"Hmmm… which of these do you think I should go with with?" asked Blake as she compared two black dresses in a mirror in her room. "The halter top or the square top?"
"Hang on a sec" Weiss replied from a nearby chair as she finished sewing shut a shallow but bloody sword wound on her lower right chest. "Shit, this is going to make me lopsided now isn't it?"
"Well, you could just get him to stab you again on the other side" Blake pointed out.
"Ha ha, I'm in stitches" Weiss said sarcastically before applying some gauze to help stop the bleeding. "Alright then; who designed each dress?"
"Uh… should it matter?" Blake asked.
"It's the only thing that matters" Weiss responded. "If you don't know, then just go with the one that was more expensive".
"You know I stole these, right?" Blake said with an eyebrow raised.
"Whatever, just go with the square" Weiss said frustratedly. "It's not like it matters anyways. You're going out with a rapper; you could probably show up to the date naked and he'd still go out with you".
"Well, I don't want to scare him off" Blake replied as her eyes returned to the mirror. "I want to show him that I'm not a complete psycho like you guys… no offense".
"None taken" Weiss said as she tugged on a new shirt. "I still say you're overdressed for this, though".
"Well, can't a girl just dress up every now and again?" Blake asked defensively.
"Oh… I get it" Weiss said knowingly. "You're trying to hide it, aren't you?"
"Wh-what are you talking about?" Blake asked nervously.
"You think that you that he won't be able to see it just because you put on a fancy dress, but the truth is that deep down… you're just a massive nerd" Weiss stated matter-of-factly.
Blake let out a relieved sigh.
"Yep, you caught me redhanded" Blake said with a laugh.
"He's going to find out eventually, you know" said Weiss.
"Yeah, but I think it'll probably be best if I ease him into it" replied Blake. "If I start out the night reading to him the entire fifty page rulebook of Remnant: The Game, he'd probably never want to see me again".
"Yeah, that's probably true" Weiss conceded. "Anyways, I should probably get going now. CRDL are not going to murder themselves and, unlike you, I actually plan on getting some work done tonight".
"Seriously?" asked Blake. "You're going back out there after you literally just had your ass handed to you by Dove and his cronies?"
"I don't have choice" Weiss said as she reloaded her pistol. "He was kind enough to give me this new scar, so I have to pay him back… with interest. Good luck on your date tonight".
"Thanks, and good luck to you too" replied Blake.
With that, the two finished dressing and left the room in pursuit of their perspective targets, and each with the exact same thought on their minds.
"He won't know what hit him".
Blake's fingers tapped nervously across her leather purse as she sat at her table and waited for Sun to arrive. It was a classy Mistralian restaurant in the central part of Vale's commercial district; crystal chandeliers hung low from the ceiling, an orchestra was playing classical music, the tablecloths were all fine silk, and a lit pair of red candles provided romantic lighting at each table.
"Perhaps this is a bit much for a first date…" Blake thought nervously to herself. "Well, there's no kill like overkill… I've been spending too much time with Ruby".
Her thoughts were interrupted as she spotted the blond haired Faunus she was waiting for approach her table. He was wearing the the same clothes he normally wore, with the sole exception being the long white tie that ran down the center of his open shirt and over his strong chest and sculpted abs.
"Good evening, Miss Belladonna" Sun said exaggeratedly as he sat in his chair and immediately put his feet up onto the table. "I hope you don't mind that I was fashionably late".
"Oh no, it's fine" Blake replied. "I can tell that fashion means a whole lot to you".
"You like?" Sun asked, picking up his tie a little. "It took me hours to pick out an outfit, but I think it came together just fine. You don't look half bad yourself by the way".
"Thanks" Blake said with a light blush.
"So, what kind of grub do they have here anyways?" Sun asked as he picked up a menu with his tail.
"The usual for a Mistralian restaurant; spaghetti, sushi, gyros…" Blake began to say, but her reading petered out as she briefly glanced across the restaurant and saw something that made her stomach leap into her throat.
Sitting at another table on the other side of the room was her boss Ruby Rose, who was looking through a menu of her own. She was sitting at a couple's table too, but no one appeared to be in seat opposite her.
