"Ow!"
It's been a long time since something's caught Oscar so off guard he forgets to use his aura to block. "Uh, Ruby?" He asks, sprawled on the moss covered ground.
It had taken her less than a moment to knock him down.
It takes her longer than that to remember how to speak again. "Mhm?"
"Did you just bite me?" The answer to that question was in deep purple teeth marks already forming on his shoulder. It would fade quickly.
She's long forgotten that there are people that don't fight like this.
She can't see what's strange about what she just did, not right now.
Oscar well outweighs her now, and has muscles to back it up.
If he could manage to pin her, he might actually win.
But Ruby is exceedingly difficult to pin.
She really fights like a wild animal, teeth, claws and all.
It's funny in its own way,
because her dog had followed her again.
Because before they started sparring, she had to give that dog a very strict command to stay where he sat, explaining to Oscar that he would try and help her with the fight otherwise.
It wasn't the dog he had to worry about, when it came to something trying to rip out his throat.
He yields and the bloodlust drains from her eyes, leaving only the reflection of moonlight in its place.
She blinks and focuses on him again, like she's just remembered who she's with.
He had approached this like their old play-fights.
She had approached this like any other fight for her life.
She holds a hand out, offering him help back to his feet.
Once he has his balance, and his footing, round two starts.
She eases up just a little, tries to stay grounded and remember the stakes are low. The lives they lead are so different. If she slips up, he won't go for the kill.
He treats this less like they are just playing a game this time.
He isn't defeated quite so quickly this time.
She still gets him on the ground quickly but they tussle there, he manages to keep from being completely pinned at first.
He still loses, with her knee pressed against his throat, almost cutting off air completely.
In a last ditch effort he tries one of her tricks, turning his head to the side and biting her.
His teeth sink into her calf, though the material of her thigh-highs cover any mark that might have been left. She sinks slightly, just a bit more pressure on his neck.
His vision fades quickly, and he goes limp.
She pulls away quickly, kneeling next to him, watching carefully.
Consciousness finds him quickly again.
He's lightheaded in a way that leaves a vague grin on his face, oddly giddy.
When his eyes find hers, any worry for him Ruby has fades.
Her shoulders are shaking.
She is laughing, laughing so hard, without abandon–
High off the thrill of such an easy fight that leads to no pain–
Manic in a way she can't understand–
She doesn't want to understand.
She collapses next to him, giggling, every time she looks at him, laughter bubbles from her again.
He's chuckling along, he can't take his eyes off her.
She looks so happy– no that's not quite the right word.
Some strange mixture of pain and joy, something held back for so long that the walls holding it back are cracking.
He is seeing the first small cracks forming. It's captivating.
It leaves a smile lingering on his face, and a heavy feeling in his stomach.
A feeling closer to fear, but not quite, another nameless sensation.
An emotion more akin to muscle memory.
A memory so ancient that he knows it's not quite his own.
"You bit me back!" There's still the lilt of laughter in her voice.
Her words pull him from his musing all at once.
"Well- yeah, it's payback, right?" He has the time to be embarrassed about it now. It's hard to get those words out without stuttering. "You've got to teach me some of that. You weren't kidding about being able to beat me in hand-to-hand now," He once again swallows down all the questions he has, it's not the time, it's not worth it to ask.
"I don't think I'd be a very good teacher. I don't know how to explain any of it," Ruby mumbles, because it's true. There are no words for the lessons her body learned from the pain of training and enmity towards the disgusting monsters in this world. "But, if we spar some more maybe you'll learn a thing or two," She adds after a moment.
And so begins a new routine. They meet at this same spot, they spar, they leave before morning.
All the while, the tribe moves on to different places.
Ruby joins the group that scouts out new locations.
That used to be one of her least favorite tasks, just a boring walk with a handful of old tribes members. She leads them to spots that keep the trek to Glass Lake a short one.
She still helps to select areas that are rich in resources in both the land and dying villages to pick off.
She doesn't let them suffer for her own wants.
She trades her night time monster hunting for night time sparring sessions.
Word around Mistral is the beast and her hound that hunt in the night has gone dormant.
Terrible men can rest easy in the dark, if only for now, for how long they don't know.
Sometimes her nameless dog comes with, sometimes he doesn't.
When he does, he's taken to trotting up to Oscar, rolling over and demanding to be pet.
A new routine begins, but it doesn't blend into one endless mass of time with no edges or boundaries to each night. In the tribe, time is a meaningless thing.
Here, Oscar seems to refuse to let routine sink into something easy.
Instead he marks time in silly arguments.
Whether it be about the practicality of gravity dust in weapon making.
He will be flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him and Ruby rearing to kick him, and he will still find the breath to debate with her.
"The uses in combat are so limited, it's better used in engineering." She would argue back.
He would grin, then flinch as he took a knee to the stomach. "Have you seen those missile launchers that use gravity dust though?" He would ask when the pain subsided.
