Just Like the Stories Tell

by TheRedRoster

After coming out from long term relationships, Jaune and Ruby are strangers who meet in Argus. When a quiet love blossoms between them, they're cautious because they've been down this road before. Love isn't like it is in fairy tales after all. So they make a deal. Let love, for only this week, be perfect. Give each other a memory that will last forever, just like in the stories.

2. Chapter 2 - To Rise

I'm so behind but I realize that I can't have done this within the time frame of 9 Days of Lancaster. So I'll just do my own thing and keep at this for as long as it needs to be. This all came from a lot of self-doubt when I wonder why I hadn't finished my writing. So I thought, damn it all, I'll pull up my laurels and KEEP GOING. But not only that, I'll keep working on multiple stuff. I've got stories to make but I won't abandon any of them. So here I am, on a writer's high that I hope takes me to completion. Wish me luck!

---

Chapter 2 - To Rise...

=(✦)=

Jaune Arc, driving up the Poultice Trail with her.

We talk exes.

"Oscar Pine."

"Pyrrha Nikos."

She gawks silently at the name.

I try not to laugh.

"What?" I ask.

"The cereal girl?" she guffaws. I bemoan the fact that I can only savor the way her face twists for a moment at a time because I'm behind the wheel. When I look again, she's still making that face.

"Yes," I say, trying to push down my embarrassed smile. "Pumpkin Pete's. Even had a hoodie from sending in box tops. Can you believe I didn't recognize her when we first met? Even my best friends recognized her, and they only had cereal a handful of times by then."

"I'm still reeling from the celebrity status." She shakes her head, leaning back against the door like she's trying to get a better view of me so she can see where my lies are hiding. "Weiss mentioned her a few times too. They're acquainted. But you were her boyfriend?"

"Fiancé, actually." Despite mostly thinking of her fondly, anything approaching our breakup leaves a stone in my throat, and it's difficult to push passed and swallow each time. "It's…" I know she can see my frown, so I don't look at her. Still, I tug on a smile, even if it does look sad. "It's why I have the ring. It's tradition for up-and-coming newlyweds to propose with it."

"Oh…" I still don't look but I've killed the mood. "She gave it back?"

I catch a glint of the ring in corner of my eye. She's wearing it. Has since I put it on her the night before. There's a tingle, a bit of warmth at the idea of having it on her.

"She didn't," I say. "Like the rebel I was, I proposed without it."

She stares at me in confusion. "Then why do you even have this?"

I shrug. My smile coming more naturally now. "My sister passed it onto me and demanded I do it again and do it right." But I never really got around to it.

Ruby scrunches her nose, piecing it together. I could just tell her, but she doesn't ask. So, I push on the accelerator.

I like the Poultice Trail. Between every tree down it is a berry bush or a cluster of herbs, and as the seasons pass, the colors of the trail shift and ebb along with the trees like nature's slideshow. The faster I drive, the more the colors blend together around us like eying down the kaleidoscope.

"It's very pretty," she says. I catch the way brighter hues dance behind her silver eyes.

"Your eyes kind of… glow," I tell her.

Her embarrassed cheeks hide behind her hands. "Keep your own eyes on the road. I'd hate for this date to end prematurely."

I almost convince myself to let it go, but I'm curious. There's a mountain of things we don't know about each other, and we can only tread familiar ground for so long before we have to fill in the gaps. "You conscious about your eyes?" I ask, pushing because I need to.

"More like I've been showered by compliments on them and that I'd rather people stop bringing it up."

"They're very pretty."

"So is this road. Tell me about it."

"And if I'm more concerned with you?"

She kicks her feet in barely held frustration behind that polite smile of hers, tapping the underside of my glove compartment. "Okay, fine, a trade. I tell you about my eyes. You tell me about this road."

"You that curious about bunch of bushes?"

She shrugs. "It's got a story, I'm sure."

"So do your eyes, I'm guessing."

"Probably."

I know the road isn't what she cares about. She cares about what it means to me. Trying to parse my world – all of Argus – so she can see the man who's lived in it. I oblige her. "Argus used to be a Mistrali fort and the trail was made so people could gather salves and wet their lips on the go. The fort's just a tourist attraction now, though." I laugh. "They won't admit it but the Atlesians hate it," I say, barely hiding my triumphant sneer.

She exhales sharply. "Is that why Atlas has a man-made island on the dock?" she asks, smiling in a way that tells me she gets it.

"Yeah, cause the most defensible position is a historical monument they weren't allowed to touch."

Out by the dock, you can see it for what feels like miles. The Atlesian installation in our waters, the Intercontinental Air Transit, a hulking eyesore of steel, white, and blue. "Sounds like a lot of work for a metal middle finger," she says. "Atlas give you guys any trouble?"

"Only as much as any other kingdom." Down the road I can see the old stone fort standing proudly against the winds and waves – he gnashing teeth of old, leafless trees bursting from its courtyard, through its walls, and climbing its towers. "The old fort is as much our middle finger to theirs anyway. So…"

"My eyes. Right. They're from my birth mom."

"So does she glow or am I gonna have to guess why yours do that?"

