previously covered almost every surface within sight. Unless of course, they looked into the trash can.
"So..." Peyton began as Ruby emptied the dustpan into the garbage. There was a hint of a smile growing on her face. "My turn."
Ruby stood up straight, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "Your turn for what?"
"A question." A smirk now obvious on her lips.
"Ok. Shoot." Ruby replied leaning against the counter.
"What did you do to get kicked out of the Girl Scouts?"
Ruby quickly looked down at her hands sheepishly. "I may have...started a smile forest fire."
"Why does that not surprise me?" Peyton said with a soft chuckle.
"What? Are you calling me a pyromaniac?" Ruby said defensively.
"I said no such thing. I meant you doing something crazy and well wrecking havoc. You are sort of the town's wild child."
Looking up, Ruby couldn't help but match Peyton's smile with a hearty laugh of her own. "I guess I was a little menace."
"You still are Ruby. You still are."
