Chapter 3 To Kindly Revel In You…

=(✿)=

Ruby Rose, waking up next to a cute blonde.

When I awake the next morning, I tell myself not to be surprised to find us both in a tangle of limbs. But even in the chaos, we curl into each other's spaces like we've always fit together.

I inhale him and I regret it. Cause we still smell of last night's escapades and we both drool. I cough and wheeze, but I laugh quietly against his chest; every note syncing with his heartbeat.

Still, my mind is a web of last night's residual doubt, telling me to dread the end of the week when I'll no longer have moments like this with him. That I'll wake up one day in an empty bed and it'll break me when I don't feel his warmth the way I do now.

Jaune – as if sensing my fears – wraps his arms around my head. I gasp because I can feel all of his body moving, coming alive in the dark of the early morning. He snakes down my body till his hands hold my neck and head. He urges me into his lips and I let him kiss the corners of my mouth, then my lips, and – just as I think he's going to stick his tongue in because I am so very ready to dissolve my hesitation in impulsive passion – he opens eyes to inspect me.

I'm not Weiss. Not some perfectly cut gem who sleeps like a porcelain statue. I'm a mess in loose clothing, limbs outward like a discarded toy, lips parted and eyes hungry, but he watches me like I'm immaculate – as if my disheveled state is part of my charm. He pulls further out, peeling off of my body, but the morning haze has him drunk on the sight of me. I feel scrutinized and worshipped at the same time as his hands roam my every curve and muscle, leaving tingles in their wake that sink into me like he's planting warmth.

It's when his hand curls under my leg that I let out a gasp and beg him to kiss me again. But I don't ask with words. My teeth close carefully over his lip and he gets the message. I revel in the way we mold together after, feeling too loved and suddenly beautiful in the way indulges in me.

His breath feels like fire as it rolls down the side of my neck, his teeth poised to bite. I don't wait. Grabbing his head, I urge him to dig in and he does without protest. My nerves burst in a flurry of color, sensations pulling my entire body into this singular point of contact as if the whole of me wants to feel that way.

I'm undone when he pulls away, my neck throbbing from the mark he's left behind. My heart a steady whine as it pushes my chest up to meet his, wanting more. All of me, wanting more.

His eyes, with lids still heavy, sober with his every following breath. To my dismay, he shakes loose the passion in his cheeks and says, "We should shower." His warmth leaves the bed.

I nod but inside I'm screaming. There's heat on me now, well below and blooming above. Something else should have happened. I would have welcomed it. Reveled like we did last night, but I let it go. He crawls out of bed and I follow him into the shower.

=(✦)=

Jaune Arc, alone in his apartment, preparing for his date.

Ruby Rose will be the death of me. We haven't gone a day without getting carnal and it's starting to worry me. I know this week is supposed to be like a perfect little fantasy, but all this white-hot passion feels fleeting, like an extended one-night stand. I don't want it like that. I want it to be love… but maybe that's the problem.

We want romance but know that it'll only last a week. Is that inherently impossible? Are we trying to do something that just cannot be? I wish I had a subject matter expert, but everyone I really, truly know is narrowly a hopeless romantic to just a romantic. Not even my former bully is like that either, he's a loving husband who has had one woman his entire life and now he has kids to show for it.

Strange how I turned out different.

My scroll buzzes. I swipe passed the updates from my friends but stop at an invite from Cardin. He's got another baby shower next month. His fifth kid. I chuckle to myself because it feels like he's competing with the Arcs. I hit accept without thinking and…

My life will just go back to normal when this is all done, won't it? I'll see all my friends and try to be the best uncle to all their little spawns, I'll go back to hunting with strangers all over the kingdom, and I'll come home to an empty apartment with a necklace and ring that burns my neck when I think of her. And I'll let it all happen. I'll watch my friends live their lives, I'll go do my job, and I'll dread finding love again. Day in and day out.

Another buzz from my scroll. I shake off my thoughts and go through my notifications again. A dozen messages from Weiss – all of them questions about what she should have at her wedding before she immediately comes to a decision all by herself. It's like I'm normally just one of her soundboards. I don't mind, though. I like just listening. I'm good at it. But maybe Weiss needs someone whose input she'll actually need.

Some messages from my sisters, all asking if I took off this morning. I hastily type out a response. I should have stayed to say goodbye but me and Ruby were in such a rush after breakfast that we forgot that the rest of the lake house hadn't woken up yet.

I notice I got a missed call from May. She doesn't normally do that.

It rings once before I'm greeted by a video feed of her face pressed against the camera. It takes me a moment to realize that she's sleeping.

"May?" I call out to her. I'm loud enough to stir her, but it only gets her cheek to rub on her scroll again. When I call out again, it's apparent that she put me on loudspeaker cause my voice echoes back to me. She stirs but doesn't wake. "May!"

She jolts up, eyes shifting in a panic around her.

"May, down here."

She squints down at me before she rubs her eyes with a yawn. "Oh. Mornin', Arc. Why the wakeup call?"

"To be fair, you called me first."

"Did I…?" She rubs her eyes again.