She gives me a skeptical look, and I have to double check if it's just the light on her that's playing tricks on me, but no, that silver in her sockets has a soft glow that I've caught in the dark and all that shimmering is no hyperbole.

"Do they really glow?" she asks. "I don't think they do."

"How has no one asked you this?"

She chews her lip, pausing to think. The old fort passes us by and she gives it a look before we take a left, deeper into the woods.

"I guess Weiss brought it up once or twice…"

I think of her ex. "Maybe Oscar was in love with you from the start. A feature like that ends up in poems, draws in a stare and holds it till you notice."

"Psh! He didn't write poetry…" she dismisses before quietly adding, "…m-most of the time."

"Ha!"

She puts her fists to her waist in a pose that reminds me of Weiss reprimanding someone – she even huffs. It's still strange to me that Ruby was Weiss's best friend who I never knew, and it shows. Sometimes you trade mannerisms like this. Maybe she's why Weiss is a hopeless romantic instead of the no-nonsense specialist that her sister is.

"Okay, champ, how's it working so far with you?" she asks, and her eyes glow a little brighter.

"I have to physically hold back so I don't crash," I admit.

Disarmed, she looks away. "Flatterer," she teases. "Okay, next trade."

"Don't I get to pick the trade this time?"

"Not after that comment, you don't."

=(✿)=

Ruby Rose, convincing herself that a night in a cabin isn't too familiar.

Oscar used to take me to the woods a lot. I've seen enough trees to catalogue their differences. How oak and pine flakes into chunks you can use to fill out campfires, how wild woods are fat and mingle with the grass till the dirt vanishes beneath the thicket, and that a well-tied hammock will typically hold your weight and not snap for as long as you're not doing anything, uh, extra-curricular.

So, when Jaune took me into the woods, I thought I'd be treading familiar ground. Turns out, he's lived enough of a camper's life to not invite it into his leisure time in the city.

He doesn't bring me to a cabin. Instead, it's one of six lake houses in a bulge by a river.

"Uncle Jaune!" says a pink-haired teenager as she runs from the lake house and into Jaune's arms. She's nearly as tall as he is but her vibrance makes me think she's younger than she looks.

"Hey, Taff. Is the house okay?"

"Sparkling clean," she says proudly before looking over at me. "Oh, hi! You must be Jaune's new friend!"

"Friend?" I mouth at him. He shrugs.

She climbs off of him, jogs up to me, and sticks out a hand. "I'm Taffy! It's a real pleasure!"

"I'm Ruby," I tell her, and she takes my hand and squeezes a little too tightly. "Quite the grip there." She beams brightly at that.

Looking at her, I can guess that she's seventeen, but my mind keeps correcting that she could just be an unusually tall kid. She can just as easily be an excitable teenager like I was, though.

"I'll go set the table!" she says before sprinting off.

I give Jaune a look. "She's energetic."

"She's been like that for as long as I can remember," he tells me, eyes locked on her retreating form, pride pouring out of the curl of his cheeks. "She hasn't hit the brakes since we adopted her."

"We, you say?" I ask, raising a brow. "Uncle gets the same privilege as her parents?"

"I get to count!" he defends. "She called me uncle before my sister or her wife got called mom."

I sense a history there and I egg him on to tell me. It's another trade. He tells me about Taffy and how he'd brought her out of her shell to make new friends instead of clinging to only her up-and-coming mothers and little brother. How she'd learned to cook under his guidance and how a dish from southern Menagerie was her favorite. That she was still discovering herself and that she hides behind her little brother so she doesn't have to deal with her own budding feelings.

I sense a kinship with her. The pieces don't perfectly align but I sense it all the same.

When we're inside, Jaune starts up the stove. He's cooking, apparently, and Taffy swiftly leaves the two of us alone. I catch her staring at me, her expression indecipherable as it vanishes around the doorway.

The kitchen here is almost as large as half of Jaune's apartment. There's even three stoves and two fridges, and the space between the large island counter and the rest of the appliances is so spacious that I feel small standing in the middle of it.

He notices the way I scan the room.

"It's the family lake house," he explains, already chopping through some onions. "My family used to cross all along Mistral on our vacations. We'd take different routes and sometimes make some familiar stops, but we always end up here. Place is older than I am."

"Your family must get a lot of lien to own a place this big for a getaway."

"We just got a lot of working adults. My dad had a ton of siblings in the same house, but by the time we all grew up to get jobs of our own, our aunts and uncles moved out already. It just so happens that we save a lot of lien on the housing that way. Eight siblings, all with friends and partners to take with us, tends to choke the hallways."

Standing in this room, I feel like an intruder. Suddenly the wide space makes sense with a mass of bodies running around them. Three stoves might not even be enough. Touching the island counter with my bare hands lets me feel the nicks hidden in the glossy, toned marble. It's a lot of history I'm only just walking into, glimpsing it from a viewfinder.

It stings a little. That I'm a moment in his life that will vanish when the week finally ends, but I let the thought die of natural causes once he pulls a container of marinated meat from the freezer. Despite being frozen, the meat's got a rustic aroma from the black and brown sauce it's drowning in. It smells even better when he's cooking it already.