"Something wrong?" asked Sun, which broke Blake out of her panic induced trance.
"No, nothing at all" Blake lied as she buried herself behind her plastic menu and prayed that Ruby hadn't spotted her.
"Hey Blake!" a voice suddenly shouted from across the room. "Blake! Blake! Blake! Blakey-poo! Blakereno! Blakester! Blakeamundo! Uuuh… Blake!"
She spotted her.
Reluctantly, Blake put down her menu and allowed Ruby to get a good look at her face. This caused the young crime lord to let out an audible squee and rush towards Blake and Sun's table.
"I knew it was you!" Ruby said as she almost tackled Blake out of her chair with a running hug. "What are you doing here?"
"Uh… I was going on a date with Sun here. Just the two of us. Alone" Blake said, hoping Ruby would get hint even though she knew very well that Ruby wouldn't.
"Really?!" Ruby asked excitedly. "What a coincidence! I'm here on a date too!"
"You are?" asked Sun. "With who?"
"Oh!" Ruby gasped, turning back towards her table. "I almost forgot about them. How rude of me! Hang on a sec, let me introduce you".
She then ran back to her table and came back carrying the chair that was sitting opposite her. Laying in the middle of the seat were two identical sub-machine guns, each sporting a fiery red paint job and longer than usual magazines.
"This is Ogama" Ruby said, pointing to the one on the right. "And this is Little Red!".
"How can you tell them apart?" Sun inquired curiously.
"Oh, that's easy! Ogama is a boy, and Little Red is a girl!" Ruby explained. "Duh!"
"And, uh… how can you tell that?" Sun asked while Blake sat silently mortified across from him.
"Just watch" Ruby said as she took a gun in each hand and aimed them both at a fancy picture of some flowers across the room.
She pulled the trigger on Little Red first and launched a burst of fire towards the painting, which started a small blaze and caused the orchestra to stop playing in surprise. A second later, she fired Ogama as well, eliciting panicked cries from everyone in the restaurant and spread the flames even further across the far wall. Employees quickly rushed to the scene with fire extinguishers and hurriedly began putting as much of the fire out as they could.
"See?" Ruby asked casually. "Little red has a higher rate of fire, but Ogama is more accurate. Just like girls and boys!"
"Really? I couldn't tell" Sun said, completely undisturbed by what had just happened.
"Here, watch again" Ruby said, raising her guns once more.
"Wait!" Blake said as she grabbed onto her boss's hands and prevented her from firing. "We don't have super speed like you do, so we can't see the difference"
"Oooh" Ruby said in realization. "Okay then. Sorry about that, Sun".
"Oh no, it's fine" he replied, feet still comfortably resting on top of the table. "Although… don't you find it a little weird that you're going out with-"
"A boy?" Ruby said, finishing his sentence. "I know, I never thought I'd live to see the day too, but just look at him! He's so sexy! Not that you're not sexy too, Little Red".
Ruby then began to violently make out with the trigger guards of each of her guns, which caused Blake to feel what little dignity she had left begin to leave her body. Eventually, the young redhead was able to pull herself away from her dates just in time for a spark of brilliance to flash across her mind.
"Hey, I've got a great idea!" Ruby said, weapons still dripping with spit. "Why don't we have a double date?! Wait, is it still a double date if there are five of us total? If not, would that make it a double and a half date, or do you just round up to a triple date? Ugh, math sucks!"
"It's okay, you can join us" Sun replied to Blake's horror. "I mean, assuming that no one calls the cops for what you just did, I don't see a reason why not to".
"Don't worry, this isn't the first time they've had to replace that picture because of me" Ruby said as she pulled up a chair alongside her guns and sat down. "Now then, let's finally order some food!"
After a few minutes of looking through their menus, a surprisingly bored looking waiter finally approached the table and asked what each of them wanted. Sun ordered a bowl of spaghetti, Blake asked for a plate of sushi, and Ruby demanded a large order of tater tots.
"You do realize that's from the kid's menu, right?" the waiter asked Ruby after he heard her order.
"Oh, don't worry, I have an ID" Ruby replied as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a driver's license, which indicated that she was only twelve years old. The waiter rolled his eyes in response but wrote down the young gang leader's order anyway on his clipboard before returning to the kitchen.
