New Beginnings
Ruby wasn't quite sure what she had expected from the next dream. After her conversation with Roman in that back alley, the night had blurred together—she'd gone back spend the rest of the night with team JNPR, they'd bought cake, and then she'd returned to her dorm with some sense of numb disbelief. Up until the moment she'd fallen asleep, everything that had been said felt like an illusion, even as she found herself standing once more in one of Roman's many living areas, she was hesitant to believe it'd been real. But…there was only one way to know that for sure.
Ruby inhaled deeply before ambling towards Roman's bedroom, her footsteps slow and deliberate. By the time she pushed open the door, her head hung between her shoulders, as she was both ashamed for continuing to doubt him, and afraid that the feeling wasn't misplaced.
"Well someone seems especially gloomy. Did something unpleasant happen after we went our separate ways?"
Ruby looked up at him hesitantly, almost feeling even worse upon noticing the genuine look of concern on his features. Her breath caught in her throat and she averted her eyes as she spoke. "N-No, nothing happened. I'm fine."
"You know, if I'm going to be honest with you, I'd like it if you did the same for me."
She bit her lip at that, her eyes rising back to greet his before she let out a soft sigh and ambled towards the bed. "I…I was just worried, that's all."
"Worried? What about?"
"About…this," she admitted as she lowered herself down in front of him on the bed. "I was…I thought maybe…maybe I'd just imagin—" Ruby stiffened slightly as she felt Roman crush his lips against hers, but she relaxed into the kiss mere seconds later and lean closer to him. He pulled away only slightly, an easy smirk playing at his lips as his fingers rose up to her chin.
"Honestly, Red, as active as your imagination is, I don't think you could dream up everything I said earlier," he murmured softly as he pressed his forehead against hers.
"…Even the bit where you said you loved me?" she replied softly, her lips forming into a nervous smile just before Roman pulled away with a look of utter surprise. Her smile vanished a moment as she watched the dumbfounded man retreat, studying him carefully with slowly growing sense of concern—that is, until she realized how incredibly pink his cheeks were.
"…R-Right…I…did say that, didn't I…?" he murmured softly as he covered his mouth with his hand. Ruby couldn't help but stare at him in disbelief, her words glued themselves to the roof of her mouth for a brief pause.
"Ar—Are you…you're blushing!"
"I am not—"
"You never blush!"
"And I'm not blushing right no—"
"D-Did admitting that you love me…really make you that flustered?"
"Being flustered is your area of expertise, Red."
"And yet, for once, I'm not the blushing one."
Roman's eye wandered her face for a moment, a soft frown settled on his features as he studied her smirk. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
"Maybe a little," she admitted.
"Rude."
"As if you don't do it all the time."
"Well can you blame me? You're extremely adorable when you blus—goddammit…" Roman muttered as his blush intensified.
Ruby chuckled a little more before scooting a little closer and cupped his cheeks with her hands. "Maybe you need to calm down a little bit…" she murmured as she lifted his face and pressed her forehead against his.
"Hm. Just a little."
"Never thought I'd ever see your cheeks this red."
"That seems to be a trend with us recently."
"Hm?"
"Seeing things we never expected."
Ruby smiled, a frown graced her features as she rubbed her thumb gently against his left cheek. "Are…are you embarrassed by it?"
"…Embarrassed isn't quite the right word," he replied softly, "I'd rather describe it as…uncertainty."
"That doesn't seem like it'd be anything new…"
"Maybe for you, but consider…you've been all in almost since the start of this. Like you said earlier tonight, I've been ready to run up until now."
"Finally admitting to it, are we?"
"Alright, if you think I have ever tried to hide the fact that I'm a coward, you haven't been paying attention for the past two months."
"So love is something you usually fear…?"
"No, danger is something I fear, and you are very dangerous."
"Only to bad guys."
"Case in point," Roman stated bluntly as he pulled away from her and gestured to himself.
"You…you don't count…" Ruby stammered as she bit her lip.
"I've counted before."
"That was different!"
"Even so," he murmured softly. Silence fell over them again as he looked away, his arms crossed tightly over his chest while his expression ran through another gamut of emotions. "It's…rare…that I choose to be fully honest with someone…and it's been a…fairly long time since I've chosen to be fully honest with anyone…new."
"So…"
"So I'm still adjusting to the concept of admitting to just how much I care about you."