"So, first date is a quiet stay at a lake house?" I ask, batting my lashes at him.

"Oh, there's plenty a to do here. And almost none of it quiet," he says, teasing.

He turns back to his cooking, the sizzling filling the spaces of the room.

I stand aside and clutch my arm. It feels familiar. All of it. Even though it's not a cabin, I can't help but feel that this day will turn out the way it normally did with Oscar. I imagine swimming in the lake, having quiet mornings in bed, a picnic by a cliff's edge. All undoubtedly romantic, but all dreadfully familiar. I'm thinking so much of Oscar that I'm pinching my ring finger again.

I pinch over Jaune's ring instead. I fixate on the etched surface, the glossy markings on it catching the light.

"We got spare clothes upstairs in my room, by the way," he says, and I look up to stare at him.

"What's wrong with the clothes on my back?"

He looks me up and down. "Nothing? I mean, we're about to do a ton today and that sweater with that skirt? They aren't going to survive anything we've got planned."

Now I'm genuinely confused. What did he have planned today? Why did he say we? I had no input on today's plans. My turn is tomorrow.

Then the delightfully pungent smell of his meat comes with the crackle and sizzle.

Someone hurries down the steps outside the kitchen. "Mmm! Carne frita? You tryin' ta' butter me up today, baby brother?" a woman calls out as her footsteps approach the doorway.

"You wish!" Jaune answers. "It's for lunch and you'll have to wait till we get to the plateau to eat it!"

"I'mma sneak a few bites anyway, y'know? Can't watch that container all –" A blonde woman in a bob cut and leather jacket swings into the doorframe. She's staring at me. "Oh, hey! You must be Ruby!" She approaches me with a look of mischief, but I stand my ground. "Jaune told me he'd be bringing in a date this time around – the traitor." She laughs, all good-naturedly before she slips passed me and slaps Jaune on the shoulder. "Why'd you have to leave me hanging like that? I demand tribute. Hand me a plate."

Jaune rolls his eyes. "Patience, sis," he warns before poking her forehead and pushing her away with it. She goes without protest.

She slides in next to me, leaning on the island counter. "Sable, by the way," she says. "He told me he wanted to keep this trip a surprise but judging by the look on your face, I'm guessing he forgot to at least give you the basics."

"Uh…" I say dumbly. I wasn't expecting someone else to be here today. I figured Taffy was house sitting and on her way out, but this doesn't feel like a quiet stay in the woods anymore. "He just mentioned that he had plans for us here," I tell her. "What's going on?"

"Family get together. For the last two years, Jaune's been going stag with me so now I'm the only Arc who's single." She sighs, resting a hand on my shoulder. She doesn't actually seem bothered by it. "But consider that a small mercy on your part. Once our sisters come barreling in here, you'll have a ton of hands to shake and as many names to memorize."

Footsteps rumble from above. They're coming in already and I'm a little nervous. I even hear jeers and laughter among them, a crowd of a family. All loud like a sea of noise that fills the quiet of the kitchen. When they pour in, I reel at just how many, filling out the doorway in heads tall and short.

Oscar never had a big family. That's the last comparison I draw that day.

=(✦)=

Jaune Arc, wisely sitting out of a buggy race on the hills.

Ruby's a natural behind the wheel. I watch her speed passed my youngest sister, Liona, and leap over a dirt mound before drifting effortlessly around a turn on the dirt track. Seems that woman was built for speed.

I only learned to drive only out of necessity. I'm really a better mechanic than I am a driver cause Sable's always pushed me to learn car maintenance before usage. My hands busy with the grease staining my gloves.

"She's good," Sable tells me, sitting in the buggy I'm working on. "She might even give me a run for my money."

"If you don't cheat, you mean," I say, grinning up at her.

I twist my wrench and let it strain against my aura as the bolt tightens, but then the weight of the vehicle pulls up from the suspension as Sable hops off it. I'm glad to see that nothing moves or loosens as it settles evenly.

"Looks good to go," I say, rising from my spot on the ground, grass clinging to my jumpsuit. I find Sable giving me meaningful look. Quiet concern is not a face she normally wears.

"So, is she the next big step in your life?"

I blink at her, bewildered. I mean, I like Ruby but she's going to be gone in a week and… "Oh my god I didn't tell you…"

She eyes me dangerously. "Tell me what? Is something wrong?"

"I… no?" I'm embarrassed to admit it now. I was so caught up with getting approval to have a plus one when we talked this morning that I neglected to mention my deal with Ruby. "She's, uh, leaving by the end of the week."

"Oh. But isn't that kind of… stupid?" I try not to take offense cause Sable has always been brash. "I mean, that's why you and Pyrrha broke up, right? Long distance is a death sentence as far as you're concerned. Unless something else was going on with Pyrrha that I don't know about?"

I groan. "No, no… Me and Ruby are just in each other's lives for a week. I know this is going to sound silly but we wanted to give each other a romantic few days with no strings attached when it's over."

She nods and I silently let myself relax. Sable doesn't judge. That's what I like about her out of my older sisters.

