Their next meeting is no different than the previous ones. It isn't awkward, or stilted, they don't talk about it. They spar, and they argue about pizza toppings, the topic of the day. It was as if nothing at all had happened.
Except that wasn't the case either.
The meeting after that, no topic of conversation can hold her focus, she is distracted and vicious.
It's not unheard of, that there were nights where the talking tapered off into silent fighting.
She stares at him like she's sizing him up, like she's trying to make a decision.
All at once that decision is made, and proves that attack of a kiss from before to be anything but a fluke.
It melds easily into this more intense struggle of a spar.
It's a touch less rabidly initiated than the last time, and Oscar knows from the beginning this time that she wants him to fight with her.
It's all a part of the fight, it becomes a part of the routine in it's own way.
It always leaves Oscar dizzy, and Ruby much calmer.
It doesn't happen every time they meet, not at all.
When it does, usually there's a reason behind it, a grief Ruby doesn't want to think about in words, or in feelings, but rather in actions.
There are times when Oscar wants to ask what happened, what's wrong.
Those are the times when she attacks before even greeting him, when things drag on, when she doesn't keep her aura up just so she can feel pain more clearly.
He might not ask her that, but strangely, out of this comes more questions actually asked. It's Ruby that asks them first, these cautious little questions in quieter moments.
She's toeing a line in her own mind, eking out tiny bits of information about what's happened in the time she's been gone, who he travels with now, if the world was still about to end.
Oscar realizes why she's asking now only after the first time she steps over the line in her question, or rather he stepped over the line in his answer.
He mentions offhandedly how the group had stopped in Patch, he had left it as a brief statement even though there was much more to be said about it.
He knows she doesn't want to hear that much about it. Apparently she didn't want to hear about it at all, because she shuts him up with her lips on his again.
It's a muted furiosity this time, a slower build, begging him to be quiet and distract her from whatever emotions were overwhelming her.
He understands then, her new verbalized curiosities.
Before, the consequences of overstepping were that she would run.
If she ran, there was no promise they would ever meet again.
That fear is what kept Oscar so careful in his word choice, so quick to bite his tongue when questions came to him.
Apparently Ruby shared that fear, because things change now they are playing a game with different stakes.
If something is too much, the consequence is painful and overwhelming in it's own way, but familiar and much more welcome to both of them than the idea of absence.
It gives Oscar the freedom to ask questions too, much more vague and mundane ones that almost always leads to her swiftly silencing him. Still, now he can try.
That newfound bit of boldness Oscar has bleeds into their fights.
Sometimes, as her nails dig into his shoulders and her mouth is on him like she's trying to both drown him and consume him at once, he eases back slowly. So slowly that she doesn't notice what he's doing until the grounding intensity and pain gives way to a more flighty pleasure.
It's a feeling she can only stomach for brief moments at a time.
Gentle is a terrifying concept to her.
Pleasure is not something she wants,
Not something she deserves, a small voice in the back of her mind tells her.
Occasionally, she gives him that. Not always when he's asking, but instead in a quick kiss goodbye, or a softer touch.
Because she's not ignorant to the fact that he's not killed off his own romantic ideals the way she has.
Because she's being cruelly generous in the most selfish way she can.
It's his own fault, she tells herself, if he's fooling himself about this all. Maybe it's her fault, a little bit, for feeding that delusion.
There are times where he doesn't ease up, but rather stops them all together. It's happened a couple of times now, when she's too lost in fervor that he's afraid she won't come back, or when he gets lost in it too– there are boundaries that he won't cross, things he refuses to contextualize into a fight or make into some way subdue her. If they stray too close to those boundaries, he stops them, because he's not as confident she would now.
She always stops as soon as she realizes that's what she's being asked to do.
She never puts distance between them unless asked though, even then.
Instead she goes from straddling him, pinning him down, to collapsed on top of him, still tense and breathing shallowly; her fingers still entwined with his with her nails still digging into the backs of his hands. He lays very still and breathes deeply, distracting himself as she very slowly comes back into focus.
When her fingers relax their grip, he frees one hand and rests it on her back, idly tracing the lines of her shoulder blades and spine.
She hums, closing her eyes in one of the incredibly rare moments she isn't fully on the defensive.
On those nights they part ways closer to dawning morning than midnight.
Back in the confines of the tribe, she is being watched more carefully and with more scrutiny than she has been since she first arrived.
It is after one of those times where she comes back just before daylight, that she is woken by Raven not long after.
Training was a thing of the past, or so Ruby had thought.
She has proven herself as part of the group, and a better fighter than all but Raven herself.
But this morning, with a silent demand, she is brought out for training and not allowed her weapon. It has been a long time, she realizes, since she's practiced with anyone who poses a real threat to her. She is exhausted, from a day full of tasks previous, and a night that stretched on to give her no real time to rest.
More than that, she has no emotion to fuel this fight, here she is calm, here she can barely remember she exists.
She would forget she had a body if it weren't for the fact she intentionally didn't let her heal a couple of the bite marks Oscar had left on her.
Strangely that tiny bit of pain and physical evidence reminds her she is no ghost.
Her calmness and exhaustion is very much her downfall and if pain was really all she needed to feel real then getting kicked to the ground and beaten so swiftly right now would have the same effect.
It doesn't.
"You've gotten sloppy," Raven says, kicking Ruby down once more before she can actually stand.
She can't argue with that, because Raven is right, she has. She expects this lesson and reminder to be the same as any other that Raven has taught her. So then, it surprises her when she isn't kicked down a third time. Instead there is that hint of concern in Raven's expression that always unsettles Ruby, but also in bigger quantities, amusement.
"You are an adult," Raven continues. "And what you do with that is your own concern, but don't let it make you weaker, you know what a weak link does to everyone else."
Ruby nods, yes, that lesson is an old one, with an added meaning now that she doesn't pick up on at first. Raven's eyes narrow, just slightly.
"You are an adult," She repeats. "And what you seek is as normal as what any animal seeks, in the spring time," A rephrase, roundabout still but enough for Ruby to understand the implication. Her eyes widen, and somehow this is ten times more mortifying than the even more vague talk her dad tried to give her, or the far too blunt and not quite age appropriate talks both Yang and uncle Qrow tried.
"I'm not doing th-" An immediate denial cut short by the fact that any explanation she could give is a dangerous one.
Raven rolls her eyes, reaching forward and tapping a spot on Ruby's collarbone, right next to a very obvious bite mark she had forgotten to cover or let heal.
Ruby's face burns, embarrassment was apparently still an emotion she knows how to feel, unfortunately.
"As I said, what you do is of your own concern. But make sure you know what you're doing. Remember to keep yourself first, and keep in mind there are very few things more vulnerable than a young child, it is a guaranteed way to slow you down." And Raven actually laughs at the way that contorts the embarrassment in Ruby's expression further.
"That is not going to happen," Ruby spits out quickly.
"Good," She nods. "Now you'll show up here every morning and fight until you can give a less pathetic performance."