Or whether horses were better than ponies.
"Most horses are dumber than rocks! They get scared of anything. I knew one that startled when it saw blackberry bushes." Oscar would say, diving, dodging, no match for her speed.
"That's the thing though! Ponies are smart, and they're clearly planning things. I don't know how you can look at them and see anything but pure evil." She had an aversion to ponies since she was bitten by one at the town fair when she was ten. How long had it been since she remembered that?
They are completely impractical conversations; they distract from the sparring and waste so much time.
Later he starts to mark time with trinkets.
First it was a comic book, a new edition of one she used to keep up with continually. She accepts it, tucks it away,
pretends there isn't an excited skip in her step,
pretends she doesn't cut this sparring session early to go read the book with just the light of a lamp in her tent.
Next it was chocolate, the sweetened kind, because he remembers somehow that she doesn't like bitter flavors.
She has almost forgotten her own gigantic sweet tooth. Rarely does she get sugary things now, occasionally there is honey for tea, or when she's off scouting with tribes members and they stop in a pub, she can usually convince the bartender to make her something syrupy and easy to drink.
She doesn't tuck the chocolate away.
She breaks off a piece and lets it melt in her mouth. A noise, a whine almost, creeps up her throat and escapes into the world at that flavor.
Oscar is terribly red in the face, and shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, looking anywhere but at her. He is odd during their sparring that night, like he is trying to avoid any impact at all, dodging and keeping a distance.
He brings all sorts of random little things.
Foreign fruit from the market that is both sweet and spicy.
A flower that caught his eye on the way over, swirling red and orange into its center.
A squeaky rubber bone for the dog– Anytime the dog follows along with Ruby now, he always had that hanging out of his mouth, proudly brandishing it.
He stubbornly makes every meeting memorable.
Slowly, very slowly, she forgets how much she hates that he prevents her from detaching, that his very presence seems to force her to feel.
Then one night he is late.
They never have a set time to meet, but they always seem to show up right around the same time as each other.
She thinks nothing of it, at first. She walks a lap around the lake.
Then another.
And another.
There's this buzzing feeling running in her blood that she ignores. Her nails dig into her palms, then scratch at her arms without noticing, leaving pink trails of scratch marks she doesn't feel.
Finally he shows up. He doesn't notice the odd expression on her face, because he has an odd expression of his own, preoccupied and almost pained. He's pale and there's a tension around his eyes like he's battling a migraine.
"What held you up?" Ruby asks, nonchalant as she can.
Oscar hesitates, he gazes off to the side as if the answer would be written there. "Oz found out. He- I, well I hadn't told him, that you were alive, and all of that. I slipped up, he found out, and he's sort of been throwing a fit in my head ever since? It feels like someone's kicking the inside of my skull."
She didn't actually realize how good Oscar had gotten at keeping things from Oz. She sort of assumed that the old wizard knew she was alive and around, but apparently Oscar was very good at not mentioning things to the roommate inside his own head.
"Oh," Was all she could manage to say, barely a reaction at all.
"Could you- would you mind talking to him? You don't have to, of course! But he seems to want to talk to you. I'd be right here, I can put him away if I have to." The last time Oz had forced control was back when they were barely acquainted, with Jinn, with the lamp. They have an understanding now, this is Oscar's body and Oscar's life, Oz is allowed only what Oscar chooses to share.
Ruby shrugs and shoves down any apprehension. "Sure, go for it."
"Thanks," Oscar mumbles, and in a blink it's no longer him there. She doesn't have to see how his eyes take on a more golden hue, or how his posture shifts.
She knows it without looking because she feels nothing again. His shift in consciousness matches her own, as Oscar gives over to Oz, whatever bit of humanity Oscar has recultivated in her gives over to the beast people discuss only in hushed whispers.
"Hello again Miss Rose. It's good to see you again, alive and...well." Oz says, distant in his own way, formality is an imperfect shield, he is genuinely happy to know she lives.
Ruby rolls her eyes. "Hello again, Mister Oz." She says flatly, punctuated with a mock curtsy. "I think we can drop the formalities, don't you?"
A frown twists at his lips, it's odd how old Oz can make Oscar's face look. "You have been through so much," There's a sad, knowing air in his tone that makes Ruby tense.
He knows. He knows where she has been, and what she has done.
He knows, but Oscar doesn't. Her eyes narrow, somewhere between a silent threat and beg. She can't hurt him without also hurting Oscar, but Oscar can't know what she's become.
He nods, a promise just as silent, and she can breathe then. He won't tell Oscar.
"When you're ready, your friends and family will be waiting for you with open arms." He says so assuredly. "They miss you dearly. You have an effect on people Miss Ro- Ruby, you are missed."