I go back to the buggy and give it a once over. I oil the joints and refill the break fluid. Sable's buggy is always the one with the most wear, and I'm unlucky enough to have to be the one that shares it with her. Our names are stickered on one of the bars. Her emblem is beside mine, a steering wheel with a hand in the center.

"And if you fall in love with her?"

I turn back sharply at Sable. Her hands together in concern again.

"I've only known her a day," I tell her, but I wonder if I'm trying to convince myself instead.

"Time is only a factor in love," she says in unnatural calm, features steely and mature. She takes my hands, not minding the grease. "It doesn't decide everything. When two people just click, sometimes that's all it takes to make something happen. Sure, it's usually a mess but…" She sucks in her lips. "Just… just watch yourself, alright? You weren't built for casual flings." She runs hand over my cheek, her gaze boring into mine. Guilt seeps into me for making her feel this way. "You've got too much heart for anything but the real deal."

She pulls away and I watch her hop into the buggy. She turns it on and lets the machine rumble to life. She gives me a small smile before she makes a three-point turn.

Then I realize she left grease on my cheek. "Sable!"

She laughs as she drives off and heads down to the dirt track.

"You two looked serious," comes a voice behind me. Joan – my twin sister – is chewing on a sandwich and gulping it down. "Talkin' about your new girlfriend?"

I consider telling her but it's too much hassle right now. "Yeah, sure, let's go with that."

She doesn't buy it because of course she doesn't. "Something I should know about?"

"I, ugh. I let's just say she and I met just yesterday and it's… complicated."

"Okay," she says, nodding with another mouthful of tuna sandwich. "Want me to tell the rest of the gang to not ask any complicated questions?"

It still floors me every time Joan decides to be completely cool with everything. Unlike Sable, Joan is as lost on the advice front as I am, but she likes being useful. I should just expect to thank her somehow when this is all over. "Would you? You're the best," I tell her.

Joan smiles and wanders off to the picnic table.

Alone with my thoughts, I sit on the grass and see Ruby leap over a distant hill. She waves at me. I barely have the time to wave back before she vanishes behind another hill.

She'll be gone in a flash. Just like that. If Sable's right and I fall for her, things might get out of hand. So I only have to not, right? Maybe things aren't that simple but a guy's gotta hope.

The rumble of some engines come from below, and there I see my sisters pulling into parking on the finish line for the next race. But wait, Ruby isn't with them?

I look back over the hills but I catch no glimpse of Ruby anywhere around it. Damn it.

=(✿)=

Ruby Rose, stuck in a tree.

I crashed. Flew straight down from the hill I drove over and into the waiting, spindly hand of a bare tree.

My knee slammed into the dash, and my unfortified aura let a bruise sink in. The sting is familiar. I've hurt my knees as often as I've sprained my wrist with the kind of weapon I have.

The woods around me are quiet. Wildlife must've booked it once we started making noise, but the quiet is unnerving. I can deal with a little bruise but I'm more concerned about the buggy. I hope no one gets mad at me for crashing it.

Another buggy comes down from the side of the hill ahead of me. The messy mop of Jaune's head comes around the bend and stops on the dirt road. I wave at him, hoping my shame is visible enough as an advance apology.

He hops out, nearly tripping on the door but catches himself in the least graceful way possible. And I laugh, both at my nerves and at the dork I've found myself in the company of.

By the time he gets to the tree, I notice the grime on his cheek.

"You okay?" we both say at the same time. We laugh and it's every indication that I'm also a complete dork.

"Can you get down?" he asks. His hands are rubbing together, and it looks like I've worried him.

"Yeah," I say, "but will the buggy be okay?"

"Just come down. We can worry about that later."

I swing my legs over the side door, prop myself up on the frame, and then I fall. I twist in the air, and my body feels weightless as I turn into a red blur. I can't see when I do this, but I feel the spaces around me, as if the wind I generate is sending sonar back at my senses. The smell of rose petals fill my nose and I inhale its rich scent involuntarily (it's a wonder that I haven't gotten sick of it, really). And then I land, my body falling into a sitting position.

I expect to land into grass and dead leaves, but I'm in Jaune's arms instead.

I'd say he looks good in a jumpsuit, but it's precisely the fact that he's barely even wearing the thing that makes it appealing. It's a few sizes smaller than his broad shoulders can accommodate, so its bulging there and near to bursting. The zipper of his that's pressed against my hip looks like it's going to pop out with the way its barely holding the two halves of his top together. In fact, his white inner shirt is smothered in grime. It's all very narrowly defeating the purpose of the jumpsuit if it can't even cover him.

I only notice that he's kneeling in the grass when he's already starting to put me down. He hasn't made eye contact with me the entire time. He's fixated on my bruise.

"It's okay," I tell him. "It'll heal. Just, uh, try not to do anything crazy for the rest of our date today."

"Nonsense," he says before he leaves me sitting up. His hands go over my bruise and they glow a faint white. The tingle of my aura resonates warmly with his. There's a comfort in the sensation he's giving me, the kind that tickles in a delightful sort of way.

Then it's over too quickly and I make very sure to pout at him.

"I didn't say stop."

