Chapter 2
It ended up taking more than one climax, much more than one climax, but eventually, Penny succeeded in tuckering Ruby out. She hated that she knew it, but the whole time, with each climax, she knew Ruby's body was only growing more and more frustrated with each false release. No matter how many times Penny brought Ruby to a climax, it was still easy to tell that Ruby was far from actually getting any true relief. Without an Alpha or at least a partner with a dynamic, Ruby's dynamic wouldn't allow her any true relief from her heat. Eventually, in lieu of any true relief, Penny settled for giving Ruby so many small climaxes in painfully close succession. An imperfect solution for sure, but eventually it worked. Ruby had been reduced to a small soaked pile of omega clinging to Penny with what seemed like almost all the life drained out of her.
"L- love you." Ruby shuttered, her sex swollen with unyielding love and adoration filled abuse.
"There you go. That's my beautiful girl." Penny pulled Ruby close, just holding the ruined omega in her arms. "That better?"
Ruby was already struggling to keep her eyes open. "Yuah." She groaned with droopy eyelids and strength fading from her arms.
"That's it." Penny slowly allowed Ruby to slip down from her arms and into the warmth of their rented bed. "Now get that rest. You need it. Your heats have only been getting worse, and you need the rest to get through this one."
Ruby whined softly from her place laying back on the bed, one arm limply reaching out and striving to search for her lover who Ruby expected to be laying down with her in the bed. "Mhmm, Penn." She groaned longingly.
"I love you Ruby." Penny offered in a whisper. She took Ruby's searching hand and held it gently before leaning down to kiss it for just a moment. "I love you, but I can't stay. I told you on the way into town that I had some maintenance I needed from my dad." Penny forgave herself for the minor lie, but only because the truth would have gone over Ruby's head while the omega was already on the precipice of sleep and life.
Ruby mumbled again under her breath almost intelligible, but Penny could make out about a sentence or so. "Cuddle… now… maintain later."
Penny smiled and snickered under her breath before yielding to the omega. "Ok. But just until you fall asleep. After that, I need to go." Penny settled, laying back down with Ruby and pulling her in tight. The omega was in heat after all. Penny didn't know much; some might even argue she knew nothing of it at all. That because she had never lived to experience what a heat or a rut feels like, or that because she hadn't ever even truly been able to sense them even in the way betas could through pheromones, that she knew nothing, that her understanding of it might not count. Penny continued to spiral, worrying as to whether or not what little she knew actually mattered or counted. It was hard… being different. Especially in all the ways she was different. But now, to have some corner of the woman she loved in pain because of the things that made her different? It broke her heart in a way she had no path to reconcile. Pushing those thoughts away, Penny cuddled Ruby tighter, running her hands down Ruby's back and earning soft pleased purrs with each stroke. She didn't know much, but she knew Ruby needed this. That dynamic or no, Penny could hold her little Rose, and that was enough.
The dolt was snoring before long. God, she was adorable like that. With the sheets barely covering her still glistening skin. Strained eyes finally closed and seeming something Penny would actually delight to call peaceful instead of the heat struck anguish that filled Ruby's brow only minutes earlier. Ruby was still mildly tense, but that too seemed to be slowly leaving her as long as Penny was willing to stay and hold the omega to keep her warm. A small kiss and a caress at Ruby's cheek before pulling the ruffled hair aside. It had grown slightly longer during their time in the past year, casually hunting down the grimm and making their way around. Not to the point that it was actually long, just… shaggy, in that unkempt beautiful way. Ruby would probably cut it soon to ensure her hair didn't get in her eyes amongst the fights and whipping around through her semblance. But for now, Penny enjoyed the mildly unkempt look before leaving one final kiss and heading off.
Penny was careful, not to wake Ruby, and to ensure that if the omega ended up waking before she returned that she wouldn't feel too abandoned. Just a small tuck of the blankets around her here or there, and pulling the covers over here or there. That was all. That was enough. Just something so that when; or if Ruby woke before she returned, the omega would still feel just as loved as she was. As silently as she could, Penny tiptoed out of the room and down to the inn's common room tavern combo.
"How's she doing?" Blake greeted in a normal tone before nearly being completely drowned out to a whisper by Yang's boisterous voice and the clinking of a tall cold mug recently emptied of beer hitting the wooden bar table.
"Aye! Baby sis gettin' any?" Yang announced as if trying to alert the whole inn or maybe just Ruby herself tucked away and two floors up.