Ruby watched him for a bit before swallowing down her own uncertainty shifting closer to him, drawing his gaze back to hers as she leaned up towards his face. She didn't speak as their eyes met, only brought a hand up to caress his left cheek while her eyes began to search his expression. He watched her actions carefully, pulling her closer to him by the waist as she leaned ever closer. She pressed her forehead against his, their lips only a hair's breadth away from each other before she finally spoke. "I love you."
Roman let out a soft chuckle, his lips cracked into a smile while his fingertips rose up to graze her hairline, his palm flat against her cheek. "I love you too." The words came out as a whisper, soft and wavering as if he was still a little afraid to speak them. Nonetheless, she smiled upon hearing him say it again, and closed the tiny distance between their lips gently. Roman returned her kiss with a growing hunger, his hand rising to tangle into her hair as each kiss built passionately upon the next until he let out a soft growl and pushed Ruby back onto the bed.
He tugged at her lower lip playfully for a moment before trailing his lips down to her neck; she gasped in response and wrapped her arms over his shoulders, holding him close as he grazed his teeth against her neck. After a few more soft nips, he held onto her a little longer, sucking her skin into his mouth and making her whine as she arched up against him.
He let out a heavy breath as he released her neck. "God I've missed you…"
She giggled at that while he pressed a few soft kisses into her neck. "Well of course you'd miss having someone to cuddle."
"Hmm…nice try, but I've hugged wooden boards more cuddly than you."
"Hey!"
"Red, you know I'm kidding," Roman smirked as he rose up from her neck and pressed a soft kiss against her lips.
"It wasn't funny," Ruby grumbled as she puffed out her cheeks childishly, making him laugh and lower his head back down to the crook of her neck.
"You are far too cute when you pout…ah, oops. Well that's one thing I didn't mean to do…"
"What?" Ruby sat up a little, only to find herself bewildered as Roman smirked and poked her in the neck. It felt a little painful, and for some reason it also felt like the last spot he'd bit her.
"You're starting to get a hickey," he replied with a chuckle, and she blinked before glancing over at him in confusion.
"…You gave me a hickey?"
"Oops."
"…Haven't you done that before?"
"I…don't think so…"
"Huh. Well since they'll be gone by tomorrow…" Ruby bit her lip a little and Roman inched back cautiously.
"Why do I get the feeling that I'm about to be mauled?"
"What? Can't I return the favor?"
"Please don't return it twenty times?"
Ruby pouted a little at that before flipping Roman onto his back, frowning as he watched her in amusement. She let out a little growl before leaning down over his neck, grazing the skin with her teeth and leaving a trail of little nips and kisses as she went. She pressed a few more kisses into his neck, smiling as his hands rose up to press flat against her back before biting down a little harder. Roman groaned softly as she sucked the skin of his neck into her mouth, and she could feel his hands balling into fists around her night shirt as she let go of his neck with s pop. She grinned and held herself up on his chest.
"I bet I could sign my initials on your neck like that," she challenged.
"Unless you want to accidentally lose all of your clothing, I do not recommend that…"
Ruby blushed at that. "C-Come on, does it really excite you that much?"
"Well…no…but it would probably excite me enough to get me to grope you."
Ruby felt her cheeks heat up further, and She heard Roman laugh as she hid her face in her arms. "T-T-That wouldn't be…a—all that bad…"
"Oh? Is that so?"
"But now is not the time!" Ruby announced loudly as she pulled her head up again. "We need to talk about your meeting with Ozpin."
"Ah…that. Did you talk to him about it?"
"Mm…not yet, I was going to tomorrow, but I wanted to ask you about possible meeting places."
"My only preference is that we don't meet at Beacon."
"So…I can choose a public place?"
"That's…actually a pretty good idea. If I went in disguise I'd be fairly safe."
"Have you decided on a bargaining chip?"
"How about the next five locations that Cinder will be and the next ten local areas that she was planning to strike?"
"Sounds pretty fair to me, but what if he wants more than that?"
"Well it's a good thing Cinder doesn't know that I've betrayed her yet."
"Oh. Well maybe I can advertise that as a bargaining chip?"
"If you want to. But…there was one other request I wanted to make for the meeting."
Ruby frowned slightly at that. "What's the request?"
oooOOOooo
They hadn't spoken with Headmaster Ozpin since the meeting roughly a month ago, and with how Weiss and Blake had been acting, Yang honestly hadn't wanted to. But when Glynda had asked them to visit his office, there was hardly any room for refusal. After a few tense minutes of silence in the hallway, Weiss spoke up as they reached the elevator.
"So. Do we have any idea what we've been called for?"
"Probably something about Ruby," Blake said bitterly as they all stepped into the elevator.