He ignores my mock petulance and asks, "Feeling better?"

I realize the pain is gone. "Oh, what?!" The bruise is missing too. Not even a hint of it. "How?"

He raises his hand. It glows warmly over his aura. "My semblance. I can amplify aura. Heals wounds mainly."

My hands roll together, thinking of the possibilities. Healing, empowering, even that joyful tingle the runs over my skin that makes me feel hardier than I was. All of these are practical and all, but my mind goes dangerous places because that felt like a massage. "Do that in the bedroom next time," I blurt out before I slap my hands over my mouth.

"Why are you so embarrassed by that?" he asks.

I don't know, maybe because asking someone to use their semblance in bed is like asking to be smothered in their soul? It's the kind of thing you ask permission for, not blindly suggest.

Slowly, I pull my hands from my mouth. "You're not bothered by me asking?"

He shrugs, and it's really pushing that tiny jumpsuit cause the gesture makes the tiniest tear in it. "I've done it before," he says, "but it's no deep tissue massage."

A few rose petals flutter down to us, one of which falls on his nose.

"You, uh, ever try your semblance in bed?" he asks as he plucks the petal.

I try to hide my abject regret by staring wide-eyed at a particularly interesting bit of grass. That is, before I realize how panicked I look.

"Ruby?"

I shut my eyes. "I broke his pelvis." Which is only half true. I also compressed his ribs. Oscar made a full recovery and I vowed never to use my semblance in bed again. "Don't ask me to try it. You'll regret it."

He gives me a smile that's half confident and half about to seriously regret this. "I'm sure I can take it," he says.

I throw my hands up. "Hey, if you wanna spend the rest of this week on a wheelchair, be my guest." Though I have to wonder how far his semblance can go. A huntsman with a broken pelvis is nothing to scoff at. (Thank the gods for modern medicine).

He offers a hand and I take him by the arm. This makes him flex when he pulls me up and my fingers tingle at the tightness wound around his sword arm.

"Ooh, where were these hiding last night?"

He tries to play it cool, but I know that embarrassed grin by now.

"Wrapped around you, I think. You'd have seen them if we weren't in the dark."

I stifle anything I'm feeling by sucking in my teeth.

We make our way to his buggy and I glance back at mine. He assures me that Sable can take care of it with no issue. I ask how but the snide look he gives me says that he's leaving that demonstration to her.

He climbs into his ride.

"Y'know," I begin as I climb in after him, "when we agreed on having a romantic week together, I was expecting things like a fancy dinner and some dancing or whatever." There's no other seat, I realize, so I'm in his lap.

"Right. It isn't like you've got a single pack of reusable clothes and two left feet. Dining and dancing totally sounds like you all of a sudden."

I slap his chest playfully. "Shut up."

He keys the ignition and I'm pushed back into his chest as we drive off.

"You know what I mean," I say. "I hadn't exactly pictured our date to be a day out with your family, racing around the hills." I look up at the sky, covered almost entirely in dense clouds. "Which we should probably shelve soon. It might start actually snowing."

"We're about a month off still, actually. Grass is staying green and the trees are staying autumn-bare. We've got time."

I don't know if I believe him. It's cold and getting colder. His chest is warm though. I snuggle in and tuck myself in the space beneath his chin.

"How are you so warm?" I ask, unable to hide giddiness that creeps into me. Is this what purring is like?

He answers by gulping. I can feel his chest vibrating behind me. His cheeks are red and his eyes are unnaturally rigid, trying not to look at me.

"Can they see us from here?" I ask quietly.

"No."

I look around, seeing nothing but more hills and bare woods. "Kill the engine," I say.

He does.

We don't come back for another hour.

=(✦)=

Jaune Arc, climbing up an old tower with her.

By nightfall, we're walking down the riverbank till we spot an old watchtower looming over the hills.

"We're climbing that?" she asks.

"Yeah, scared?" I tease.

She scoffs. "As if. Is it legal to be up there though?"

"Don't worry about it. Its not a registered monument so we've spent some time filling it out. Would have fallen apart if the Arcs hadn't turned it into a project."

Even from a distance you can see the cement we laid holding entire walls of stone together on the ancient structure. Much of the old mortar had fallen away but they blend with the cement now.

"Still doesn't mean it's not illegal," she presses as we enter the long shadow of the tower.

I spin around and give her a look. "You wanna be my date this week or my legal advisor?"

She laughs cause of course she's only chiding me for kicks. "I could be both," she says, losing none of her confidence. "I've been told that I look good in a pencil skirt."

Implication hits me. Pencil skirts aren't very maneuverable and if any of our time together has taught me anything, she wouldn't have worn one willingly. "Did you lose a bet?" I ask instead.

She's floored – much to my amusement – that I completely sidestep her flirting. She scratches her arm.

"I, uh, wasn't always a good driver." My eyes widen but I let her continue. She looks up at me and lets out a frustrated groan. "You really want me to tell you the whole story, don't you?"

"I want to know everything I can," I say. I realize what I've just said and now I'm finding it difficult to regret it.

"Fine," she says, pushing passed me as we trudge through the grass towards the tower. "Crashed my other-dad's car into someone's fence."