Penny flushed, her head quickly drooping down to her feet where she anxiously towed at the ground. "She is tired, so I let her rest."
"Aye!" Yang brandished finger guns in Penny's direction.
Blake nudged her girlfriend with a mild glare. "Maybe that is the last one for a couple hours babe?" She went to finagle the tall glass mug from Yang to what was initially a dubious success, but after aiding her efforts with a kiss at Yang's cheek, the blonde seemed to naturally release her grasp on the glass's handle.
Yang turned and sniffed at Blake's neck, a small growl slipping out as her attention was clearly no longer on the drink she had been enjoying a little much. "You smell good kitten."
Blake's faunus ears ruffled down in embarrassment as her cheeks turned rosy. "I! Is Ruby ok? What's going on with her? This is her third heat since she completely stopped her suppressants, right?"
"Yup." Penny nodded, still blushing and sheepish about the whole topic even more than usual.
"She… she doing ok?"
"She is ok. But these cycles aren't going any easier on her." Penny admitted.
"It's just cause she LURVES you!" Yang announced loud and proud to the whole bar room.
"Oh god." Penny tried to hide herself and her shame in the shade of her hands covering her face.
"Yang!" Blake whispered and elbowed her girlfriend softly.
"What! It's true!"
"And it's not been easy on them!" Blake's stare threw daggers.
"Well, they should just get on with it and knot." Yang's bluntness drew a stare or two. "It works for u-" Yang was cut off with Blake's hand covering her mouth.
"Sorry Penny! I! Uugh! Yang's had a couple too many. Someone needs to take celebrating a little more lightly." Blake growled at her Alpha with a glare.
"It's ok." Penny strained to smile.
"It's not. She knows better!"
"I know. Ruby asked before she told you." Penny nodded.
"Things will get better." Blake tried to comfort.
"I just hope they don't have to." Penny's anxious grin hinted that she might have a planned solution; but whatever it was, she was still unsure of its efficacy.
"Ok. Well, you take care now. Tell Pietro we said hi. Ok?"
"Can do!" Penny waived a robotic salute.
"Ok then. Night night Penn. I think I gotta take this lug of Alpha up to bed for the night."
"Aye! I'm not done drinkin'!" Yang protested at Blake urging her to stand.
Penny couldn't quite hear it, but from the way Yang's face lit up a moment after Blake leaned in to whisper something to her ear, she assumed it was probably something dirty.
"Night night Penn!" Yang quickly stumbled to her feet and rushed off, patting Penny on her shoulder before heading out with Blake.
Penny just nodded back and gave them a wave as they headed up the stairs to their room. For just a moment she wished she could take a moment and pull a seat up to the bar, that she could have a drink of her own, use it to take the sting off of everything; to dull? Or maybe just prepare her for what she wanted to do next. A little liquid courage would go a long way. But even if she did partake in that vice, it wouldn't actually have done anything for her. Pietro in all his unending wisdom, didn't design her to be affected by alcohol, and certainly not in the way it affected her carbon-based friends. Exiling the yearning for a way to make it all easier from her mind, Penny turned to the inn's front door and forged ahead.
Thankfully, or not, Pietro was not far. On the one hand, she didn't have a long trek to ruminate on the issue and the decisions she had made, but on the other, it meant she didn't have all the time she had anticipated to mull over how to present her thoughts to her father. Wringing her fingers in either hand as she approached her pre-beacon home. Anxiously, her head darted up and down, bouncing between the door and her fingers. "Ohh." A stressed whimper bordered on a whine, and she struggled to will herself to move. Dancing there, unable to make a decision for far too long, Penny eventually willed herself to knock on Pietro's door. "D- Dad?" Her tongue caught in her throat as she tried to call out to him through the door.
"Penny?" The deep voice questioned from the other side of the door as if he had just been passing by when she knocked. "Penny!" His eyes lit up bright at the surprise of having his daughter back in town to see him.
"Hey, Dad." Penny waved anxiously from outside the home.
"Well come on in now dear! You'll go catching a cold out there." Pietro waved her in, his chair moving backward slowly.
Penny laughed with a weary grin. "I don't think that is how it works Dad."
"Well, maybe you are right. But still. Come on in sweetheart!" He gestured to welcome her into the home once more.
"Thanks." Penny returned a sheepish nod before stepping in and following her father as he drifted towards the kitchen.
"You want anything?" He offered, overlooking his food.
"I don't need anything Dad. You know that."
