psa: please don't settle for a love-hate relationship. unless it's with your cat, at which times love-hate is the only type of relationship that exists. but be nice to your cat!


song inspiration: True Love, by P!nk


"I hate you, sometimes."

Ruby blinks. It's not like they haven't spent years tossing those words back and forth, traded like spare change, but, well, he kind of thinks they are over it at this point. Apparently, he's wrong about that. Which is another thing Saph likes to tell him. And to be fair, he thinks he does it just as much to her, if not admittedly more.

"Thanks," he says.

He takes a larger pinch than his previous others of cotton candy. She takes a handful in response and he just sighs before stuffing the pinch into his mouth. It melts fast.

Just like his irritation.

"What for today?" he shrugs, swinging her feet and heedless of any potential danger. He resists the urge to tell her to quit it, knowing that ferris-wheels are probably made with the assumption in mind that someone, at some point, someone was likely to do something just like that. Either way, he tries to keep his eye on the horizon instead of on the faraway ground.

"Because," she says petulantly, and he thinks for a moment that she will not continue speaking. But she does, after a long moment of what he thinks is — gasp! — thinking. "You say a lot of stupid things."

"You...," Ruby says, pointing at her face. She makes to bite it and he pulls back with a scowl, snarky. "...are nuts. And also not in fine form today at all. Have you ever heard of this thing called romance? I'll say it slow: romance. It's what most people consider the right thing to do when they're on dates. You should really try- Hey, hey!"

Saph is grabbing his shoulders and shaking him for some terrible reason and he knows that she is many things but clumsy is not one of them but that doesn't change the fact that his heart is sputtering in disbelief.

"Saph!"

"This is exactly what I was sayin' about, Ruby, so either lemme speak or don't say I ain't doin' it right," she explains with a stunning amount of patience for someone with angry eyebrows atop a ferris wheel. So he shuts up and listens.

"Nobody's ever made me as mad as you." He bites down on a reply because those angry eyebrows are still scrunched up, but it's different, now. Somehow. "Because nobody's ever meant as much to me like you." There is a grin, fledgling but honest, on Ruby's face now, because he can piece through the awkward words and blush well enough.

"Oh, yeah?"

She gives him a look, reading the teasing for exactly what it is.

"I just wanna strangle you sometimes," she says almost fondly.

"That's probably not healthy. Considering that we are, you know, friends." And dating. That too. But that is new and more tender than anything they've ever had before, and while is certainly not off-limits to fussing, he thinks he'll stay far in the clear of her bad side — at least until they're back on the ground.

"Is this the face of somebody who cares what someone else says is right?"

"It's a great face." She rolls her eyes.

"So is yours. Anyway," Saph rubs her eyes now, "that's all I wanted to say."

He ticks it off on his fingers.

"You hate me, I say dumb stuff, I make you mad. That is inspiring, is what that is. That is the exact recipe for true love. I think we should write a relationship book. Don't you?"

"We're not the worst candidates for the job," Saph points out. "Gold's only a little better at spelling than me."

"But Gold has Crystal."

"And I have you. So who's the real winner here?"