Originally posted to AO3 on June 5, 2021.
wrote this cute ass shit in like five hours with no editing lets gooo
Bits and Baubles
"BlakeBlakeBlakeBlake!"
A gust of wind and rose petals buffeted Blake's face, rustling through the pages of her book, and she reeled back. In her peripherals, she saw a red blur cross the deserted library in a flash, then come to an abrupt halt in front of her table. One wayward petal landed on her hand for an instant before vanishing.
"BlakeBlakeBlake," Ruby continued to babble, leaning over the table and into Blake's dwindling personal space. "Blaaake!"
It took every ounce of her self-control to keep her fingers loose and relaxed on the pages, rather than letting them clench into frustrated fists. She wouldn't have bothered if this book wasn't on loan.
Iris, the jaded, no-nonsense Huntress who couldn't bring herself to love again, was finally about to confess her feelings to the snarky pickpocket with a heart of gold. After 23 chapters of pining, wallowing, and admittedly contrived misunderstandings, they were finally going to kiss. Right now, Blake just wanted to soak up every sappy detail. Her eyes should have been glued to the page.
Instead, they were rolling skyward as she begrudgingly lowered Nevermores and Ne'er-Do-Wells into her lap.
"Ruby," she greeted with all the magnanimity she could muster (which was to say, not much). Her team leader was practically vibrating with excitement from where she stood on the other side of Blake's table, though she was leaning so far over it that she was practically laying on the thing. Both hands were held conspicuously behind her back.
"Blake," Ruby said, as if the first twenty times might have escaped her notice. Her voice was strangely breathless for a girl who could cross half the campus in a single dash. Seemed like she wasn't done encroaching on Blake's bubble, either. "Guess what? Guess what?!"
Surreptitiously leaning back, Blake held the book up between them to prevent further approach. "What?" she asked sharply.
"I won't tell you, you have to guess!"
Blake blinked. She glanced down at the incredibly unsubtle way Ruby was hiding something behind her. By now, she was bouncing on her toes with such vigor that every table in the vicinity shook. She could dismiss the possibility of a practical joke (Ruby would already be snickering) or another cool weapon Ruby had spotted in the training grounds (she wouldn't just steal another student's weapon… would she?).
"I… don't know," Blake said at length.
She really just wanted to see Iris the Huntress overcome past trauma and open up her heart again.
Before Blake could ask Ruby to just tell her and skip the games―perhaps with a pointed glance at her abandoned book―the younger girl's face split into an enormous grin. Then she yanked one of her hands out from behind her back and thrust it triumphantly into Blake's face.
"Look at this rock!" she squealed.
On instinct, Blake had leaned back as far as she could in her chair, her neck craned back to put more space between them. She still had to cross her eyes slightly to focus on the small, oblong object resting in Ruby's outstretched palm.
It was, indeed, a rock. Maybe two inches long and one inch wide, rounded along the edges, and dark gray in color, with a stripe of lighter stone running diagonally across it.
Blake could not, for the life of her, see anything noteworthy about it.
Slowly, her eyes slid back up to Ruby's face. She was grinning like a loon, still bouncing happily on her toes, and clearly waiting for Blake to react.
"Oh," Blake said, very belatedly. For lack of anything else to do, she scooted her chair back slightly, easing the strain on her neck. "That's…" She frantically glanced back at Ruby's face for some sort of cue. Nothing. "…Neat?"
That seemed to be on the right track. With an ecstatic little jump, Ruby waved the rock around emphatically. "It's the same color as Gambol Shroud!" she declared with no shortage of pride.
Blinking, Blake pushed her chair back a bit further and peered at the rock in question again. It was a very familiar shade of gray. In fact… Ruby might be right. It might be the exact same shade of gray as the blade of her weapon.
"Oh," she said again.
Ruby saved her from having to formulate a coherent response by pushing herself even further over the edge of the table, though she thankfully kept the rock a reasonable distance from Blake's nose this time. "And look!" she continued, jabbing a finger at the stripe of color that cut through the gray. "This yellow is just like your eyes! See?"
In the low light, it actually looked more like tan than gold, but Blake could see the color more clearly than a human would have been able to, and Ruby was right about this one, too. Under direct sunlight, she didn't doubt that it would shine the same yellow as her eyes.
"So it… seems," she said.
Her lackluster responses didn't seem to faze Ruby. If anything, each mumbled word seemed to perk her up. "Feel it!" she demanded, brandishing the rock yet again. "Feel it, feel it, feel it!"
