pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
(Weiss PoV)
I was a little worried about this date. I didn't want to feel like a third wheel and just as importantly I didn't want Cloud and Ruby to feel like I was a third wheel.
Cloud… I was still getting used to calling him that. It was a pretty name. It was so pretty I wasn't sure that he had come up with it himself. It also fit him, I wasn't sure what Ruby thought of it but I felt like it matched him. Especially with the piercings and his hair spiked up like it was.
He didn't look like a Jaune. He looked like… well… a Cloud. Not an actual cloud but… you knew what I meant.
My situation had layers to it. I didn't want to feel like a third wheel. I didn't want them to feel like I was a third wheel. I didn't want anyone else to feel like a third wheel. It was a lot to worry about and I was a worrier. I was an overthinker. I was that sort of girl.
That was even more true in social situations. I hadn't had a lot of friends as a child. I was pretty sure that was how things became the way that they were with me. I had a touch of social anxiety. And walking now with both my 'crushes' was only amplifying that.
Who should walk in the middle? Should it be Ruby who Jaune and I were already both a little established with? Should it be Jaune who was the odd man out? Or should it be me for some reason I couldn't think of but which was apparent to the other two?
Speaking of Ruby and Cloud being already established I didn't want them to decide that they were it and then keep me along out of some sense of pity or something similar.
Would Cloud resent me after I rejected him so harshly so many times? Was this all a prank on me on his end to make up for the cruelty I'd shown him?
It made me scared. It made me feel small. It kept me from talking much.
It turns out that Ruby took to the middle and we both took one of her hands each. Cloud had to slow his long stride for us to keep up and it gave him an odd slow good looking swagger to Ruby's adorably excited steps.
Jaune wasn't talking much either. He had a small smile on his face which now that I looked at it seemed small and fragile.
I wanted him to be having a good time.
One more thing for me to worry about.
I had a lot on my mind, leave me alone!
I couldn't for the life of me just relax into the company of my… my girlfriend and boyfriend. Try and not stumble over that. Try.
That was even more so true for me, raised in Atlas with the more strict love life code etched into my mind. It felt like we were breaking some unwritten law but all I was doing was listening to Ruby gush and tell Cloud about the things he had missed in her life. In both our lives really.
"We got our weapons upgraded by Dr Polendina, well some of us did."
"You let someone else touch your weapon?" He asked, that small smile touching on his face.
"Well I got to help."
"It was more like he helped her with a few things," I clarified for Cloud.
I wasn't sure how I felt about this date either. Maybe I just wasn't a date person. I loved when the lights were low and I was with both of them. Those early dawns in Mistral were what I thought of when I thought there was hope for me being involved in the two of them. Pink and blue lights in the beginning morning sun.
It was two different days. One with Ruby and one weeks later with Jaune, as he had been called then.
We went to a movie first. This forgettable rom-com that had been so cheesy it had hurt at parts. Making me hide my face out of embarrassment for the actors. I held Cloud's hand the whole way through. It had been quiet which made me relax a little. Then we'd gotten a quick dinner. Noodles and sauce in custom bowls at this place in midtown Atlas. It had been relatively cheap but that wasn't the point.
It had been nice.
We were out under harsher artificial Atlesian suns, now. The lampposts on the street were bright enough for those parts of the year where the country got little sunlight. We came up on a green park by night and we walked along the wide park paths together through crystalline trees. Artificial and so different from the real Solitas tundra.
It got me thinking about whether we were artificial like the greenery of the park. Maybe we didn't belong together. Or maybe I was just worrying too much.
We strolled together in no particular hurry.
We were just out together. It should have been simple. It should have been comfortable. So why did I feel so tense?
Cloud walked so easily, shoulders back and chin up. It made him look even taller and more broad.
I was a touch taller than Ruby. But only a touch. It was emphasized because I wore heels and she didn't. Lady stilts, she called them.
"Something is wrong," I said at length. "I think we all know what it is but I'm just going to come out and say it."
"Don't you dare," Ruby murmured. She must have felt it too. She was the greatest empath out of us.
"Me," Cloud murmured at the same time I did.
"You?" We both wondered back at the other over Ruby's head.
I recalled a conversation Ruby and I once had about how we were similar. Cloud had been feeling the same thing I felt. He even reached the same conclusion. That he was the problem.
"Why would you be the problem? You and Ruby were so close," I whispered in the twilight.
"That was before I knew I was a monster. I thought you two would want to get rid of me. Be together. You've both always had good chemistry."
"You two have it too," I managed. I was shocked a little. I looked way up at his face. That fragile smile... He'd been sharing my worries all along.