"Works every time" Ruby said proudly once he was out of earshot. "I can get you a fake ID too if you'd like, Sun".
"I think I'll pass" Sun said graciously. "So, have you and Blake known each other long?"
"No, only a few months, but we're already the best of friends" Ruby said as she wrapped an affectionate arm around Blake next to her. "She's also one of the best homies I've ever had!"
"Is that so?" asked Sun.
"Yep!" Ruby said with a wide smile. "She might not have as high a kill count as me or Yang, but what she lacks in quantity she makes up for in quality. I remember this one time we were fighting CRDL for control of the western suburbs and we were pinned down without any ammo. It seemed pretty hopeless, but did that stop Blake? No siree! She just picked up a lawn dart off the side of the road and chucked it right into one of their eyes!"
Blake could hear the sound of someone dropping their silverware at the next table over.
"Then he started running around like a headless chicken trying to get it out, bumping to his friends over and over and making it go even deeper. You could totally tell by the way he was stumbling that it was already messing with his head noodles" Ruby said in between fits of laughter. "Then, when they finally managed to get it out, Blake just tossed another one into his other eye and made him run around all over again!"
"Wow, that is impressive" Sun complimented, seemingly fine with hearing a story that made a couple vomit onto their food a few tables away.
"I know, and I couldn't stop laughing the whole time" Ruby giggled. "Definitely one of my top ten kills I've ever seen... well, top ten kills that weren't mine, anyways".
"Well, killing isn't the only thing I do in The Saints" Blake said, trying to change the subject to something that didn't make her look like a complete sociopath.
"That's right!" Ruby agreed. "She also spends a lot of her time in her room doing all the computery, mathy things that make my head hurt just thinking about it. Although, she's usually just reading 'Ninjas of Love' fan fiction in her underwear whenever I see her on the computer, but Blake's more than earned if for all she's done for the gang".
A deep blush began covering Blake's face as she felt even more embarrassed than she was when Ruby was talking about her murder skills. That blush was instantly wiped away by Sun's next words, however.
"You like Ninjas of Love too?" he asked, catching Blake completely off guard.
"Uh, yeah" Blake replied timidly. "It's one of my favorite books".
"Aw, sweet" Sun said, clapping his hands together. "Okay, now for the big question; do you ship Danny with Alan?"
"Of course I do" Blake replied with more enthusiasm than before. "They were my first real OTP".
"Mine too!" said Sun. "Who do you think is the seme?"
"Danny, definitely" Blake replied confidently.
"Oh" he said, disappointed. "Well, don't worry, I'm sure we can still figure out a way to get along".
"Agh, so much nerd talk!" Ruby complained. "It's like I'm listening to a bunch of aliens talk, and they don't even have any cool laser guns!"
"Sorry, Ruby, we didn't mean to leave you out" apologized Blake. "We can talk about NoL more later, okay Sun?"
"Fine with me" shrugged Sun. "So, how did the dynamic duo of destruction of Ruby and Blake come to be anyways? I doubt that you just put an ad in the paper for a super hot computer genius with years of Huntress training".
"Well, I did actually, but we didn't get much response" Ruby replied. "No, we actually met at a bar in the eastern commercial district, called The Ca-"
"Excuse me, waiter!" Blake said suddenly, interrupting what Ruby was saying. "Could you, uh… bring us some wine, please?"
"Right away, miss" he replied before disappearing into the kitchen.
"Wow, getting out the alcohol out this soon?" asked Sun. "Now this really is turning into my kind of date".
"It's never too early for a little social lubricant" Blake laughed nervously.
Their waiter emerged from the kitchen a few seconds later holding three bottles of wine, two red and one white, along with three wine glasses. Ruby made sure to flash the man her other fake ID that said she was twenty one on it, but all he did roll his eyes again in response before placing the wine and the glasses onto the table and returning to his duties around the restaurant.
"Oh boy; red!" Ruby said as she reached out to the bottle closest to her. "My favorite!"