There's a blanket draped over her shoulders. Henry probably draped it on her after one of her signature all-nighters. "Been working late?" I ask her.

"Yeah. Henry doesn't like it, but this is a partnership. He isn't the only one who gets to work through the night."

"At this point, May, you two might as well be nocturnal."

"Ha! True that. Maybe we'll swear off the sun altogether…" Her voice is tinged with a hint of heavy somber. She used to be a free spirit, used to fight crime with a group called the Happy Huntresses. Fought for the disenfranchised like a real heroine. Then she and Henry reconciled, and they've been working to get Henry in as much political power as her old boss, Robyn. Two politicians in the right place would make a world of difference, but all that work has aged her some. Her eyes almost always in bags. "Hey, should I call Joanna?" she asks.

I raise a brow at her. Joanna is her old colleague with the HH. They used to be best friends but her leaving to fluff up her cousin has left a strain in their relationship. "You don't have to," I tell her. "You have every right to stand by your decisions." A memory of Pyrrha flashes in my mind. I feel a headache coming. "They can't blame you for doing what you thought was best."

"Did I, though?" she asks, doubt clawing down the hard line of her brows. "I feel like I'm just a goodwill figurehead. Henry tells me that having me around makes things easier but the more political this shit gets, the more out my element I feel. Can I really help Henry when I'm mostly floundering about and hanging off his arm?"

"I'm sure he doesn't see it that way."

"Which is worse!" She groans. At this point, I can tell she's alone in her office. She makes it habit of hiding her fears unless she's in intimate company. "He even tried to reward me for my hard work. You know Scarlet David?"

"The pop star?"

"Yes! They met cause his record company wanted him to own an expensive car that isn't on the market." I nod. The Gold Standard – their brand – is prototyping luxury cars on the side. "Now I've got his god-damn number."

"And a date?"

"I don't care how cute he is!" she says more to herself than me. "I don't know the guy. Out of the question!"

"Okay, calm down, alright?"

She curses under her breath. "Jaune… what do I do?"

"Let's sort these things out one at a time. Forget the celebrity and focus on work." I think of Pyrrha again. She got a wealth of experience in a town in Vacuo called Dune while I was here in Argus, two kingdoms away. "Maybe you feel this way cause you're distant right now," I tell her, my voice quiet but clear in the silence of the room. "He's spent so much time learning how to be a politician that you feel left behind as only a huntress."

"Yeah," she agrees, "it feels exactly that way…"

"Then maybe pull up your laurels and sit with him." I'm still not looking at her. I hear my own voice echoing in my ear. Advice I wish I heard someone else said to me before it was too late. "Even if you can't fully understand what he's going through, it'd do him some good to just be heard and…" I swallow. "…You can learn from there. Maybe not enough to stand in his place, but enough to understand. Sometimes… Sometimes that's all some people want. To be empathized. To be heard. And by then, maybe it'll be enough for the both of you."

"Like pieces that fit." I hear the words come from Pyrrha's mouth, but I look up at the screen and they've clearly come from May. "Thank you, Jaune," she says. She's used my first name twice now, which she didn't even do when we met as kids. It's so unlike her that I forget myself enough to put on a genuine smile.

"You'll be alright, May."

Suddenly she starts laughing. I don't know why but she's covering her cheeks and I see the ghost of her blush. "I've been so stupid…" she says ominously. "Where's that girl you were with, by the way?"

I sit up and stare at my slightly undone bed. It's only ruffled because Ruby hopped into it before leaving. "Ruby borrowed my car to prep for our date today," I tell her. "Weiss scouted an aquarium and a grove for her. Taking me to see both."

"We have an aquarium?" she asks. "That can't be right. I've put on a dress at every fancy place in this city. We'd have had an outrageously expensive standing dinner at an aquarium!" She doesn't normally like the fancy dinners, but she can't hide how the thrill of standing with the elite gives her. Especially when she's turning down their handsome sons and daughters. You can doll her up and get her to play nice with people who don't deserve it, but she's still a rebel inside.

"It's still under construction." I've an uncontrollable swell of a pride when that surprises her. "We'll be there before it's populated with any sea life but it's all functional and pretty, apparently."

"Ha! Try not to break any of the glass walls while you two let loose in there."

And just like that, I've already dreampt up the scenario of kissing Ruby furiously and pinning her to the glow of a glass wall. My lips go dry. I shake back into reality. "Don't give me ideas."

Her smug grin defeats me. "When you stop agreeing with them, sure."

And I'm glad my mind is occupied with Ruby instead. Even if on accident, May helped me, too.

=(✿)=

Ruby Rose, settling for a sequined blue dress instead of a mermaid outfit.

I don't live in this city. Unlike Jaune, I can't throw together a day of adventure on a getaway in the woods. Instead, I have to piece these moments together on the fly, but I feel alive at the disadvantage. I can make this work and plan out my other two turns this week in advance.

Still, it's all still last minute. I have to make compromises. My initial idea was to get him to drive to the aquarium where he'll find me in-costume on the rocks, mermaid fins clinging my legs together and seashells over my chest, but no one's selling that ridiculous costume because why would they, and Blake's suggestion of having the costume made and moving the aquarium date till it's ready feels like a waste of time at this point.