More and more bemused with each second, Blake obligingly lifted one hand and rubbed a finger along the edge of the stone. It was… a little warm, presumably both from having been baking in the sun earlier today, and perhaps also from being squeezed in Ruby's calloused palm. Again, Blake glanced at Ruby's expression, trying to glean the purpose of this exercise.
"It's so smooth!" she gushed without being prompted.
Huh. With a contemplative frown, Blake touched the stone again, only for Ruby to gently take her hand and guide it to the other side of the rock. "Oh," she said, genuinely surprised, when her fingers hit the cool, smooth surface. "It is smooth."
Ruby beamed so widely that she was liable to put the sun itself out of business. "I knew you would like it!" she cried, and then she dumped the rock into Blake's hand without further warning.
With the swiftness of a trained Huntress, Blake's sword hand deftly snatched it out of the air before it could slip through her fingers and land on her book. Her brain was a bit slower to catch up. "Oh," she said for a third time, glancing at the rock that had… somehow ended up in her possession. Then it hit her. "Oh."
Blake's eyes darted between Ruby and the rock, then back again. "It's… for me?" She probably shouldn't have been so astonished, but she felt as if she had only understood maybe five percent of this exchange, and all she could do was try desperately to keep pace.
Ruby, for her part, just giggled. "Yeah, it's for you!" she said in a voice which implied that she thought this had been made quite obvious. "It's the same color as your sword and eyes! And it's got a really good feel! When I saw it, I just knew I had to get it for you!"
Get it? As in― "You bought this?"
"Nope," Ruby replied, popping the "p". With a sunny smile, she pointed vaguely in a direction Blake couldn't place at the moment. "I found it over thataways, near the sparring grounds!" Then, seeing the baffled look on Blake's face and apparently mistaking it for disgust: "Oh, but don't worry―I washed it off! No dirt, no bugs―scout's honor!"
The gears in Blake's mind were grinding at an embarrassingly sluggish pace. "Um."
Don't just stand there, she snapped at herself. Say something!
"Thank… you?"
If Ruby had been happy during the rest of this conversation, then now she looked… overjoyed. Too full of glee for her body to contain it all. When she grinned, it was so wide that her eyes nearly squinted themselves all the way shut. "You're welcome!" she said. Somehow, she managed to make it sound more grateful than a "thank you".
With that, the conversation was apparently over. Blake didn't realize that Ruby's feet were dangling until she slid back off of the edge of the table and her boots clunked noisily against the floor. "Well," she said cheerfully, "I should get back to the sparring grounds. Weiss'll get cranky if I'm gone too long. Enjoy your book!"
With that―and a burst of swirling red petals that rattled the books on the shelves―Ruby vanished back through the door. After a moment, Blake couldn't even hear the telltale rustling of her Semblance (or the surprised shouts of passersby) anymore.
The warmth of Ruby's hand, though, lingered in the stone that sat in Blake's palm, baby-smooth against the rough calluses there.
When she returned to team RWBY's dorm room later that afternoon, Ruby and Weiss had yet to return from their spar. Yang, however, was laying on her stomach and kicking her legs as she tapped away at some Scroll game.
Blake dithered for a moment before clearing her throat to get her partner's attention. "One sec," Yang said without looking over her shoulder, jabbing the screen rapid-fire with both thumbs. "I'm 'bout to whoop Nora's―"
Her Scroll let out a loud victory fanfare that even Blake, who hadn't played a video game until the first time she admitted as much to Ruby and Yang, understood the meaning of. Nora's cries of "NOOO-HO-HOOOO!" could be heard clearly from JNPR's room.
Smirking, Yang collapsed her Scroll and tossed it onto her pillow. "That means she owes me her portion of dessert at dinner tonight and tomorrow," she said at Blake's unimpressed look.
"You know she'll just steal Ren's," Blake responded flatly. "And then Pyrrha's and Jaune's, too, once she realizes she can get away with it."
Yang shrugged. "Not my fault her team is 75% doormats. Besides, they're gonna have to learn to say no to her eventually."
"Unlikely," Blake muttered, rubbing her thumb absently over the rock still held loosely in her grasp. The scrape of her nail against stone brought her back on task. "Uh, I was hoping to talk to you about something, by the way. Assuming you're not busy with some… other dessert-related business."
