Author's Note:
I know I've not finished either of my other stories, but I'm struggling with writing at the minute so I'm jumping between various different fics (I've got my two main ones, this one, and three Frosen Steel fics in various state of completion).
This all came about from a prompt I saw where it said about swapping the expected roles - I've seen quite a few fics where Ruby is a tattoo artist (and I really enjoyed them), so I wanted to swap it over so Weiss is the tattoo artist.
Ruby was carefully cutting the stems on a selection of white roses that had been ordered for collection later that day when she heard the tinny peal of the bell above the shop door. "Hello! Welcome to Season's Flowers, how can I help…you?" Ruby tailed off a little as she looked up and regarded the woman stood in front of the counter. Her white hair was shaved down almost to her skull on the left-hand side of her head, and then the rest had been flicked over to the other side, so it flowed down behind her right shoulder in waves. Detailed tattoos were visible on her bare arms, designs weaving in and out reaching from just below her elbows up to her shoulders, then across and meeting in the middle of her collarbones, then pointing down to her chest, vanishing behind the buttons on her sleeveless white shirt and the black lacy bra that poked out.
Ruby hurriedly looked up to stare the woman in the eyes, not wanting to get caught ogling, and was met with a sly grin and a twinkle in ice blue eyes, leaving her certain that she'd been caught looking.
"Don't worry, I saw you started at my arms and followed the lines up, so you're forgiven."
Ruby was now certain that she was as red faced as her name, and quickly tried to catch herself back up. She was at work. Not the time to be checking other women out. Even if they were jaw droppingly gorgeous with a fabulous sense of style. Ruby mentally slapped herself, she had a girlfriend.
Do. Not. Go. There.
Ruby forced a plain smile onto her face, trying to clear her head of thoughts involving the tattooed goddess and herself in a back room. "How can I help you?"
The woman leaned forwards slightly and held a hand out, trimmed nails on thin fingers that reminded Ruby of a pianist's hands slightly spread. "I'm Weiss, I own the tattoo parlour next door. I don't think we've been introduced yet?" Ruby rushed to wipe down her hands on her apron, suddenly microscopically aware of the stickiness of plant food and sap that she always got on her hands within a few minutes of starting work and shook Weiss' hand.
"Ruby Rose, I…well I don't own the shop, my dad does, but he's never really here anymore, he prefers to stay at the farm with the flower fields, so it's basically my shop now, even if officially it's still his."
Weiss smiled at her, despite the rambling, and then looked around, her gaze drifting across the various buckets holding colourful flowers, some bloomed, others not. "Do you sell custom made bouquets?"
Ruby nodded, "Yep!" She popped the 'p', "As big or small as you like, but obviously not like too big, although we do help with the floats for pride every year, so I guess we can go pretty big, but pride is a special occasion, so maybe not all the time." She stopped to take a breath and noticed that Weiss was smiling at her again, causing her to blush again.
"So, do you know how to make a bouquet that passive aggressively says, 'Fuck you'?"
Ruby laughed at the request, then realising at seeing the raised eyebrow that the other woman was serious, replied a bit more seriously. "Umm. Sorry, it's not a common request, but yeah I think we could do one?"
"What flowers would it be made up of? I'd obviously still like it to look good."
"Weeeeeell…" Ruby looked to the ceiling and dredged up her knowledge of the language of flowers, ticking it off on her fingers as she went. "You'd need geraniums for stupidity, foxglove for insincerity as you're still giving them flowers but don't want it to be a good thing, meadowsweet for uselessness, yellow carnations for disappointment, and finally orange lilies to tie it together as the key flower. They mean hatred."
"And they're all available?"
"Yeah, yeah they are." Ruby checked the calendar and book behind the table, giving it a quick glance to see which flowers were in season.
"Excellent. I'd like to order one for collection please."
After taking her money and agreeing that it would be ready for collection the next day - something Ruby never agreed to - the tattooed beauty left the store with a soft smile and a slight swish to her hips. Ruby didn't stare of course, she didn't watch each flick of the hips in very tight and high waisted black jeans that emphasised and enhanced the curves on her behind and legs, Ruby had a girlfriend, as she kept reminding herself, so she definitely didn't watch each bit of movement with a large amount of appreciation.
She spent the rest of the morning in a slight haze, and by the time the clock ticked 12, Ruby could barely remember anything else that had happened since the woman next door walked in. She'd obviously sold flowers and agreed for some orders to be done, as there were notes written down and receipts pinned to the board, but she couldn't for the life of her remember anything about them. Fortunately, her notes always included the flower, colour, design, and reason so she'd covered her back there. "Thank you, Past Ruby," she muttered to herself as she quickly flipped the sign round and locked up for lunch. She was leaving earlier than normal, she never had lunch before 1 usually, but decided that a bite to eat might help focus her brain more, and at the very least get it off of thoughts about Weiss.
As she headed towards her usual cafe, she spotted a familiar head of brunette hair, swept over a shoulder, and the back of a black shirt. Cinder's bag that Ruby had bought for her last birthday was dangling off the back of the chair, the red and gold design recognisable even from a distance. She's waiting for me! Although I am pretty early so if I hadn't taken an early lunch, she'd have been waiting quite a...Ruby came to a halt as another recognisable woman with tanned skin and light green hair walked over to Cinder's table, and Ruby felt her heart drop and stomach twist.
She watched as Cinder looked up from her phone, smiled, and rose from the table to meet Emerald's lips in a kiss that definitely wasn't chaste, and was barely acceptable in public. Ruby ignored the people brushing past her on the pavement, her eyes never leaving the two women who were so engrossed in each other, hands never apart, giggles and smiles easily evident from where Ruby was standing, that they didn't notice the woman watching them both, silver eyes slowly filling with tears.
"Jilted or cheated?"