"I'm sure he'll still love the seashells," Blake snidely remarks off my scroll clipped to the dashboard. "He won't even notice that you don't have the fins. Not like it would have stayed on for long anyway."

I hold back the embarrassed chuckle that builds in my chest. "Is your head ever not in the gutter?"

"Give a girl a break. Kids make it hard to keep any saucy literature anymore, and you know that stuff was practically packed into my bloodstream." Blake is Menagerie's chieftain. It's complicated her life so much that some of her hair has turned grey and I'm fairly certain that she and my sister haven't had much time to be a married couple. It's moments like this where it feels like we're eighteen again and talking casually about her private library, that she has some reprieve. Evidently, calling me from across Anima gets written off as a diplomatic meeting – an excuse she tells herself so she can be a person and not a figurehead.

"Is Yang home?" I ask, but I regret it.

I can't see if the question hits her with any force when she yawns. "Still out with the kids," she says, ducking her head into her arms on her giant desk. "I wish I spent more time with them myself." Her weak smile doesn't reach her eyes. "It's like Yang's building that part of our lives for us, and now they're all waiting for me to just come out and catch up to them."

I wonder if I'll be like that. Waiting on the sideline as everyone else around me builds a life while I stagnate. It's a small mercy that I haven't heard from Oscar and Penny. I may have been single for three months, but we kept in touch like nothing had changed. I've only really felt single when they fell in love with each other three weeks back. I left town before the loneliness set in. I told them I'd be too busy to call. They both sent me messages anyway. I haven't seen them yet.

"So, is he big?" Blake asks.

I'm thankful that she can bring me back the present so violently. "Is this question rated R or PG?"

"PG. I'm not that frustrated."

"Well, he's tall and wide. Jaune can wrap his arms around me twice if he didn't have joints." He feels different that way. While Oscar and I were practically the same size, Jaune is much bigger than us both. "His arms are as thick as one of my legs too," I say with a laugh, "and you know how jacked my legs are."

"Sounds sturdy. A good fit for you. It's no wonder Weiss picked him out from the rest." Blake chuckles, musing that, "Weiss always did have a thing for men who could crush her under their weight. She's got a size difference kink, I guarantee it. And she's trying to bring you into it."

I don't point out that Weiss is small for a woman her age, and that even most women have a weight class over hers. Weiss is, after all, still a fairy tale princess.

"So, I'm guessing you are that frustrated after all?" I ask.

The shine in her eyes turns somber again. "I hardly even get to crawl into bed with Yang anymore. I've been sleeping on this desk most nights."

"Yikes."

She buries her face in her hands. "Ugh. It's worse than you think. I've been waking up with a blanket on my shoulders and a pillow under my head. I don't know if it's Yang or the kids, or even if Sun and Ilia did it on their night shift. Either way, they're all clearly still thinking of me even if I'm spending most of my time thinking of other people's families instead of my own."

My breath is cold when it leaves me. I can see the way her loneliness is creeping up on her. I can't let her wallow in it. I speak sternly, saying, "Blake, take a day off. Surprise them with your company and attention." I swallow, my lips going dry as something erstwhile wells inside of me. "You love them too much to let this go on. And don't you dare tell me you can't. You're chief, now. You make the rules. Don't forget that your responsibility to your people is just as important to that of your family. So don't lean one way and let the other side teeter." My grip on the wheel tightens. "Yang will always love you, but your kids need their other mom in their life. God knows I wouldn't be who I am today without either of mine."

Blake is silent for a moment, but I can't look away from the road. I feel a touch of doubt because I'm never sure where I stand with Blake nowadays. I feel there's a distance between us, too, but I hope she hasn't noticed. My relief is palpable when I see her small smile in the way she looks at me.

"Is this why Yang is the way she is? Always had a sister to push her when she was holding herself back for no real reason?"

I stow my embarrassment away. I wasn't expecting the compliment. "She isn't exactly my sister," I say, deflecting.

"Enough of that. We both know you don't actually see it that way."

I hum agreeably.

"I should go have an early lunch with my family," she says. I'm proud of her. "You go have fun with your date, alright, Ruby?"

"If he likes it, sure." My confidence isn't threadbare. It's just that I can't hype myself up for something that can go either way.

"Oh, Ruby Rose," she says, slowly and sweetly like the teasing sister-in-law she was always meant to be, "you've never let a man so much as kiss you if you weren't both already in too deep."

"It didn't work out with Oscar…"

"That doesn't mean it wasn't love."

That hits me and when she ends the call, I feel as much dread as I do glee.

=(✦)=

Jaune Arc, musing on a fish tank without fish.

I expected to see a lot of open walls, accidental skylights, scaffolding, and empty fish tanks. Turns out, the main floor is complete on the construction side of things. Which is weirdly soothing.

I've got a suit on that I've had forever. It's got stitches where you can't see, but I don't like spending on things that won't last me in the long-term. That's why I've got a sturdy car, why my weapon is a hand-me-down that's survived wars, why I've got a place to sleep on three corners of the city. So I appreciate that Ruby's strapless dress is borrowed – a slim-fit sequin piece that she got from May – and it makes her done-up hair and sturdy shoulders stand out.