"That's not definitely a bad thing," Yang noted.
"She was pretty torn up on Monday," Weiss added with a hint of uncertainty, "so maybe they're not together anymore?"
"That doesn't change the fact that it happened in the first place."
Yang sent a warning glare at her partner as the elevator opened on the top floor and they stepped into Ozpin's office. "You wanted to see us, Professor?" She addressed the man standing by the window, his back facing them as he watched his school below. He turned slightly as she spoke, pausing only a moment before turning to face them.
"Yes, well…it seems that I've been asked to relay a request to the three of you," Ozpin replied as he sat down at his desk.
"What, is our leader still not capable of talking to us?" Blake remarked flatly, winning herself another harsh glare from Yang.
"I suppose you expected her to be able to talk to you when you weren't willing to listen, Miss Belladonna? I may not have spoken with the four of you directly in the past month, but I am well aware of how you've all been treating Ruby. However, with that said, this request is not on behalf of your leader. The request is apparently from Roman Torchwick himself."
"You've had contact with Torchwick?!" Weiss blurted out abruptly.
"Through Ruby, of course, but yes, I have had contact with him. Why I have not mentioned it before is something I was just about to explain, if you're willing to hear me." Ozpin folded his hands on the desk and directed his gaze at Blake. Yang's eyes followed suit. And the girl retreated slightly towards the door before Weiss put a hand on her arm and spoke in her stead.
"What's the request?"
Ozpin smiled softly and closed his eyes as he spoke again. "This Friday I am meeting Torchwick to negotiate the terms of his surrender."
"You're WHAT?!" all three girls gaped at their headmaster, whose expression remained even with a mere hint of amusement.
"Why would you schedule a meeting with a criminal that Ironwood wants on death row?!" Weiss shouted.
"And you expect us to believe that he'd just surrender?!" Blake added, "How do you know that he's not making that up just to get a pardon for his crimes?!"
"Roman Torchwick may have valuable information about his employers," Ozpin replied calmly, "If he is willing to risk himself to deliver it, then I'm not one to complain about any of his motivations."
"What do you mean by his 'employers'?" Yang inquired softly.
Ozpin's gaze traveled to the blonde girl and held there for a pause before he closed his eyes and reached for his coffee cup. "I'm sure by now you've noticed. You all remember that during the bombing three weeks ago, two bombs had been set to go off within our walls?"
"Yeah, and Torchwick knew about them," Blake noted, making her headmaster shake his head in disagreement.
"He didn't. The only reason we were able to find and locate the second bomb was thanks to an educated guess on his part," Ozpin folded his hands together in front of his mouth, "and even in the case where you think that is pretense, neither he nor any White Fang member has had access to our school halls."
Yang's eyes fixed on her headmaster's desk as she considered this. "…So…someone else planted those bombs…but Professor Ozpin, he still could have hired someone to—"
"That is a possibility, true, but I personally see it as an unlikely one. Torchwick has been a criminal in Vale for quite some time, and from what I've gathered from police reports on him prior to this year, none of his most recent crimes fit his usual aims. And as a further to that…Ruby herself claims that he's not working out of his own free will."
"You really think Ruby is a reliable source?" Weiss scoffed.
"At the moment she has yet to prove otherwise."
"Right," Blake muttered flatly as she turned towards the elevator.
"Miss Belladonna," Ozpin addressed the girl as he rose from his seat, "I don't believe we've finished speaking."
Blake chose not to answer and pressed the elevator call button, causing her headmaster to let out a soft sigh. "Very well…I can see that you're in a hurry…it would seem that Torchwick wants one of you three at our meeting."
Yang's eyes shot towards Ozpin in bewilderment, and his gaze locked with hers as he continued.
"He apparently would prefer it if Yang went, but any of you insisted on going instead, well, the offer is open."
"Why…why me?" Yang asked.
"He refused to give a reason, according to Ruby, but he insisted on it, apparently. I'll give you until Friday to discuss this for yourselves. By then I expect to see one of you at Beacon's entrance after school. Is this reasonable enough for the three of you?"
"It's fine," Blake murmured as the elevator arrived and she stepped into it. Weiss hesitated only a moment before following suit, leaving only Yang somewhat bewildered and frozen in front of his desk.
"Professor, why does he want me to come with?" she repeated
"I'm afraid I cannot tell you what I do not know, Miss Xiao Long," he replied softly before raising his coffee cup to his lips. Yang frowned deeply at that, and after a brief pause she followed her teammates' lead and turned for the elevator. But she only made it another step when Ozpin spoke up again. "Ah yes, I nearly forgot. Miss Xiao Long."