"Ruby can get along with anything. I'm living proof of that," he dismissed.
He was thinking that he was the one that wasn't good enough. That he'd be the third wheel.
Ruby had been right.
We were alike.
"You're not a monster. No one sees you that way except for yourself," I whispered.
Ruby slunk back a little, drifting slightly behind to let us talk without looking over her head.
"Maybe none of you saw my father's other wretched specimens. You wouldn't be so quick to say that if you had."
"You're a person. With feelings. You… you must have been so lonely. I'm so sorry."
I thought about how Cloud must have felt. He'd just been used like a… like a puppet by his mother. Like how my father wished he could have used me in his wildest dreams. Before I broke free of his influence for good.
Cloud didn't have that. He was trapped between his mother's claws. Maybe forever because she was actually in his mind. My father had made me his doll once, compared to the sort of marionette his mother made him into, what was that?
Cloud was going through that too; only his struggle seemed even more real than mine. My lack of a childhood was little compared to his real own total lack of one. He'd been grown in a jar, he didn't have a childhood. I'd at least gotten more than that.
I suddenly felt less alone. Cloud knew what it was like. As good as I did. And he was here with me.
"What happened to you was awful. It's awful. But I promise you're not the problem. The things you are and the things you do are wonderful." His eyes in the dim Mistrali sun flashed behind mine. "I felt like I was the odd one out," I said.
He just shook his head, gazing into my eyes. He really did look handsome.
"And I treated you so terribly freshman year, you were basically a newborn! Like Penny!"
He looked distinctly uncomfortable with that notion. He shuffled slightly and looked away. He didn't like that idea one bit. He'd rather I held him responsible for his actions. I had respect for that but I couldn't quite manage it to full effect. He'd been so messed up. He still was so screwed up. Hell, he'd been messed up in Mistral when I started to fall for him.
I remembered his terrible proposal with his guitar. He probably genuinely thought he could play and sing and his memories were playing tricks on him. Salem and Merlot's memories. Not his own.
But it was true. He'd been a child in a near adult's body. He had basically no real memories at that point and his head had been full of Salem's wants and desires. Coming from that angle it was amazing he'd been as sound as he had been. His advances weren't so childish or unbecoming from that angle. They were what they were.
They were his first experiments with the opposite sex, like a young boy's first crush. That's what they were.
I looked up at him. His eyes glowed with a hard edge to his face. He wasn't a boy anymore like he'd been freshman year. Trauma and combat had turned him into a man. He'd earned his adulthood. That's what I'd seen in Mistral and he'd only been through more since then. There was a maturity to him that only came through real effort. And he wasn't afraid of that effort.
"I deserved it. Bothering you like that."
"You can bother me a little… especially now."
"Not taking no for an answer," he muttered softly. He probably believed that, too. Ruby was right. He did hate himself. "I should have listened when you shot me down the first time and left you be. I deserved that," he repeated.
"You did not!" I snapped with more heat than I meant to. He gave up his attempt to not meet my eye. "Can you forgive me?"
"Water under the bridge," he whispered, his voice smouldered like a soft flame. He reached out and tucked a stray branch of my hair behind my ear. He was so close.
At some point we'd stopped walking and he'd turned to stand before me. Ruby watched the two of us with baited breath off to one side. She'd been carrying this date with Cloud's and my awkwardness. We were still feeling each other out. We were saying the things that needed to be said.
His hand touched my face and pulled gently against my cheeks. I was looking up into his eyes. Then he kissed me. My hand tightened around Ruby's as both his lips wrapped around my bottom one even though he was taller than me.
His tongue raced against the pout of my lip. It tickled at me to open up. I was nervous but I opened my mouth up a little and his tongue darted inside for just a moment. He tasted of spice and something crisply burnt like crème brûlée.
I shuddered a little and goosebumps raced down my shoulders and spine. I shivered once. Ruby was right. He was a good kisser.
Our auras flared together and it buzzed against my skin like an electrical current. It hummed against my flesh. His golden hue was overpowering my little white one.
My thighs rubbed together a little. At the bridge. Near their top. I wasn't proud of that fact.
His hand came out and reached the small of my back. He pulled me a little closer to him and I made a noise that was lady-like in the technical sense but was unflattering. At least to me. He seemed to enjoy it, however, because he dove at my lips with a renewed vigor.
Ruby squeezed my hand back and though I knew she was watching it was a distant focus.
"C-cloud…" I murmured. I'd almost stumbled on his old name in my hazed mind.