"I feel a little unsubstantial next to you," I say.

She looks up at me, then herself. She really doesn't see it. "Eh? Why?"

"I mean, you look really good and I–"

"–Look really good," she parrots before I can finish. I smile at her sadly. She pinches my cheek and wiggles it. "No, bad," she scolds. "That suit fits you well. It did at the party, and it still does now."

Doubt crawls up my chest but I try to smile to placate her. She doesn't buy it. "Hmph!" she huffs, stopping us. We're in the middle of an underground floor in the aquarium. The room is dark and smells of paint, but the lights off the walls catch on her dress, casting shadows over the definition of her strong arms – carving them like marble – and her eyes that glow, iridescent and captivating. She sees me eying all of her. She raises an arm to flex it. "Is this the issue?" she asks.

I shrug but she grabs my coat and pulls it off. She hangs it over shoulder while she undoes my cuffs and rolls them up to my forearm. "Flex," she commands, and I do. My muscles edge on my rolled-up sleeve and she smiles proudly. "There. Good." She reaches for my neck and I expect to have a moment but her fingers fish into my collar to pull out my necklace.

Her ring is still on it. She stares at it for a breath.

I say nothing as she pushes passed whatever thought she had and pulls the entire thing under my collar.

Rolled sleeves on a dress shirt and a gold necklace seems so unlike me, especially with the coat now hung on a thumb over my shoulder, but she bites her lip when she takes a step back. I can't sell the look with a blush if she wants me to pose like some casual mafioso, but she loops her arm around my own and tugs me further down the passage.

"You worry too much," she says. "I hope you didn't have self-esteem issues with your ex."

"What?" I ask genuinely until I realize what she's implying. "No, no, nothing was wrong with me and Pyrrha. We broke up mutually."

"That's good to hear," she says. "Sorry. I didn't mean to make it sound like I was thinking ill of her."

I almost don't return the question, but I want to know what I'm stepping into. Our relationship needs to be honest and maybe this is something we shouldn't be dancing around. "Was your breakup bad?" I ask.

She laughs bitterly, squeezing tighter around my arm. "Define bad."

"Was it not mutual?"

"I don't know," she says ominously.

There's no door at the end of the underground passage. Instead, there's a smooth archway that blends into the walls, leading us into the spacious, pale blue dimness of an open room. There's walls of glass here with aquariums decorated in coral, sand, and seaweed. But there's no wildlife. No fish, which is beautiful in its own way. Like glimpsing a city in the early morning, where the streets are empty and all the silent corners and alleyways are allowed to breathe unobstructed down its winding paths like a clear pair of lungs. The water out in the aquarium is still and undisturbed. Plant life drifting back and forth in intervals with artificial currents, as if there's a heart somewhere there that's pulsing.

There's also the blue glow. The room doesn't have its own lights, instead it's being filtered in from the glass walls, casting around its coral like pale shadows along the smooth floor. Shifting slowly like white webs that weave in and out of each other.

Ruby doesn't notice any of this. She's making her way to the center of the room where our catering-for-two is waiting. She's clearly gone through every bakery in town cause that's all I'm seeing. Cake slices, cupcakes, banana bread, muffins, garlic bread, pizza bread, napoleones. There's even store-bought ladyfingers, oatmeal cookies, and the classic chocolate chip cookies.

"I hope you don't mind the overwhelming amount of sugar," she says, standing beside it with a sheepish grimace. "I, uh, was thinking of foods you eat standing and I forgot all the other fancy stuff they had at the party. I only realized that all I had was sweets when I already had them all laid out and…"

She looks away for a second, so I take the chance to reach for something. Napoleones has a creamy center and a brittle layer of sugar on top. It falls apart in my mouth as I bite into it. I have to catch the bits of it with my other hand that – I realize – is still clutching my coat. I give up and decide to just dry clean it later.

"No breaks, huh?" she asks, hands on her hips. "Just right into it."

I swallow the rest of the treat and give her a challenging look. "Square up, Rose, or else I get through these before you do."

She cheers and she goes for the cookies. I pick one up on reflex. She gives me a shocked look before I take a bite and she winces. She was clearly hoping to have those to herself. I stare at the crumbling cookie, extend it to her and say, "I'm not really a chocolate chip fan–" Her eyes light up and she chomps on the thing just shy of my fingers. My digits retreat for self-preservation. She giggles at m expense.

"Thank you," she whispers.

=(✿)=

Ruby Rose, competing with him to finish the spread.

It was a test. All of it. The entire platter. If I was going to find myself falling in love with this man, then I needed to know where he stood in the presence of my holy grail: sweets. And he loved them. Of course, he did, but then sees my not-at-all-subtle look when he goes for my cookies and he just gives them up for me.

I don't know if it's a rip-roaring success that he concedes for my sake. Or if it's a failure for my aching heart. Whether or not I want to fall in love is now a dangerously potent question.

He goes at the spread with gusto because I do. Like we're competing for something. The urgency is electric. A squeal tickles my throat. A delighted groan comes out of his. I can imagine us being younger and doing something like this. An indulgence you share with someone who won't judge but go at it full tilt with you.