"Wha-what?" Ruby looked around quickly and found a little old lady with a knotted and twisted old cane looking at her, hands crossed over the skull at the top.
The lady stared at her, thick glasses making her eyes look far larger than normal, before looking over to where Cinder and Emerald were sat. "Are you a jilted lover who was rejected, or a girlfriend who is being cheated on?"
"Umm…" Ruby felt at a loss for words, How did she…
The woman scoffed, "If you're going to ask how I know save your breath. You're looking at two women who are all over each other, and you're crying. Doesn't take a genius to work out that you had either fallen for one and were rejected, or you're dating one and have just found out you were being cheated on."
"Cheated. I'm being cheated on." Ruby wasn't sure why she was answering her.
"Ah. The worse option. Well, I hope for your sake it hadn't got too serious, but I'd make sure you get all your stuff back from her before you kick her out of your life." The lady patted Ruby's arm and started to continue walking past, before turning slightly to continue, "And if she's got a key then change your locks as well, better safe than sorry these days. You'll find happiness dear, a gorgeous thing like you will have ladies begging on their knees for a taste of you." Ruby watched her go, not sure she'd heard the last line properly, before shaking her head to clear it. Her eyes hardened as she looked back to her girl...ex-girlfriend.
Turning on her heel she headed for Cinder's apartment, knowing that if Cinder was anything like normal, she'd be at the cafe for at least an hour before heading back to work, and she'd only just got there from the looks of it. That should give her more than enough time to do what needed to be done. Ruby let herself into Cinder's apartment, her hand shaking slightly as she unlocked it.
The pair had keys to the other's apartments, but hadn't moved in together, which Ruby was eternally grateful for now. This meant that she only had items of clothing dotted around the apartment rather than the majority of her stuff, but as she was going through it, she kept finding little things that she'd missed before, a book here, a DVD there. Before long she'd filled a black bag up with her stuff and was realising that she was never going to be able to walk home with it. It was a twenty-minute car ride to her apartment, and a thirty-minute walk to the shop.
Ruby called a taxi and then, with more than a single tear in her eye, unhooked the key that had been presented to her a couple of months back from her set of keys. She looked around for the best place to leave it and decided on the kitchen table. Placing it very deliberately in open space she undid the latch and pulled the door closed, knowing the door would lock itself behind her.
Ruby arrived back at her own apartment and looked around. The open plan lounge was a decent size, a bookcase filled with DVDs was next to a TV, a sofa opposite and an armchair by the window, plus a small stack of books that belonged to Yang's partner. Ruby hadn't had the heart to tell them she'd only got through the first couple of chapters of one, even though she'd had them for the last couple of months.
Her kitchen was simple, a single oven and hob combo, plus a few cabinets and a fridge freezer. There was a dining table with chairs, but it hadn't been used for its intended purpose in quite some time. Cinder had always insisted they go back to her place if they were going to have dinner together. Ruby dumped the black bag of her stuff next to the sofa, then collapsed onto it, staring at the ceiling.
If I did the right thing, as the stories and movies always say you should do, then why does it still hurt? Deciding that she should maybe talk to someone, or at the very least ask them if she had done the right thing, she called her half-sister Yang.
Yang picked up on the first ring, "Hey Rubes."
"Hi Yang." Ruby did her best to keep her voice level and the sadness out of it, and hoped she was successful.
She wasn't.
"I'm on my way with ice cream and cookies."
"What? What are you on about?" Ruby blinked in confusion.
"Something bad's happened. You never call me during the workday and you're doing that thing where you try and keep all emotion out of your voice. Sorry Ruby, but that's never worked on me, I could hear it in the way you said hi." She could hear Yang moving about her house, keys jangling and the soft grunt of her pulling her boots on. "So take the rest of the day off and let me give you some sister time alright?"
Ruby had chuckled at how well Yang knew her, but still turned down the offer, "It's fine Yang, you were going to spend today with Blake, so it's fine. I'm fine."
"Nope." She heard Yang's front door shut, "Sisters before fisters"
Ruby gagged, "Ew Yang! That's like the worst one you've come up with yet! Ew ew ew! I do not want to know that Blake fists you!"
Yang's laughter came through the phone loud and clear, "Brothers no Ruby!" Yang stopped talking to keep laughing, and even Ruby couldn't help the small smile that crossed her face, despite the mental image. "But I get your point, sisters before fisters is a no. What I said still stands though, I'm on my way over now."
Ruby sighed, she could already hear the faint rush of air and the sounds of traffic through the phone, which meant Yang was outside and about to get on her bike. "I'm at my apartment."
"Stay there, and I'll see you in twenty."
Ruby sighed but agreed nonetheless, kicking her boots off and sitting on her sofa, the bag of stuff still unpacked on the floor beside her.
A little over twenty minutes later and Yang knocked on the door, forcing Ruby from her own thoughts and to her feet. She opened the door and walked away without looking, Yang following her in.
"Alright, chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream plus some edible cookie do...Ruby why is there a bin bag with some of your clothes sticking out of it?"
Ruby looked back over her shoulder, "Why do you think?"
"Well from the looks of it, I'd say that you and Cinder broke up and that's all your stuff from her flat." Yang cracked her knuckles, "Do I need to have a word with her?"
Ruby laughed humourlessly, "Yang, as much as we both want that to happen, you know I'd feel super guilty the second I said yes, and it wouldn't fix anything."
"True. Come on then, let it all out. What happened that made you realise that the bad bitch wasn't for you?"
Ruby sighed and started to explain.
Author's Note 2:
So I am absolutely not a fan of the Cinder Fall and Ruby Rose pairing, but I needed a villain for the story to kick it off, and I dislike far more than Emerald.
Any feedback or reviews are appreciated, favourites and follows are also very appreciated too!