With a roll of her eyes, Yang swung her legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the way it tilted precariously. They'd all gotten used to that. "Nah, I'm free. Whaddya need, Blakey?"
First things first: for her partner to stop calling her "Blakey", but perhaps that was a bit too much to ask. With a sigh, Blake stepped closer and held up the rock. The stripe of yellow actually glinted when the light hit it just right, almost like real gold.
"You don't…" Suddenly, and absurdly, Blake felt almost ashamed to ask―as if she was being gauche, flaunting a gift she'd received. How absurd. It's a rock, Belladonna. She coughed into her fist. "You don't happen to know why Ruby just gave me this rock, do you?"
For a moment, Yang's eyebrows shot up, disappearing behind her bangs. She leaned off of the side of the bed (it creaked perilously) to inspect the stone; again, Blake had to fight down the ridiculous impulse to clutch it defensively to her chest. After a moment, Yang glanced over at her eyes, and then a grin slowly began to spread across her face.
"Same color as your eyes, huh?" she noted.
Blake cringed. Thank the Brothers that both sets of ears were covered, because they were both burning. "Same as my sword, actually," she corrected, gesturing vaguely to where Gambol Shroud lay sheathed on her bed.
If anything, Yang's grin widened. "I see," she said with the sort of infuriating smugness that only a sibling could manage.
With that, she hopped off the side of the bed; with her gone, it righted itself with a loud thunk, its legs settling back onto their respective stacks of books. "Well, this is just kind of a thing Ruby does," Yang explained, sauntering over to their nightstand. "She likes to pick up little things from the ground―shiny stuff, cool rocks, anything with a weird texture. Stuff like that. And if it reminds her of someone she likes, she'll give it to them."
As she spoke, she dug through her drawer, pushing aside bunched-up unfolded clothes until she unearthed a large plastic ziploc bag, which she held out to Blake. It was filled to the brim with all sorts of things―not just rocks.
Just by glancing at it, Blake couldn't really identify many of the things in it. Honestly, it just looked like a bag filled with tons of random stuff picked up off any random street. Almost everything was yellow or lilac or stunning crimson, though; all colors which Blake already knew to associate with Yang. And everything in there seemed to be either oddly-shaped or remarkably shiny. Or both.
"This is all the stuff Ruby's given me over the years," Yang confirmed her suspicions. "'Course, every once in a while, she gives me something that I can't keep, either 'cause it's sharp or too big or smells bad or what have you. But I keep pretty much everything else." Again, she grinned. "I know it's just little stuff, but… it's kinda big to Ruby, y'know? Means something to her, even if I don't get it all the time."
Blake just stared at her for a moment. The stone, which had long since cooled down, suddenly felt too warm in her palm. The whole room suddenly felt too warm.
"Ah, I'm not saying you gotta keep everything she gives you," Yang backpedaled, tucking her bag of treasures back into her drawer. "Not like she's gonna get mad or anything. Just, uh…" She winced. "Maybe, if you do get rid of it, do it somewhere where she won't find it? Y'know, just so she doesn't get… upset."
Without thinking, Blake snapped, "Who said I'm getting rid of it?" She cradled the rock defensively to her chest, barely even aware that she was doing it.
Yang blinked. Then her mouth twitched into a smile. "Oh, aren't you?"
"Of course not," said Blake, fully aware that she was falling into some kind of trap here. "It's a gift. I'm not an animal."
"'Course not," Yang agreed easily, though her smile only grew.
Blake lifted her chin and strode past Yang with great dignity to get to her side of the nightstand. "She gave it to me, not you," she said, trying to imitate Weiss's level of snideness as she rifled through her belongings. "I'll do what I want with it. Back off."
Despite all of Blake's posturing, Yang's smirk was knowing as she closed the drawer. "Sure thing, Blake," she drawled, moseying back towards her bed in a way that somehow radiated smugness. "You can do whatever you want with a gift. Ain't my place to judge."
She leaped back onto her bed, much to the books' protest. "Just so you know, though," she casually tossed over her shoulder as she rolled back onto her stomach, "she only ever gives these things to people she really cares about. Someone she considers family."
Blake hesitated with the rock halfway tucked beneath her own personal belongings, hidden away in her drawer.
The good news was that Yang wasn't facing her to see her entire face flush. The bad news was that she definitely knew anyway.
"So, it's a Rose family thing, then?" Blake desperately tried to misinterpret, even as she pulled the stone back out of her drawer and placed it instead on top of the nightstand, in full view. "Do all the Roses do it?"