Like a partner.

A cake falls apart on my fork and he catches it with his hand. He's lucky I rolled up his sleeves cause now he's eating it and sucking his fingers. "This was a great idea," he tells me. "Terrible for our health, but a great idea nonetheless."

"I welcome the praise for my shopping fiasco." It would have been worse if I didn't already go over budget. Ice cream was next but the idea of it melting before we got here made me pause for long enough to realize that this was most definitely not a lunch meal. "We'll have to actually have dinner later. I'm ashamed to say I didn't make plans for that."

"Will we have time after we see the grove?"

"Maybe," I say, "but just in case, you know a place that's open late?"

"A few places, yeah." he shrugs. "Even places that'll stay open for me but I'd rather not push it. I say we go back to my apartment and just order out."

I snort, peeling the wax paper off a muffin. "Not exactly the most romantic getaway, but I like it."

"Does it matter if we're still having a good time?"

I nod agreeably. It doesn't. This week doesn't have to be a movie. Not every date has to a big romantic gesture. And, to be fair, us alone underground and dressing fancy at a construction site just sounds like an eccentric hang out.

"Alright, you win. Take-out at your place."

I wish all exchanges were this easy. Conflict into resolution with nothing to drag on for what feels like miles in the middle. I think about Oscar again, but when my fingers pinch over the gap in my ring finger, I realize that I'm still wearing Jaune's wedding ring. Instantly it stopgaps any fleeting thought of my past and throws me into the present. "Do I tell people we're getting married?" I joke.

He doesn't catch on, asking, "Did anyone ask if you were?"

"Nope," I raise ring to catch the pale blue light along its glossy engravings. "A fancy wedding band like this makes it look like I already am."

His lower lip presses up thoughtfully. "Not sure how well Rose-Arc rolls off the tongue."

"Jaune Rose, does," I supply. "Kinda."

And we laugh and talk and eat, even in all the futility. Hypothetical name changes don't matter when all this week will be is a memory. An enduring one, sure, but none of this is meant to be any more than it already is. We won't turn back the clock and undo the deal, even if more and more of me wants to. Because I can already feel myself grasping tightly at a love that's blooming where another used to be, filling spaces where I thought I'd never find substitution.

I can still picture Oscar's freckled smile passed the campfire, but I can also see Jaune's enamored gaze above the tower, shaded by the moon, leaning in to kiss me.

With icing on his lip, I inexplicably kiss him tenderly. I lose myself in him, coming so completely undone that it is any wonder if I'll even come to survive this week without deciding that the long-term risk of having him forever is greater than the perfect memory of a loving him for only a week.

=(✦)=

Jaune Arc, dreading the bikini.

Evidently, Ruby doesn't know what a grove is. We come upon a small lake at the lip of waterfall. It isn't the secluded paradise I thought it'd be – it's a small commercial spot with little rentable condos not far from it – but it's empty since water here is colder this time of year.

I can't stop looking at her. She's in a loose hoodie and shorts, her bikini straps peeking over her partially exposed shoulders. When she told me that we'd be swimming, I figured she'd meant the aquarium somehow. Not so, apparently. She thought it was obvious because we were heading to a grove.

That said, if she wanted to swim, we could have just gone back to my lake house, but she's the one with the reigns today.

Outside of my hoodie and trunks, I haven't brought anything with me. She said we needed to leave everything with the security cause we wouldn't need anything else. Still, I find myself wondering what dangerous secrets are hiding under her baggy clothes. Then I think of her bikini top and consider that that would be dangerous enough.

She catches me staring and gives me a sly look. She saunters to the waters edge with an intentional sway. It isn't very good. She's no practiced runway performer and her hips are a little stiff, but it's cute anyway. She's got that kind of quality. That or my mind is playing bias.

I also don't care. I'm coming to love things about her, from the rhythm of her laugh down to the clumsiness in her two left feet.

"Can you swim?" she asks, silver eyes glowing.

I snort. "I don't think you're allowed to graduate from the academy unless you can."

"Great!" she says, clapping. "So how long can you hold your breath?"

"Uh…" I say dumbly. It isn't like I keep count.

"Can you do five minutes?" she presses.

"Yeah, I can do that."

"Perfect," she cheers before throwing away her hoodie and jumping into the water.

I panic when she doesn't come up in a minute. The water is freezing when I jump into it.

I open my eyes to the frost and catch her crouched on the lakebed with a cheeky grin. The water's as tall as I am. Of course she wasn't in danger.

We surface for air, but she disappears again under the surface. This time I follow after her as she paddles towards the waterfall. A hazy white wall of heavy water swallows her as she swims through it. When I push into it as well, she swims into an underwater tunnel that is lined with steel handles which I use to pull myself into and down a pressurized passage.

When I emerge from the other side, I am surrounded by walls made of varnished wood. It's like I've stumbled upon an illegal hideout, the earthy smell conjuring an old memory of one of Hei's private rooms. Down a corridor, Ruby is already lounging on a pile of beach towels under some shifting colored lights. It's only when I enter do I realize that the lights aren't electronic. They're natural.