She then quickly and unceremoniously uncorked the bottle and wrapped her lips around the end of it as she raised the bottle as high as she could. Drops of the dark red fluid poured down the young crime lord's cheeks and stained her white polo as she gulped down as much as she could in one breath. Finally, Ruby could take no more and slammed the bottle back down, punctuating its collision with the table with a loud and thunderous belch, interrupting the orchestra for the second time that night.
"Aw yeah, that's my juice right there!" Ruby said happily.
"While that was pretty impressive, I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to chug wine, Ruby" Blake pointed out.
"Yeah, but since when did we care about the rules?" Sun asked as he opened the white wine. "Might as well cut out the middle man!"
"Heck yeah!" Ruby agreed wholeheartedly. "Cheers!"
"Cheers!" Sun said, clanking the tip of his wine bottle with Ruby's.
The two then began guzzling down as much of the sweet nectar as they could and not caring how much of their clothes they stained in the process. Blake looked on for a few moments before deciding that she might as well join in, and began glugging down her own bottle.
Ruby was the first to finish, letting out another burp that was strong but not quite as powerful as her first. Sun's belch followed shortly behind, and his well trained lungs made sure that everyone in the building heard it. The manager of the restaurant watched in despair as people began to leave in response, but she knew it was still preferable to what The Saints might do to her if she kicked them out.
Finally, Blake finished her bottle as well, which caused Ruby and Sun to start staring at her in anticipation. At first it seemed like nothing was going to happen at all, but eventually Blake couldn't hold it in any longer and let out a burp that was louder than either of her friends.
"Bravo!" Ruby said, clapping her hands. "Encore, encore!"
"Wow, it looks like you've got some competition, Sun" a new voice said from behind Blake. "You better watch out, or she might steal your record deal".
Blake turned and saw Yang standing behind her, dressed in her normal clothing and standing alongside three men that she didn't recognize.
"Hi, Yang!" Ruby said, waving. "Are you here on a date too?"
"I suppose you could call it that" Yang said as she pulled up a chair and sat down in between Blake and Ruby. "Though, it's really more of a prefuck snack. Mind if we join you?"
"Of course not!" Ruby replied. "Wait, does that means that this is officially a triple date now? Or is it an octuple or a nonuple date? I need to buy some kind of date calculator…"
"Eh, I've stopped keeping track of that kind of stuff" Yang said before snapping her fingers loudly. "Waiter! I'd like a well done triple pound cheeseburger with Grimm Reaper hot sauce, hold the evil pickles, a large plate of cheese fries with extra cheese, and a diet Dr. Dust. Oh, and get some burgers for my boys too, and don't be stingy with the hot sauce".
"Grimm Reaper hot sauce? Sounds to me like you're trying to kill these boys, not feed them" Sun commented.
"I like to think of it more of a test" Yang explained. "If they can handle eating this fire, then they can handle eating my fire as well".
"I'm sorry, miss, but we do not serve hamburgers here" interrupted the waiter.
"What!?" Yang gasped in shock."How can you even call yourselves a restaurant if you don't have at least two tons of ground cow ass in the back! That's like beer without any booze in it, or a football game without any broken spines! That's it, you're in for it now!"
These words caused the manager to leap behind a potted plant for cover nearby, fully expecting to hear gunshots fill the room in only a few seconds. When the shots never came, she peeked over her hiding place to see Yang furiously typing away at her cell phone as she wrote a scathing online review.
"There!" the blonde haired gangster announced proudly as she hit 'send'. "Let's see if any of my followers come here now!"
The manager let out a sigh of relief.
"Oh, and if I don't get my burgers here in ten minutes, then I'll rip out your ribs, turn them into a barbeque, and cook the patties myself" Yang then added casually.
"I'll get them right away ma'am" replied the waiter, his bored tone unchanging.
"...well fuck" Yang said as she watched the waiter walk away. "You'd think he'd shit himself at least a little bit after a Grade A threat like that. Doesn't he know who I am?"
"Well, he does work in customer service" Blake pointed out. "I wouldn't be surprised if he hears demands like that at least three times a day. Oh, and you better hope he doesn't urinate in your food before he serves it to you".
"Don't worry, I can tell" Yang replied. "So, how's 'business' been going so far for you two?"