"Your other-dad?" I ask before remembering that she's got double the parents.

"Yeah. My birth-dad doesn't drive. He can turn into a bird so moving around isn't a problem."

"A family car would still be useful."

"Which is why my other-dad has a van."

It feels like I'm glimpsing only a fraction of a storied life. It's like she's part of a sitcom and I'm starting mid-season but I want to know more. There's a scar at the back of her neck that I noticed the night before. She's got a talent for high-speed driving that a van couldn't possibly teach. And her eyes glow. There's more to her than a week can possibly tell but I want to try. "Ruby–"

"Nope!" she cuts me off. "No way, buster. I told you. Now you tell me. Legal trouble. Go."

I'm starting to think that petulant look she gives me – framed perfectly in her tiny face – is intentionally part of her charm.

Speeding tickets are boring but that's all my adult life has gotten on that end. I once got arrested by mistake for an undercover job but that's strictly confidential – though I imagine I might tell her at some point anyway. "Ah! I set fire to the school kitchen once."

It isn't that she looks at me like she doesn't believe me. It's more that she looks like she isn't sure how I managed that. "Sounds like you were more in danger than in trouble with the cops. How'd you get arrested for that?"

I shrug. "Cause I ran away and rumor spread about it being arson instead of an accident. Nora almost catalogued it as one of the school's enduring legends… until I confessed to the thing and they had me in bars before I could explain. Obviously, it got sorted out, but only after I made friends in jail."

She snorts. "You have inmate friends?"

I open my mouth to answer before I close it shut. "I think that's a trade."

She rolls her eyes. "I don't have prison friends, Jaune." She pauses, looking away. "Okay, yeah, never mind. Maybe I do."

We walk into the tower's first floor where the light sinks between stray cracks and softens the cobble beneath us in pale icy blues.

She kicks around some scattered leaves. They catch in the wind and swirl around her. Wind picks up and carries the leaves skyward into the spiraling expanse above.

We look at each other, and I interrupt before we have a moment. "You're not dodging that story, missy."

Rolling her eyes, she says, "I'm not." She starts again just as we ascend the staircase that hugs the curved walls. "Have a friend – she's my sister-in-law now – that used to be White Fang."

I sum up my thoughts succinctly. "Yikes."

She giggles quietly but it echoes in the tight and empty walls of the staircase. "Anyway, she learned a lot from her time there and she can pick locks like it's nobody's business."

"Aren't you a weaponsmith?" I ask. A lock and a pick set are all just novice mechanicals compared to what she's learned. "Shouldn't be too hard for you."

"Oh, it isn't." I stare at her. She looks back and laughs. "My sister thought she might have been a bad influence on me. Not like I ended up breaking into places–" she looks around us at the place she still isn't sure we're trespassing or not, "–my current circumstance notwithstanding." I don't correct her. "But it did get them talking."

"And now they're married?"

She nods. "They're good for each other. My sister's half of the family wasn't always altruistic either."

"Ooh! Do tell." I expect the agitated look she gives me. I'm trying to coax more out of her, but she catches on and stomps a foot.

"Not getting any freebies from me. Prison friend. Spill."

I drudge up the story and try to recall the name. It's been so long ago, and it isn't like I get to cash in the friendship as often as I'd like. "Hei Xiong. Heard of him?"

"Uh… No. Wait, yes! My sister burned down his club once!"

I stare at her, shocked. "She did what now?"

"It's, uh, complicated," she says sheepishly. "C'mon, go on."

"Tell me about it later?" Matching her stride up the stairs, I continue. "Anyway, I met him in a holding cell and he was broken up about wanting to confess to his bodyguards." I remember Hei being vulnerable. Wide-shouldered, strong chinned bear of a man and he was losing his cool like a lovestruck teenager. I still wonder if he got detained for inebriation on purpose, just to get some peace and quiet in a lonely cell.

"His bodyguards?" she asks.

"Yeah. He hired some well-dressed mercenaries." I remember the Malachites too well. Even if nothing happened, I remember being a nervous teenager between them. "They're twins, even. The three of them got to know each other real well for a while until he decided that he wanted to be with them instead of passing girl after girl through his bedroom."

We stopped at a landing where the kitchen is. The door is ajar and I can see a fire inside.

"What's happening?" she whispers behind me.

I peek in slowly and spot one of my younger sisters, Coral, sitting by the furnace with her boyfriend Sky Lark. I pull away quickly – I only needed to know if it was someone outside of the family after all. "Let's go," I say in a hush, taking her hand so we can slow our pace further up the stairs.

Her hands are sweating. Suddenly mine are too.

"So, how'd it turn out?" she asks once we're another floor up.

"The twins were surprised at first because they didn't even think they were allowed to think of him that way."

"Did they turn him down?"

I don't have to look at her to know what face she's making. I remember feeling the same way. Rejection stings. "They let him court them. There were a lot of ground rules cause they were still working for him. They're all together now. Which can get complicated. I had to double date them a few times with Pyrrha just to sort things out."

We approach the top floor. I feel her eyes on me from the corner of mine. Our hands haven't let go.