"Pretty cool, huh?" she chimes proudly, but I'm still staring at the ceiling that is the only part of the room that is unfurnished outside of some support beams.

High above me, raw dust crystals embedded deep into the earth form much of the cavernous ceiling. Red, yellow, purple, green, and white, all shine down below as light filters randomly through the crystals. My neck is craned stiffly upwards even as I join Ruby's side. I can't look away. Through one, I find a tunnel filled entirely of dust, and I can see all the way up to the surface from it. Up there where the river meets the waterfall. Faintly I can see the shattered moon, fainter still are the fish that travel downstream. It's like a natural – if hazy – viewport into the river above.

I plop down next to her.

"Weiss knows the best places, doesn't she?" She's looking up at the lights with me. It must be a different kind of brilliant in the sunlight.

I want to answer but the cave feels like a different world altogether. It's so intimate and alone and I can't help but feel like no words will escape a place like this. Trapped in its magical confines. Voices dying in the glowing stones.

Her eyes shimmer like they're a perfectly cut gems, smoothened into spheres like everything else here.

"Jaune?"

"Sorry… this place is a little…"

"Overwhelming?" she guesses.

"Isolated," I say breathlessly.

She grabs my arm. "I'm so sorry," she says in a panic, sitting up. "I didn't know you had a problem with enclosed spaces! Let's just go. I'll think of somewhere else."

I grab her arm and pull her back down to me, yelping as she does. "Whoa! Calm down. I'm just in awe is all."

She looks up at me with worry. "You don't look like it."

"Don't I?" I laugh sheepishly, rubbing the back of my head.

"You don't," she says. "You look… worried."

I find it hard to smile. Now my brain rattles to find out why. I look around me. The place is perfectly romantic. Like it's ripped from a fairy tale, but that all seems like an afterthought. That I'm only assigning the romantic quality just because I'm thinking I should. Because everything we're supposed to be doing this week has to be nothing but that.

I find my answer in Ruby. She's still worried about me and letting it eat at her. That isn't a quality you find in a fairy tale romance, that's something you find in the real world. That concern is grounding me because I can't see her as some fictitious lover you find amongst the pages, perfect in a way, destined in every other. But Ruby's a person with flaws and aspirations.

I sit up. "Are we friends?" I find myself asking.

She curls around her knees. "I… I guess I haven't really thought about it. I mean, we haven't known each other long but it feels wrong to say that I don't know you."

"Can I say that we're friends?" I ask, trying to pry her gaze from her arms with my eyes alone. "Cause calling you any less feels just as wrong."

She peeks out from her arms. "Does the label even matter?"

"It does to me." I reach over and squeeze her wrist just once. "And I think it does to you too." I find my smile again.

A different kind of warmth wells in our cheeks. Giddiness rattles our bones and shakes feeling into our goosebumps.

"Do you wanna just… talk?" It feels like a question she'd been hoping to ask the entire time. And I know what it means by association. She's asking if tonight doesn't have to be filled with uncontrollable passions like what we nearly did this morning. She's asking if today doesn't have to have big romantic gestures. She's asking if it's okay to just be… friends.

I smile when I hold her hand. She squeezes back. It feels like the most honest thing we've done all week. And it isn't like we've been hiding behind facades, but all this flirting and dating doesn't seem like who we are together.

But this does. This feels more right. More us.

I lie back with her. "What did you want to talk about?" I ask the sky beyond the silvery crystal passage.

"Everything," it answers.

=(✿)=

Ruby Rose, bearing her heart.

We talk break ups. At least, I do.

"He wasn't very good at hiding things. It's why he never held any surprise parties for me. He'd give up before he even started. So when he went and bought a wedding ring, I ended up stumbling on the receipt."

"Yikes," he says, flinching. It's nice to know that Jaune reacts the same way I feel. I missed that about Oscar too. "Sounds like he's got really bad luck," he adds.

"He was lucky in the field, I can tell you that." Jaune pauses to blink at me. "Yes, the innuendo was intentional, but he got us through some rough scraps, too," I say, laughing before I let a sigh rumble out of my throat. I can't help but feel a little sour at those memories. Everything before was fine, but everything that had to do with my breakup still stings uncomfortably. I hope it gets better.

"I can only imagine how he felt about it," I say. "Bad luck might not have even been the half of it. That day he took me on this big date, and I was quietly anxious the entire time. And whenever it looked like he was about to pop the question, he'd just… retreat."

"He had doubts?"

I curl my arms tighter around my knees. "I couldn't blame him, really. I realized later that I had doubts too. I wasn't even sure I was going to say yes, just that I wanted him to ask so I could find out what I'd end up answer."

"And that's why you broke up?"

I sigh. If only things were that simple. "If it was, it'd have been clean, but it wasn't. At the end of the date, I just brought it up. Couldn't stop myself. I felt so impatient at the time. That was my mistake. Maybe things would have gone differently if I just waited but I had to know. I wanted to stop the voice at the back of my head whispering doubts." I remember Oscar fidgeting. I hated to see him that way. Hated it more to know that I brought that onto him. Making him feel comfortable afterward was a priority I tried to spearhead but I couldn't. It was too late. "Turns out, he realized that he wasn't afraid or nervous. He'd thought that that was why he couldn't propose. I don't know how but at some point during the date, he realized that he just wasn't excited to do it."