There's a flash of something in his eyes, he has no stakes in this, he can say what he wishes if he can say it before Oscar reclaims control. "You can be taken off the MIA list easily, they will ask no questions, your huntress license will be reinstated."
"MIA?" She whispers, like all the air has been knocked out of her.
Oscar is back even more quickly than he left, and he puts a hand on her arm.
His presence is the best and the worst thing that could happen in this moment.
With that touch, she can feel again, and gods she doesn't want to feel right now.
The MIA list is something she is far too intimately familiar with. It's code for 'dead with no body to recover'. Huntsman can only be put on that list two years after their last appearance.
Her mother disappeared when she was four years old.
She was only put on the list when Ruby was six years old.
She remembers the day much more vividly than she remembers anything about her mom. That day her dad locked himself in his room for two weeks.
Uncle Qrow came back from a mission a week and a half in.
By then they had been surviving off of fruity pebble cereal with no milk, and Ruby who was already small for her age had lost a terrible amount of weight.
Yang was trying her very best, but she was only a child, they were only children.
The sight of that brand of cereal would make Ruby nauseous even to this day.
Now she herself was on that list. If someone searched the huntsman database for the name Rose, they would two names in red, crossed out.
Summer Rose MIA
Ruby Rose MIA
Oscar was right in front of her, hands on her shoulders, waiting for her to come back to herself enough to talk. "I'm so sorry Ruby, I shouldn't have let-"
"How long?" She whispers, interrupting him.
"What do you mean?"
"How long since… how long have I been gone?" Over two years, she knows that much now.
"Three- uh almost four years," He answers in disbelief, she really has no idea how long it's been, how old she is, when the last time she saw anyone was.
"Okay," She mumbled, like that new information just bounced right off her. "Okay." She repeats, looking up at him, into his eyes.
She sighs.
On the surface she looks dulled, distant, devoid of feeling.
But no, feeling nothing is a pleasure she isn't allowed around him.
There's that terrible raging storm bubbling up under her skin again, the one she thought the life she leads now had qualmed.
There are those vines of- of something threatening to constrict around her throat again.
"Come on, let's fight," She takes off towards the clearing, waiting for him to follow.
One breath in, and she can feel herself choking.
She barely waits for him to take stance before bounding at him. It's desperate and vicious, what she's taking out on him now. He is doing whatever he can to keep up with her, but she gets him on the ground.
She's all teeth and claws again, he has bloody scratches littering his body, and a couple of splotchy bite marks to match.
Her eyes catch his, and he can swear there's a glow in the silver reflection he sees.
She wants to scream.
She wants to breathe.
Instead her lips press to his. He freezes, eyes wide, and then he just relaxes.
It's not gentle,
it's not sweet,
it's forceful and as hasty as all other moves she's made,
it's as much a part of their sparring match as any of this, he realizes.
When he doesn't pull away, she bites his lip, presses closer, asking him to play along. And he does. Not quite as vehement in his response as she is, not at first.
She is trying to make him understand how much she hates that she can't escape these feelings around him.
She is trying to throw away every last shred of that romantic idea that a happily ever after ends with something sweet and beautiful. Maybe it does, but she doesn't deserve that.
She is trying to lose herself again in a new and different way.
She is weak and vulnerable right now. He could kill her right now, so easily, and everything the tribe has taught her has told her that's exactly what he should do.
She shifts her weight, rolls them over so his weight is above her. So maybe he can understand he has the upperhand now, this is afterall, still a fight, she instigated like an actual fight rather than a spar. He can, and should, be going for a kill, something in her mind tells her.
When he doesn't catch on, when his lips on hers only match what she gives and his hands stay hesitantly on her waist, she groans in frustration.
She pulls away enough to grab his hands and actively put them around her wrists, showing him how to pin her very much the same way she's pinned him numerous times during their sparring practice. He gives her a half questioning look, dazed but hesitant. He is met only with a glare and another kiss.
He won't kill her, of course he won't, he never would. Her logic is entirely incompatible with his there.
But if she wants to fight, and wants him to bite back, and hold her wrists down until they would bruise without her aura up, if pain is the sensation she needs to give and get right now to come down from this, he can do that. He can do that only because that's what they've been doing all along, he knows her strength, and trusts her implicitly to know when this should end.
They both can taste blood.
They are left with short gasping breaths, so similar and so different to any other sparring match. This time it's Oscar who offers Ruby a hand to help stand up. She is grounded again, that terrible rage inside her is sated, for now, or at least is brought back to a low simmer, and masked by the after effects of adrenaline.
They are both a complete mess, but they have the touch of shy smiles.
Ruby takes a step to leave, like usual, but hesitates.
She turns on her heels back to him, realizing she's forgotten something. She nearly stumbles before striding forward until she is right in front of him. "See you in three days," She punctuates that with the quickest kiss on the cheek, standing on her tiptoes.
"Thank you," She whispers, and she is off again.