There's no door here, just an old stone arch we walk through into the tower's peak. It's a wide space. Used to have compartmentalized rooms for sleeping and storage but we took down the walls and kept the supports. A shaft of light glimmers in the middle of the room, dust particles swirl in the icy wind within it.

Ruby's got this dangerously look about her. Wanting to pry my secrets from my lips and I know she's not beyond making me beg for it, even when all the torture she leaves me with is gentle coaxing and heady suggestions. "A gang boss and his twin girlfriends, eh?" she whispers, but it's loud in all the quiet. "Must've attracted all sorts of people into your life." I wait to see where this is going. "Have you been with many girls before?" she asks finally.

My passion drains. I can't answer that honestly without doing that. "None," I admit. "After Pyrrha, my two-year interim was mostly spent meandering. I kept trying to find things to do."

She lets go of my hand. There's a shift in the room. The mood ebbing into something other than romantic and teasing.

"That doesn't sound very exciting." I turn to find her nervous, not disappointed. "I'm only a few months in and I also feel like I'll be spending a lot of time drifting from place to place, just trying to figure things out."

Those words hit me. I want to say that it gets better but I'm not sure even I believe it. "When you're with someone for so long, its strange having to live your life without them that way. Even if they don't leave, there's still…"

"…A gap," she finishes for me. "Like there's space you dig out for them that they won't – can't – fill anymore." She looks up at me, vulnerable, unchallenging. Only a girl just out of a breakup, not my temporary girlfriend for a week. "Does it get better?" She reaches over and takes my hands again. "Do I fill your gap?"

I look away. The easy thing to say is yes. The honest thing to say isn't. "People…" I begin, but the words feel sour. I don't like adding on to misery, but I don't want to lie to her. We'll be in each other's lives for so little time that I don't want to hide behind any artifice. So I press on. "People talk about making room for someone in your heart like there's a limit to how many you can put in your life. There isn't. When someone's good to you, the space you make for them stays there's. And when you find someone new," I squeeze her hands, "you make a new one. The difference is that there's a hole you have to live with. Sometimes it's bitter, sometimes it's a quiet ache, sometimes there's a fondness for what things used to be. But it's always there. Happy memories can sour, but that doesn't mean they weren't ever happy memories."

Her eyes are locked to mine until they vanish behind her lids. She closes in on me, arms tight around my back. She's not much shorter than me so I feel her breath on my neck. "That scares me," she says, words vibrating on my throat. I'm glad that it isn't through a few sobs but it trembles all the same. "I wanna move on someday. The fact that I'll always have to carry Oscar with me feels… like a lot."

"Carrying Pyrrha with me everywhere feels like a lot, too, but it's not like she's with me every time." She looks up at me and I gave her a chaste kiss. I love the way she squeaks into my lips. "I wasn't thinking of her on the way up here. Just you."

She smiles at that. "C'mon," she says, tugging me along to the shaft of moonlight in the middle of the room. "This is supposed to be a date. Not another psyche eval."

"You have a psychiatrist?"

"Yeah," she laughs, "her name is Weiss Schnee her advice normally boils down to throwing every guy she thinks will make me happy my way."

"Is that how you found me?"

"Maybe? I mean, I could tell she was trying to play matchmaker but was trying really hard to hide it."

"Wow. She didn't even bother being subtle with me. Kept going on and on about you."

"Oh?" she chimes, interested. "What, pray tell, was her raving review?"

"That I'd love your company," I say easily. "That you were cute as a button."

She snickers. "I sound like a teddy bear, not a woman."

I pull her in when we're under the moonlight. "I welcome the chance to prove you otherwise," I say, letting her catch the way my eyes roam around her. She's in borrowed clothes, a worn sweater and a wool skirt, but her stockings are well loved and her own. When it brushes against my leg, I can feel the roughness of it. It's from her huntress attire, so its sturdy and thicker than it looks. A pragmatic woman. Function and style.

"So is this where you take me under the moonlight?" she asks, lips in a mischievous curl.

I pull away. "Actually, we're not at the spot yet."

She gives me a confused look before inspecting the room around us. "This isn't it?"

I laugh. "Nope."

=(✿)=

Ruby Rose, sitting on the roof with him.

He takes me outside and points to the roof. There's a ladder that leads to built-in platforms along the old sloping tiles. The Arcs made a space of everything here, didn't they?

I follow after him as he climbs the ladder. Above me, I see the way his jeans tighten around everything below his waist. When he climbs onto the landing, I poke his butt and he yelps, falling forward.

"Ha!" I cheer. I come up to find him giving me a dangerous look. I'm going to regret doing that, but I welcome the challenge. It's a rhythm we have now and I quite like the way it turns out for us.

One segment of the roof tiles is replaced with glass where the light was filtering in. I expect to find more modern flourishes but the platforms that wind up the conical roof is all that's been added. The top of the tower has a flag post with – I'm guessing – the Arc family crest billowing in the wind.

"Ruby," he says.

I find him sitting on the platform's edge. I realize that I was so fixated on the building that I neglected to look outward. The view is breathtaking.