His eyes narrow, more in disbelief but I know there's a quiet judgement in the crease of his brow. I don't want Jaune to think ill of Oscar. He was a good man. Still is. "It wasn't his plan in the first place," I supply. "His mother and cousins pushed him to do it. He'd always planned to marry me, but it was too soon and we had too much on our hands at the time. Still do, even. He's headmaster at Beacon now and I've got jobs lined up when this week ends. On top of that, running a gym isn't easy. Honestly, shoving a big date, a proposal, and planning a wedding wasn't just pushing the envelope. It was practically diving into the shredder with it!"

Jaune nods understandably. I know he's a little sheepish about it too. My life is busy and complicated, but his is easygoing with one job and commitments he doesn't have to keep. I envy that. I wish I could go back and just be a huntress.

"It's a miracle we have for each other at all, huh?" he says.

"Enjoy my company while it lasts." I smile for him. He smiles back and I know he's returning the sentiment. Everything inside me wants to savor every moment with him while we still have time to keep it so pure. Like this. Reaching over, I squeeze his hand.

He looks at our joined hands then at me. "Your story's not over, is it?"

My grip loosens. "You really want all the details?"

"Leave nothing out."

"And if I don't want to say?" I don't mean to be defensive, but something inside of me wants to huddle back and hide away.

"I think you don't actually want to."

That catches me off guard. "What do you mean?"

His eyes are elsewhere. "I like to think that you and me are starting to think alike. Or maybe we already have. And how I feel about my breakup is that I've been dying to tell someone about it. But not just to anyone."He looks at me now, and I feel caught in his gaze. "To someone who really, truly understands how it feels."

Something inside of me clicks. I'm only grateful that it doesn't well up any tears. Jaune is right. I do need that kind of my empathy. I've been so adrift without it that I even ended up sleeping with him just to not feel any of that anxiety in the back of my head.

I've somehow let go of his hand. I'm pinching my ring finger again, but Jaune's ring is a reminder of what is, instead of what was.

"How do you do that?" I ask him. "How do you just know what I'm thinking?"

"It's more like I keep wondering if we're thinking the same thing sometimes. In a sentimental kind of way, it's like I've – ugh – it's like I've found a soulmate or something." He hates how cheesy that sounds.

"Aw, if it makes you feel any better, I used to be the kind of girl who said I love you so often that the words lost all meaning."

His eyes are wide. "What?"

I try very weakly to hide behind my hands. "So sue me. I grew up using it like a greeting. Everyone in my house did it."

"No, no, no! I'm just surprised cause we did that too!"

We're excited for a moment before we both look away. Just because we're both dorks doesn't make the memory of smothering our partners and friends in too much affection any less embarrassing. Even if no one minded. Even if we're the only ones who think it's weird.

"So, uh…" he mumbles. "You were saying?"

"Oh!" I'm thankful to be reoriented. At least breakups aren't embarrassing but it's not a happy memory. I push down the distaste. I want this out of me. "It was mutual, but it was too sudden. I'd like to say it was like falling dominos – that not being ready just slowly pulled us apart – but it wasn't. It was more like… like…"

"Like a stack of plates," he supplies, somber in a way that is understanding. "Suddenly and all at once."

"Yeah. Like that. It took us a week to move out, but nothing felt right after that night. We cried a lot and tried to just turn back the clock, but we felt like we were out of our depth. Like we were dumb teenagers again who didn't know what we were doing."

"You could have salvaged it," he says without thinking. It takes him a second to catch up with his mouth but he doesn't take it back. "You tried anyway, didn't you?"

We were just going through a rough patch at the time. In retrospect, it was obvious that we were just going about our relationship at a different pace than most. Some people want to get married right away. And we just… weren't. "I did," I say. "I always thought that I wasn't as mature as everyone else. Like I was always a step behind in some places. I was wrong, of course, cause that's apparently just how everyone feels, but that doubt creeped in at the wrong time and made us think we just weren't ready instead of the timing just being all sorts of wrong."

"I got complacent, too. When we broke it off, we pretty quickly got back to just being ourselves. Sure, we weren't a couple anymore, but we'd text each other good morning, we'd still grab coffee, watch movies on the couch. Sometimes he didn't even sleep in the guest room and we'd only noticed that we'd shared a bed again when it was already the morning after. But by the time I started noticing the way he was getting along with Penny, I backed out."

"And then you came here," he says. He's worried for me. I can feel it in the way he's holding both my hands, rubbing a thumb gently and loosely over my knuckles like I'll crumble away at any moment so he has to be delicate with me. "It doesn't sound like you've really had any time to confront your breakup. It sounds more like you got out of that relationship just days ago. Not three months."

I shrug helplessly. "It certainly feels that way. Maybe I haven't processed all of it just yet."

"Are you worried about going back to Vale?"