"Yes, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy anything. Maybe a hot chocolate?" He leaned over with what looked like more effort than reaching for anything else would have required.
"Oh come on Dad. I could get that if I wanted." Penny sighed and grabbed it for him before he could grab it himself. "Do you want some?" She looked at the small packet in her hands.
Pietro sat back in his chair and tilted his head to one side, then the other with a prolonged hum. "Yeah, sure." He nodded.
"Ok. I'll get it started then, you just relax." She tried to urge. She reached over, searching for a second packet of instant hot chocolate, but she had already taken the last one. All that was left were his instant coffee packets. With a mildly disheartened sigh, she pulled out both her and her father's favorite mugs before setting some water to boil. About a moment before it was ready, she poured the cocoa into her father's mug and the coffee to hers; although, she did add an extra sugar packet and a dash of milk to hers.
"So? What brings you back to Atlas? Last I heard you all were cleaning up Vale? Trying to get Beacon back up and running." Pietro questioned curious. "And why no heads up?" It turned mildly pointed despite being veiled in a lighthearted tease.
"Oh? Yeah. Yeah, we were. Weiss stayed back with JNR while I made the trek back out here. Ruby… she kinda just naturally tagged along, and I wasn't upset to have the company." Penny wasn't finished, but she left just enough of a moment for Pietro to pipe in.
"Wasn't upset about it huh?" Pietro laughed softly, giving tell to the fact that he had more than a hint of an idea that Penny's relationship with the omega ran a little deeper than just friends.
"Yeah." Penny blushed, feeling caught and turning away to the steaming tea kettle before her father had his suspicions confirmed. "Yup, and, and Yang kind of tagged along with cause of Ruby, and there was no way Blake wasn't gonna follow her Alpha, so… We kind of just ended up with a whole squad; a pack. RPBY I guess?" Penny postulated, pulling off the kettle and filling the mugs.
"I'm glad to hear you have a squad then; delighted to know you have a pack." Pietro rejoiced in knowing his daughter not only didn't have to be alone but that she was on her way to making her own small family. "I'm proud of you Penny." He reached up to pat her on the shoulder.
"Wha-" Penny turned around, his mug in her hand, nearly spilling the coco onto him as she did.
"I'm proud of you Penny." He repeated, grabbing the other mug set out on the counter. "I'm glad you made your team; found your friends. You are happy. That is all I could have ever wanted for you." He smiled, momentarily more peaceful than Penny had ever seen the serene man. That seemed to all go to hell in an instant, however. With a slight sip at the coffee Penny had intended for herself, Pietro both burned and shocked himself by the bitter compared to the sweet cocoa he had anticipated. "Oh, god! It's gone bad." He winced and frowned, pulling the mug away.
"No, no. That one was just for me." Penny sighed. "You only had the one hot chocolate, so I opted to just make myself coffee." She explained, swapping out the mugs.
"Since when do you drink coffee?" The shocked father pulled away.
Penny smiled and laughed.
"What?" Pietro's low voice swung curiously.
"Ruby likes sweets." Penny smiled and stirred her coffee.
"I'm not sure I'm following?"
"On the way back from Vale, in between cities, the same thing happened. Blake and Yang both drink coffee, so we had that in spades, but Ruby and I had been drinking her stash of cocoa together. One day I noticed we were running out; that if I kept drinking it, she would run out before we could get more. I wasn't going to take her hot chocolate, but I still wanted to sit and drink with her. So I switched to coffee."
"Just to get to sit and drink with her huh?" Pietro nodded, seeming happy, but conflicted about it.
"Well... yeah." Penny withdrew into herself mildly, realizing how much it actually said about her feelings for Ruby. "I! I mean! I! I also kinda grew to like the coffee I guess?"
"You know most people only drink it for the caffeine." Pietro noted, a hint of melancholy in his voice.
"Ever since you made it so I could taste… I thought I only liked sweets, but coffee is good too." Penny settled. "Even if it doesn't do anything to keep me awake."
"It looks like my little girl is all grown up." Pietro sighed, swirling the coco in his mug.
"I, umm. Speaking about that?"
Pietro looked up, and Penny had a feeling he already knew what she would say. "Yes Penny?"
"You remember how after I found out I couldn't cry, I told you? How in like the next three minutes you had an upgrade for me?"
"That took three months to develop." Pietro chuckled. "I just had it on standby for if you ever wanted it."
"Do you… do you have any other upgrades for me?"
End of Chapter 2
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