The bare trees catch pale light along its jagged branches like they're frozen lightning bolts that span into the woods. The hills rise and fall into the unending horizons like waves in an ocean. Deer roam those hills, beady eyes flickering to the light, then the tower, then each other. The river we followed up here falls into the woods and turns silver as it weaves around the hills.

"It's beautiful," I say breathlessly. How I'm topping this tomorrow is beyond me. "How often do you come here?"

"At least once every month," he says. "Sometimes I try to get some work done when I do. Left my tools here more than a few times so now we've got a lockbox downstairs for it."

I snort. "How irresponsible. Do I have to reign you in?" The implication steals a breath from me even as I say it. Flirting comes naturally now and I wonder if this is just how adults do it. I wouldn't know. I've been with the same person my entire adult life until now and I'm so dreadfully out of my game that I'm just winging it at this point.

"Only if you can handle me," he says, his eyes challenging. "You kept up at the garden. Think you can repeat that?"

I barely hear him. I'm still caught up in everything and I forget to reply when I sit so close with him on the edge that our knees are touching.

A stiff breeze makes me shake from my bare neck to my shoulders. "It's cold up here." Then it's suddenly warm. He's glowing again. "That's convenient," I say. He wraps an arm around me and there's more warmth from the contact.

"Do you come up here to think?" I ask.

"I try not to," he says. "It's too special for me to taint. I like to come here when I'm already happy so I can feel even better."

"You try to?"

He chews the inside of his lip for a moment before he lets go of me. "Sometimes, when I'm at the lake house, I come up here without thinking."

I look back to the river. It's over a mile's walk back to the lake. "That's a lot of ground to cover."

He shrugs. "I have a lot to think about."

I take his hand and sandwich it between two of my own. "Then let's not do that." I smile up at him, wait for him to return it, then I rest my head on his shoulder. "Most embarrassing moment?"

"Promised Pyrrha I'd come to the dance in a dress if no one asked her out."

My chest rumbles with laughter. "Oh my god."

"That isn't the worst part. I wore a wig and some guys asked me to dance. Turned tail when I spoke." He's laughing then too. "How about you?"

"I blew up Weiss in front of the whole campus on my first day at Beacon."

"You what?"

I try to hide the color in my cheeks. It seemed like social suicide at the time. She was always going to be popular – I could tell at a glance – and I embarrassed us both that day. "I knocked into her, then her suitcase full of dust blew up in our faces."

"What a way to introduce yourself."

"It gets worse for me, too. We ended up being roommates. Ugh, it was a rough first few weeks."

"How'd you settle your differences?"

"I pestered her into being my friend until she gave in. Having a cute dog helped. We've been best friends ever since."

And we keep going.

Favorite drink? (He's trying to scope out cafes for us, I'm sure).

"Strawberry milkshake." I'm not ashamed for never growing out of it.

"Melted vanilla ice cream." I gawk and he laughs cause that can't be true but I don't want him to change his answer.

Favorite Spruce Willis flick?

"All of Dye Hard." Cause I can't pick between any of them.

"The first Unshakable." Cause superheroes?

Least favorite Spruce Willis flick?

"Under the Hedge." I laugh when he doesn't believe me. "He was the raccoon." That wasn't why he was shocked. He loves that movie.

"The rest of Unshakable." Cause bad superheroes.

What would you be if not a huntsman? (I want to pick his brain, see the man behind the old sword).

"I'd work at the forge." But not as a supervisor. I like weapons and I'd dread only watching one be made.

"A doctor." I imagine him handling a patient with care. His semblance would do wonders but I want to keep his touch to myself.

…The thought embarrasses me.

We keep asking questions, making trades to get to know each other. We trade scars and where we got them. Old hunts we'll never forget. The first kiss in humble youth. Chilling winters and warmer springs. Then silence takes us, the waning moon filling spaces where the words might have been with what is instead a canvas in motion.

"I wanna build it higher," he says. "I want to see more from here. More than the woods. Maybe even the coast."

I get an idea. "I could show you what that's like."

He stares up at me as I stand. My hand out to him.

Taking it, I feel my semblance come alive in a split second. My body is loose and weightless, but there's someone else among my petals, touching my soul and mingling with it. He doesn't resist when I turn us into a pair of spiraling blurs, red and gold, spinning till we're higher and higher. Over the flag post, zipping passed some birds, and then we're in the air, our arms wrapped around each other.

We're in awe over the shimmering horizon, where the woods dip into cliffsides and the moon stretches over the distant coast. I think of nothing else when we're up there, suspended in the air for heartbeats that last long enough for us to kiss.

When I taste him and it sends a delightful shiver down my body, I worry that we're falling in love too quickly. I worry that we might break our promise and let this go on for longer than a week. Much longer, even. But most of all, I worry that I won't care and that I let myself keeping falling in love with him anyway.

---

Writing pure romance is going to be the death of me, but I miss writing fluff even if I have to insert a bit of drama to keep me going. Still, what's a good romance without a bit of internal conflict?

Anyway, thanks for reading! I'll try to update this fic as often as I can. I won't abandon it, even if it tears at me. I promise.