"Things haven't exactly gone to plan, but… I'm actually having a lot of fun" Blake said with a smile.
"Yeah, like I've said before, plans have the habit changing when you least expect it, but it's not always for the worse" Yang said. "For example, I planned on going out with just one guy tonight, and look at me now!"
"Well, congratulations, but I think I'll be fine with one man for now" Blake said, motioning towards Sun.
"Ha! That's pretty ironic coming from you" Yang laughed. "I bet you had at least three guys a day back when you were a whore-"
Yang was cut off as the palm of Blake's hand suddenly crashed into the side of her face, creating deafening slap that stunned everyone at the table. The look in the Faunus woman's eyes seething mixture of anger, sadness and, above all, betrayal. Those emotions soon changed to shame, however, as she glanced over to Sun and saw the shocked expression that plastered his face.
"Excuse me" Blake said hurriedly before getting out of her seat and dashing towards the exit.
The table remained quiet for a few awkward moments until Ruby noticed another waiter walking by and took the opportunity to knock him over with a firm punch the stomach.
"Hey guys, look!" Ruby laughed nervously. "I tipped the waiter! Eheheh… he...yeah…"
It didn't take Sun long to find Blake's car in the parking lot, as it was the only completely black one there. He cautiously walked up to the driver's side door and began knocking on it's darkly tinted window.
"Knock knock" he said, trying to sound playful. "I know you're there. Faunus can see through tinted glass, remember?"
Sun heard the sound of doors unlocking a second later and he walked to the passenger's side door to let himself in. Inside, Blake was curled up into a ball in front of her steering wheel, her keys in the ignition but not yet turned.
"What are you doing here?" she asked dowerely.
"I think the real question is 'What are YOU doing here?' Things were just starting to get fun, and there's no way we were going to keep going without you" Sun replied.
"Really?" Blake said, not looking up from her legs. "I figured you'd never want to see a whore like me ever again".
"Hmm, I guess you're not really as smart as they said you were" Sun said. "Why wouldn't I want to see the most beautiful and interesting woman I've ever met?"
Finally, Blake tilted her head and their eyes met. Neither said a word until the silence of the car was abruptly broken by Blake giggling softly and lightly punching Sun in the shoulder.
"That was a line from one of your songs and you know it, you lazy jerk" said Blake.
"What can I say? It's my number one love song for a reason" Sun stated proudly. "Listen… maybe going out to eat wasn't the best idea. To many things that could go wrong… why don't we just head over to my place and we can read some fan fiction together, just the two of us? What do you say?"
"I think I'd like that" Blake said, a small smile now on her lips. "Could you drive, though? I think I'd rather just relax on the way there".
"Sure thing" Sun said before trying to open his door, but he found that it moved only about an inch before it smacked into something and bounced back shut.
"Oww…" moaned a pain filled voice from outside the car.
Blake got out to see what was wrong and saw that her boss was lying on the ground in front of sun, rubbing the side of her face.
"Ruby?" Blake asked when she saw her. "What are you doing?"
"Oh, uh, you know..." the young redhead said nervously as she averted her eyes. "I totally wasn't spying on you or anything, I was just… crawling around the parking lot to… find some gum!"
"Gum?" Blake asked in disbelief.
"Yeah, that's it!" Ruby replied. "Yang said that gum only really tastes good after it's been stuck to the pavement for a while. Ah, here's one now!"
She then pried the black, sticky wad in question off of the ground and began chewing on it. She clearly wasn't enjoying the taste, but she tried her best to wear a wide smile anyway.
"Mmmm, delicious" Ruby lied. "Welp, I better get back to my date. Ogama gets so scared when I leave him alone for too long, and I don't want Little Red seducing some other girl while I'm gone. Have fun reading your nerd books! Oh, and don't worry, I'll just pay for food myself. Toodaloo!"
With that, Ruby activated her semblance and zipped back inside the restaurant, leaving Sun and Blake alone outside before either of them could say a word in edgewise.
"... I wonder what their kids would look like" Sun after a few moments of silence.
"Don't give her any ideas".
A/N: So, what did you guys think of the chapter? Be sure to let me know if you liked or didn't like it in a review!
Chapter beta-read by Mr. Stark 357