"Nah, this is a Ruby Exclusive," Yang said easily. "Or, well, Summer didn't, as far as I know. Dad doesn't, either." She drummed her fingers along the solid part of her Scroll. "Huh. Y'know, I wonder where she did get it from."
Ozpin was, cursedly, less than a quarter of the way through his interminable annual expense reports when he heard a rapping at his window.
The Headmaster's office was at the very top of Beacon Tower, some 1,500 feet above the ground, and there was essentially no way to access any of the windows from the outside without some kind of aerial Semblance. Or without a bit of magical help, of course. He tried not to look too obviously relieved as he set his stack of papers aside and turned his chair around.
Qrow was perched just outside his window, on the small ledge he'd installed for exactly this purpose. As soon as Ozpin cracked it open, the corvid squeezed through the narrow gap he'd created, shot into the room, and transformed back into a human on the other side of Ozpin's desk.
"Good afternoon, Qrow," Ozpin felt the need to say for politeness's sake, even if he knew Qrow wasn't exactly one for pleasantries. He sat back down and spun his chair to face forward again (unfortunately, bringing him face to face with the paperwork again. Urgh). "What brings you to―?"
In a flurry of limbs, Qrow whirled around and slammed both palms onto the desk, rattling Ozpin's mug. "Oz," he said breathlessly.
At once, Ozpin straightened, abandoning the niceties. It was rare for Qrow to sound so urgent. "What? What is it?"
Qrow sprawled across the front of the desk, shoved a hand into the pocket that usually contained his flask, and then thrust it into Ozpin's face.
"Look at this rock."
Ozpin leaned back automatically―a Hunter's instinct to having any object hurtling towards his nose―and then relaxed. "Honestly, Qrow," he said mildly, "no need to frighten me like that." Nevertheless, he reached up and accepted the stone from Qrow's chilly hand.
It was a simple gray stone with spots of green. Judging by the ridged edge that cut sharply along one side, it had been torn away from a larger rock, probably by a creature of Grimm. In any case, it had been left with a strange, almost glasslike texture along one side.
"Ah," Ozpin said at length, and he eased open his suit jacket to hold the stone against his waistcoat. They were nearly the exact same shade of slate gray, mottled with only slightly different hues of moss green. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "I see. Thank you, Qrow." He rubbed his thumb along the length of the stone. "It's a very interesting texture."
Qrow just shrugged and stuffed his hands back in his trouser pockets, but Ozpin thought he looked pleased.
Placing the rock on his desk, Ozpin steepled his fingers and rested his chin upon them. "Now, was there anything else you needed to discuss with me?" he prompted, though he had a feeling he already knew the answer.
Sure enough, Qrow shook his head, pulling out his actual flask and taking a shallow swig. "Nah," he said, his voice hoarse, as ever. "Just stopping by between missions. Last one was a bust. Thought I'd rest up a day, maybe stop and see the kiddies 'fore I go."
"That certainly sounds like a plan," Ozpin said through a smile. "I'm certain Miss Rose and Miss Xiao Long would be happy to see you. Perhaps you and I can catch up later tonight as well?"
Again, Qrow only shrugged, but he seemed to be in relatively high spirits as he transformed and squeezed back out of the window. Ozpin hoped, as he latched it shut again, that Qrow would take those words to heart. His habit of distancing himself from his family, while understandable, more often caused distress on both sides, rather than preventing it.
Glancing at the rock sitting beside his hot chocolate, Ozpin allowed himself a brief, indulgent smile. Then again, Qrow did always show that he cared, in his own way.
With a fond sigh, Ozpin eased open the third drawer on the right side of his desk. Its contents―an eclectic assortment of strangely-colored stones, old bottle caps and soda tabs, shimmering pieces of sea glass, and various other eye-catching baubles―rattled cacophonously.
He carefully set the new rock down amidst the others with a soft clink. Then, smiling one last time at the sundry gifts, Ozpin slid the drawer shut and returned to his work.
1. yes the implication here is ABSOLUTELY that ruby stopped in the middle of a spar with weiss to pick up a cool rock and then go give it to blake
2. i kind of wrote it as ladybug bc i have ladybug brainworms but it could be gen too
3. i wrote the ozqrow as platonic but it could be read as ship. didn't tag it because it's minor/in the background.
4. Yang Knows