As soon as her scroll turned on, Ruby received notifications of every missed call, text and email she got from each of her teammates, but most especially her sister. She swiped all of them out of her notifications feed and opened up the chat with her sister. Small fragments of golden light pooled in corners, soaked her bare skin and reflected from her hair. No longer distracted by Vale's brilliant skyline, Ruby typed up a message that would assure Yang that she was just fine.

She sent to Yang: "Hey, I'm at a friend's house in Patch. I couldn't catch the return trip in time, so I'm staying over. I'll see you in the morning. I love you."

Yang's response was almost immediate. "Jesus Christ, couldn't you have told me where you were going? We were all freaking out! You're lucky I convinced them not to worry and not to rat them out to the admin."

"We don't have classes tomorrow, right?" Ruby sent.

"No, we don't, and you better be thankful. At least get some rest. Good night."

Ruby sighed and opened up Weiss's messages. They were all threats to rat her out to the administration that, luckily, she supposedly did not act on. Blake's were all messages telling her to be safe and not to go outside at night. The screen's brightness made her eyelids heavy, so she turned off her scroll, set it on the side of the bed, and listened to the sounds of the rain.


Roman slept deeply on the couch. He didn't snore, so the sounds of the rain were all that could be heard the apartment until Ruby opened the door and stepped into the kitchen as quietly as she could, feet slapping the hardwood as quietly as she could get them to.

Ruby opened the fridge slowly and rummaged through the few food options available. When she realized most of it had expired, Ruby grabbed the milk carton and held it up. The expiration date was three weeks ago. No wonder it tasted terrible earlier.

"Can't sleep?"

Ruby jolted, dropping the milk carton on the floor. Roman stood up and walked over to the kitchen island. Ruby shook her head no.

"I was sleeping pretty well. I wish I wasn't such a light sleeper."

Ruby bit her lip. "I'm probably gonna go back to bed soon."

"You think it's going to make a difference?" Roman asked.

Ruby shrugged.

Roman's eyes flickered down, looking at the carton of milk Ruby dropped on the floor. "Milk might help."

"It might help, yeah, if it weren't expired," Ruby remarked.

Roman sighed, "That explains a lot."

Ruby closed the door to the fridge.

"Hey, mind if I use the bathroom before you go back to bed?" Roman yawned.

Ruby shook her head slowly, and Roman nodded before strolling patiently to the bedroom door. Absentmindedly, Ruby followed him, stretching her arms over her head. In the back of her mind, she thought of how weird it was that she felt at home in Roman's apartment. But given how tired she was, she let the feeling dissipate when she fell facedown back onto Roman's bed.

Roman shut the door behind him right as Ruby rolled over to look at the ceiling. She lay there without moving a muscle, hoping for sleep to come soon. By the time she heard the toilet flush and Roman closing the bathroom door, she had gone from eternally bored to the slightest twinge of nervous.

"Hey," Roman murmured. "You aren't going to sleep, are you?"

Ruby took a deep breath before answering. "Yeah, I don't know, I think taking a nap hurt my chances of getting a good night's sleep."

Roman sat down on the bed next to her. "Once I wake up, it's extremely difficult for me to get back to sleep."

Ruby looked over at him. His hair was pushed out of his face, scar completely unobstructed. "Insomnia?" she asked.

He nodded.

Ruby kept her eyes fixated on him. When he looked back at her, Ruby was so beat that her only reaction was a flutter in her stomach. "Are you scared?"

Roman smirked. "Of what? Law enforcement?"

Ruby rolled over and looked up at him, propped on her shoulders. "Me."

Immediately bursting out into laughter, Roman fell back on the bed and covered his mouth in an attempt to stop himself. Ruby blushed, frustrated, but she sat up and looked at him with a stern look in her eye.

"To answer your question, no," he chuckled, finally calming himself down.

Ruby exhaled, "I didn't mean it that way. You basically ran out of our conversation earlier when I asked you what this was."

Setting his jaw, Roman sat up and frowned at her. "You didn't ask me anything."

"Either way, you just ran out," Ruby accused. She noticed that with each word that came out of his mouth, he seemed more and more uncomfortable.

"It's not a conversation we should be having in our underwear." Roman pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I don't care. Do you?" Ruby raised her eyebrows.

"Fine," Roman strained, pulling his hand away from his head. "What do you want to hear from me? That this scares me?"

Ruby shrank back at Roman's words. He was shouting at her.

"It does. You're the first person who has ever made me feel like I'm going to throw up when you're around. I lose sleep over how nervous you make me, and I can't stop thinking about you. I have nothing else to do while I'm sitting here all day. It literally hurts to even look at you. Are you happy?" Roman held her bewildered stare for a moment and stood up violently, taking long and quick strides to the door, immediately regretting what he just said.

Ruby reached across the bed, grabbed his wrist before he could make it to the door and pulled him back to the bed. Pulling herself to her knees, she reached to turn his chin towards hers.

"Yes, I am happy," Ruby whispered.

She placed her mouth delicately on his, moving her lips slowly. She pulled away and sat down on the bed, gazing up at the gleam in his eye.

Roman ran a hand through his hair. "God, I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. I'm glad you said it."

Roman's eyes were drawn back to Ruby's face, kind and honest. Every single thought and utterance melted away under her soft but relentless gaze. He placed a knee on the bed and pushed her down to the blanket.

Ruby grabbed him by the hair and their lips crashed together as Roman dove down on top of her. One of his hands slid along her waist, and one of hers wrapped around the back of his neck.

Ruby licked a line up the side of Roman's neck and tugged at his earlobe with her teeth. The moans she elicited from him electrified her spine and made her feel euphorically numb, a sensation only perforated by the thundering sound of the rain pattering against the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The feeling of her shirt being pulled up snapped Ruby back to reality. "Wait," she gasped.

Roman immediately stopped, worried by her tone. "What is it?"

"I'm not, uh—" Ruby stammered. "Um…"

"Not what?" he breathed.

"I'm not ready for that," she muttered.

Roman's brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Ruby looked down at her shirt, pulled all the way up to her clavicle, leaving her bra on full display. She tugged the hem back down before Roman saw what she was talking about.

"Oh," Roman realized. "I swear I wasn't trying to—"

Ruby shook her head, flustered. "It's okay. Don't worry about it."

Roman leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. "Good night, Ruby."


All this talk about sleep and here I am, sleep-deprived and weary-eyed. Good night, y'all.