He reached under my butt at that and picked me up with just one of his arms so that I was above him. The motion was fast and surprised me. I squealed a little, another unflattering noise before I whimpered into the kiss at his squeeze and caress.
He was so strong. I put my free hand against his firm chest to help support myself and I leaned down into him now rather than him into me.
He still hunted for my bottom lip. His teeth came to bear and he nibbled gently against it. His sharp teeth were a dire contrast to the fullness of his lips.
He let out a noise against my lips. Part moan and part growl. It was a hungry sound. It made me flush with heat and a bit of pride. I caused that. He was hungry for me. But he was also partially satisfied. He'd been hungry for me. Had been for a long, long time. Most of his life he had wanted me at least going by the real clock of his heart. And that same heart was satisfied by our long, drawn out kiss.
In the park at night, alone, just the three of us, he held me in the air easily. I felt none of the embarrassment or awkwardness. I ran my free hand behind his head and against his neck and pulled him closer to me. My chest pressed against his.
The fullness of it felt amazing. Sparingly, I let go of Ruby's hand with one final squeeze. Our fingertips traced together as I retracted my hand and wrapped my arm around his shoulders and he made me melt. I felt like I could barely hold on and I panted through my nose against his lips.
My eyelids fluttered shut a little. He must have let go of Ruby's hand too because his other hand came up and caressed my cheek, pulling me firmly down against him.
I tried to wrap my legs around his stomach just below his ribcage and he grunted as I shifted in his arms. I would have wanted to put my legs around his pelvis but he was too tall. And his frame was too wide for me to get my legs around him. I suffered because of it and let out a meek noise. He let out a low chuckle against my mouth.
He was laughing at me!
How dare...
I pulled back and took a deep breath. I brushed my plait back with a flick of my hand and a twist of my head and I looked down on him.
"You're laughing at me," I complained like it meant something as I looked down on him. His hands gripped my butt and felt amazing. I wanted him to hold me more in his strong arms. I wanted his full calloused hands to roam me.
"A little. You were so adorable," he returned with a wide grin.
"Adorable?" I was supposed to be sexy. I was supposed to be hot. Like he was. Not cute or similar. Very much not adorable.
"You couldn't get your legs around me. It was adorable. You're so small," he teased me more.
"I'm not that small!"
"You are," he swooned.
"I'll show you adorable. If we were at the academy I would…"
"Go on," he insisted.
"I would do all kinds of things."
"Of course you would."
"You doubt me?" I asked. I put a little shock into my voice.
"I really don't want to," he returned, his tone somehow full of agreement.
I tapped his shoulder to be put down and he set me on the ground. I brushed something hard on my way down. I flushed. I caused that. Just by kissing him I did that to him. Not that I was in a much better state.
I could use a cold shower. His hands had left deep memories on my body.
"Will that go away?" I teased him back.
"I can walk it off. Be fine," he grunted.
His eyes watched me with a certain degree of thirst as I twisted away from him. I turned away and tried to master myself. I was still breathing hard a little and my body was all kinds of active.
"So… what'd you think?" Ruby asked. She was over to Cloud's side.
"Well...he's a good kisser," I managed, still flustered.
"I told you." She laughed. She was laughing at me too!
I'd show her. I'd show them both.
"Talking about me?" Cloud asked.
"All sorts of things," I whispered. I brushed a hand against his chest.
"Behind your back, too." Ruby grabbed his arm and pulled it close to her chest. She kissed his cheek once with a little jump to leave a peck behind on his face.
He looked between us bemused and I saw a real smile on his face not like the delicate thing he'd worn throughout our date.
"Well just so long as it's good things."
"You'll never know," Ruby murmured. "We girls get up to all kinds of stuff."
"Like kissing," I whispered.
"I might... like... to see that," he interjected.
"Oh I'm sure you would," I said.
"Maybe as a treat," Ruby went on.
"But only if you behave," I finished.
He gave us a mocking bow that hid nothing. "Whatever it takes."
"We could always give him a prelude," I murmured. I wrapped both arms around Ruby's neck. Our noses brushed together.
I gave her a gentle kiss. She whimpered into it. It was soft. Especially compared to Cloud's fervor. It was also a contest between us who would get the other's bottom lip which led to us nipping at each other. Ruby was wolfish but eventually I won and Ruby fell against me with a low cry.
Cloud let out a low suffering groan.
"You ladies are going to kill me. I'm supposed to be walking this thing off."
"No, you just get to stand there and watch," I ordered, a pleased smile on my face as I watched him run his face with his hands.
The park at night was a quiet and romantic place. Perfect for our little exhibitions as we opened each other up and got to know the others with full affections.
pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
-WG