"…Yeah?"
"Would you be so kind as to wish Ruby a happy birthday for me? I'm afraid I haven't yet found the opportunity to do so myself."
Yang jolted and looked back at Ozpin, her lips pursed as she stared at him. Her eyes fell to the floor after a moment. "Sorry but…we…we still aren't on speaking terms with Ruby…"
"…I see. I would have thought her birthday might come as an exception, after all, you only turn sixteen so many times, but…if it is still not within your comfort, I suppose I'll just have to ask Jaune to send my regards. I needed to call him up to my office in a little while anyway…"
"…Thanks," she mumbled as she strode hastily towards the elevator door. As Blake finally hit the lobby button and they began their descent, Yang found herself wondering if his goal had been to make her feel guilt. To remind her that yesterday her sister had turned sixteen, and the only gift she'd received from her own teammates was silence. To remind her that when Ruby had broken down on Monday, the ones who rushed to her side hadn't been her teammates. It wasn't as if she didn't deserve the stabbing reminder that she had all but abandoned her baby sister, not as if the disdain for their actions wasn't warranted. But Yang…Yang was still on the fence. And she needed time, or some sort of miracle, to change that.
oooOOOooo
Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in and yes, hello, I know this is the longest I've taken, but when I say "do not pester me about updates", I mean don't fucking do it. Please. It doesn't make me want to update faster, I assure you, and if I need to emblaze a sparkly rainbow gif of this message onto my profile or something, I won't hesitate to do so. Now then…Reviews…
dvilleza:sorry not sorry. But also sorry –hands you a box of Kleenex- I know I'm a few months late but does this help?
LordTomyh:Yeah…Roman wouldn't tho because that's a little too risky…try a lot too risky…
frik1000:I may post bloopers/ "deleted scenes" once I've completed Still Dreaming in full, but that all depends on if my muse wants to cooperate.
PattyPOP: …you're welcome.
YmaSumac:Sadly nowadays getting out of school doesn't guarantee an update. At the moment I've been chipping away at my titles all at once, and progress…honestly depends on the muses. Still Dreaming's muse has been the most difficult, hence the painfully long wait period. I've yet to find a suitable way to make this story cooperate with me.
ZergKnight97:That…is a very good question.
Sessho's Girl:Many thank. I'm glad that my interpretation came off in a believable manner.
Durmanstainer: …you're welcome (ps if you're reading this after reading my little tantrum about asking me for updates pls know that I wasn't referring to you)
glencoc: …you are also welcome.
Stargirl720:Good…? Mm…no, not really. Morally grey and redeemable trash? Possibly.
BrightestofCrayons:I know nothing about tea but based on what my sister has told me, ginseng is fancy and good, so I thank you.
ThatOnePsycho: …you're welcome
I Was NotA Robot:Sorry I couldn't update faster than this love. To be honest for the sake of your review and a few others I tried to write as fast as I could, but my muse kept trying to die on me.
A Really Sad Bear:PLEASE DON'T BE SADDER I'M HERE AND I HAVE ROSEWICK here I brought candy and blankets for you too.
SandyLS:That is honestly an interesting take on it. At the moment though I have no idea how to incorporate that into the plot vein tbh
Wickedwitch1227:shhhhh you can hear the update singing to you…update: "hello…is it me you're looking for?"
SHSL Student:Well…I'm not the end all be all owner of the shared dreams concept, so knock yourself out. That said, if despite its uniqueness, it still bears a close resemblance to the shared dreams in Still Dreaming, I would appreciate it if you credited the idea for it back to me.
To the Guest with the ending idea:Sorry toots, but I've had an ending for this planned for over a year now. Neat idea tho.
To everyone I converted in my absence:You're welcome.
To everyone who demanded updates/only mentioned wanting another update: Please. Stop. Doing that.
Now then. Updates on things. So the reason updates here have been so slow vary but let's start with the big ones. One, lately my muse for Still Dreaming's spiritual successor, In the Arms of a Thief, has by far been the most dominant of my rosewick titles. Two, I got a girlfriend a little while back. She's my angel and she's lovely rosewick trash just like me. Also she did a few dramatic readings of Still Dreaming and you should read them you can find them on her tumblr roses-of-red. Three, my computer died and school kicked my ass. Four, I got stuck in this chapter. Multiple times. So I'll update as soon as feasible but, I make no promises on update speed. Please check out my other titles in the meantime if you haven't already tho, I would immensely appreciate it.
Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter.