Where I'll see him again? Where I'll have to face what I'd just run away from? "I think I'm more afraid than I am worried."

He zips open his pocket and pulls out his scroll. He hands it to me. "Would you like to talk to him?"

I'm already grabbing his scroll. I don't know how to feel when I realize I still remember his number. I'm sure Jaune remembers Pyrrha's too. We're caught up in the same way. If his breakup had been anything like mine, he'd have done the same.

"Thank you." I kiss his cheek before I jog off into the corridor. I can feel my heart rumble against my ribs, my eyes going watery. I'm going to be a mess when I come back to Jaune, but he wants me to lift the weight off my shoulders.

I look back. He's waiting patiently for me. When I'm done, I hope I can return the gesture somehow.

=(✦)=

Jaune Arc, who's already in too deep.

When she comes back, her eyes are red but there's no tension on her. Just relief. Enough to make her move limply.

"Sorry I kept you waiting."

"Sorry I brought it up," I say. Cause I am. You can never know if something like this might turn out for the better or catastrophically for the worst. She crawls into my arms. I can feel her body slack, relaxing. I'm sure she's exhausted on top of everything else. "Better?" I ask.

She nods, humming in a way that almost sounds like a purr.

We sit in silence and I take that chance to relish on the feel of her skin. And this isn't like our nights of passion where I'm tasting her. No, this time I can really take my time, loving the way her skin is soft in places and rough in others, a body of patchwork experiences. Of choices both poor and grand. A life well and truly lived and finding herself on a collision course with me.

Shallow scars dot her like constellations, each of them a story I want to hear. I touch one on her forearm, a long line that is whiter than the rest of her. "What happened here?"

She gives me a confused look. "Aren't you going to tell me about Pyrrha?"

I'd almost forgotten the rules of the trade, but she isn't asking because she exposed herself and wants the same from me. She just wants to give me the same comfort I've given her.

But I'm not thinking about Pyrrha. I'm not here lamenting what we once had nor am I tormented at the thought that we just fell out of love. I'm not dreading the mistakes that tore us apart, or if I'll make them again. Not right now. Not here. Because I don't even feel my necklace burn around my neck.

All I care about is the ring attached to it. Because it's hers.

"No, I don't think I will," I say with cheek that catches her delightfully off-guard.

"What? Why not? Jaune, if you've got something to hide, it's okay. But you have to tell me if–!" I press my finger to her lips.

"It's okay," I tell her. "I promise I'll tell you at some point, but right now?" I run my thumb over her scar. "I'd much rather spend this time getting to know you."

"But Jaune…" She's still worried about me and I swear those eyes steal my heart every time.

"Would you indulge me? Please."

She curls deeper into my chest. "I don't think my scars are more important than what you've got bottled up…"

I laugh. I can't explain why, I just do and it shakes my chest and rattles ribs around my lungs. She's out of her funk long enough then to give me a confused look. I must look crazy.

"J-Jaune?"

"Ruby," I say, feeling weightless. "Can't you tell yet? She's not on my mind right now. You are. Just you."

Her eyes widen, but she doesn't blush. Cause she knows this isn't me flirting. I didn't say that so we can trade innuendos, or I can see her out of that bikini. Honestly, I'd nearly forgotten what she'd been wearing. Or that we're alone here and so far away from prying eyes. In fact…

I get up and give her my hand. "C'mon, it's kind of cold in here, isn't it?"

She looks up at the red dust crystal that is very much keeping the room warm, but she catches my meaning and giggles, conceding my properly bizarre behavior. "Yeah. Freezing. So where to?" She's hesitant still, even if only a little. I can work with that.

I think for a moment before an old memory of a swing set comes to mind. "There's an old back-alley playground where I met my first real friend. She stole my first kiss just seconds after meeting."

"How'd you manage that?"

I shrug. "Accidental shoplifting."

She pulls ahead of me in the direction of the exit. "Alright then, let's trade. Let's get to know each other."

I can't stop the way I'm feeling. She's like a mystery box and I want to find out every little secret, to see this wonderful woman for all that she is. Inside and out. And to give her the same from myself.

There's a comfort in being so willfully vulnerable again. Even if it may not turn out to be a whirlwind romance or the kind of polished, flawless love that the stories always seem to tell. Even if it doesn't all end in a kiss before the book ends or the credits roll. Even if I never find her again after her train disappears into the snowy hills like Pyrrha.

Because there's a happy ending here, I know it. And I know just as well that no matter how it turns out, it'll be happy because she's in it.

Hi! It's been a rough week. A rough couple of weeks, really. It also doesn't help that my CTS is still taking a while to heal and it's edging into a year at this point.

Writing a pure romance is draining me and my other Dragonslayer fic, Kaleidoscope Heart, isn't giving me the creative shot I was hoping it would. So I'll be setting that one aside so I can rewrite it and, instead, write a simpler fic that I can hopefully get excited about writing again. I'll still finish what I write. Just Like the Stories Tell, especially, but I'll willfully delay updating works so I can inject some passion into another, more outlandish, story.

I won't say when this story will get an update. Expect one within two weeks but I need to dismantle my publishing schedule and redo it so I can maintain sanity.