Hello, Toxic here, I'm not that great at notes however I wanted to thank you all for the feedback we both got from you all on the first chapter in this series. Raalm and myself are really enjoying writing this story so far, and are looking forward to the feedback from you all. In response to the positive feedback I decided to give you all a treat, the next chapter of How It Feels, This one is a bit longer than the first chapter and throws light on a few things, so Enjoy!
All character are property of Rooster teeth
Breathing out a sigh of relief seeing as classes were over for the day, Ruby pushed open the door to her team's dorm and quickly tossed her unfastened corset and jacket inside. Finally free of her constraints, she walked as far as her legs would carry her before dropping onto the first bed she encountered; which just so happened to have an amused cat fanus in it, who was smirking at her over the top of her book. Finding a new source of strength in the panic that washed over her in the precarious situation she found herself, Ruby immediately leapt back up to her feet and turned a shade of red close to her namesake as she blubbered out an apology, before being cut off by a loud burst of laughter from the bed above.
"Bold move there, Sis," Yang chuckled, her grinning face framed by bright yellow hair as it hung over the side of the bed. "Never knew you were that forward."
"I-I D-Didn't…" Ruby stuttered in return and looked from Yang to Blake, the latter of which was still looking at her. "I-I'm no… S-Shut up, Yang!"
"Then why are you so r…" Yang began to tease, only it was her turn to be cut off as Blake smoothly pulled away one of the books that held Yang's bed up from under it's leg, causing the whole thing to wobble dangerously. "Hey! Watch it. You almost became a Blake sandwich; and trust me, mattresses don't make good bread. "
"And how on Remnant do you know that?" Ruby heard a slightly worried voice say from behind her and turned to see Weiss sat at her desk studying on open textbook. "Please do not tell me you tried to eat a mattress."
"Well it wasn't the mattress I was biting," Yang countered and flashed a grin at the heiress. "If you get my meaning."
"Unfortunately, I believe most of the school does," Weiss replied with a roll of her eyes and returned to her book. "I know rabbits squeak a lot, but Velvet is a little excessive. And don't even get me started on Coco."
"Hey, I would love to see you say no when you get invited to be the third to a hot pair like that," Yang argued and popped her head back up onto her bed.
"Polyamory is not for me," Weiss huffed and erased whatever she had been working on. "I prefer to only be dating one person at a time."
"And I prefer not to hear about my sister's sex life," Ruby groaned, using her semblance to launch herself up onto her own bed due to the lack of a ladder.
"Me too," Blake agreed and pulled open the new book, her amber eyes quickly skimming the pages in search of something.
"Purr-lease," Yang teased as she sat up and pulled one of her gauntlets off of the curtain rail. Extending the weapon to its full form, she removed the shells and pulled out a cloth to begin cleaning it. "Like all of us don't know what Ninjas of Love is about."
Though she didn't make any attempt to fight Yang's claim, Blake's ears did succeed in turning pink from embarrassment as she curled into herself. Seeing the faunus girl's reaction, Ruby felt her mouth open to defend her before her brain caught up and decided on a different route. "At least her books require her to do more than look at pictures, unlike what dad found under your bed."
Upon realising that she had just admitted to having looked at the books, Ruby flushed a deeper scarlet and copied Blake's curled up position. Worse still, her attempt at defending the faunus by embarrassing Yang had failed as the blonde did nothing more than shrug the comment off.
"Pfft!" she exhaled humorously and held up her gauntlet so inspect something closer. "If someone needs more than pictures, then they should get out more. Except you that is, you can stay in this room every night under my supervision. Hey Weiss, chuck me those micro-tools, will you?"
"Chuck them? I'd rather hand them to you, you brute." Weiss replied as she stood up from her desk and walked to the bed Yang was sitting on, " And if you're going to be screwing around with your gauntlets, shouldn't you be doing so on a flat surface rather than your bed?"
"Nah, just cleaning out the rotary gears," Yang said dismissively and got to work unscrewing a small panel. "Felt it grind a little during class, so probably still some dirt left in them from when Glynda made me run in the rain until I collapsed."
"Well you did destroy the entire west wall of the training room," Weiss replied as she made her way back to the desk.
"Only because Ruby tripped me."
"What?! I did not trip you. You missed your strike and stumbled over your own feet."
"Then you tripped full pelt into the wall and Glynda had to fix it," Blake finished, her eyes not leaving the book she was reading. "Speaking of Glynda. What did you talk to her about, Ruby?"
"I uhh…" Ruby paused as she remembered exactly why she had made up that excuse. "Just had to ask about booking the sparring room and she scheduled us in on wednesday, so yeah... We have another team bonding experience to practice our duo moves a bit more since I think that ladybug and freezerburn needs a bit more work."
"What!?" Yang and Weiss said together, both turning to face her.
"I had plans with Velv and Coco on Wednesday, Rubes."
"And I had plans with Neptune."
"I'm sorry," Ruby groaned, the idea of her crush-caused mistake affecting her teammates days making her feel a little worse than she already did. "It was all she had left."
"Well you can still use that slot, Sis, but don't expect me to come, if we're practicing duos and Ice Queen…"
"Hey!"
"... And I have plans already, seems like you get some one on one time with Blakey. Maybe you can fall into her lap again."
Blushing again as Blake thrust her book upwards into the bottom of Yang's bed, a sudden loud bang made her jump and she finally tore her eyes away from Blake to see a cloud of red smoke completely covering her sister's upper half.
"S-Son of a b-bitch," Yang coughed from within the smoke and Blake looked up with a small smirk on her face. "Found the blockage. Fucking shell leaked into gears."
"Maybe that will teach you to pack the dust into them properly next time," Weiss sighed and picked up her rapier. Which a quick spin of its revolver, she pointed the tip at Yang and a small funnel of wind blew out of the end, dispersing the cloud in seconds.
"Yeah sure princess, I'll be sure to do that as soon as you help Neptune pull the stick out of your ass."
"I promise you, there has never been a stick in my rear; though I suspect the same cannot be said for yours." Weiss reposed back at the blonde
"Look, Princess, just because you know everything there is to know about du…"
"Yang!" Ruby interrupted her sister, keen to avoid the somewhat regular fight the two girls seemed to have multiple times a week. "Don't shout at Weiss because of your mistake. She was only trying to help."
"Whatever, I'm going to check it didn't burn my hair," Yang groaned, picking up all the screws from her bed before effortlessly swinging to the floor and turning to the bathroom door. After a quick glance at the mirror Ruby knew was by the door, she clearly saw nothing out of place and turned back to the door that led out of the room. "I'm gonna go have some fun with my girlfriends, if they're up for it; if not, I'll probably end up in a blanket nest with both of them, so either way see you guys later tonight or tomorrow." Pulling the door open, she started to step out but stopped to turn back to Weiss. "Oh, and yes. Coco does have some sticks that have gone some places. Maybe you should try it."
Weiss tried to retaliate but by the time she got her reply formulated, Yang had already shut the door and the sound of her laughter echoed faintly into the room as she walked down the hallway. Unsure what she could possibly say after that, Ruby simply looked from Blake to Weiss in hopes that one of them would break the silence first. Thankfully, she didn't have to wait long as Weiss soon let out an annoyed sigh and slammed her textbook shut.
"Well, since I highly doubt I will be able to focus on my studies after that mental image, I'm going to go and hang out with Neptune and… study," Weiss lied unconvincingly as she stood up and swung her purse over her shoulder. "But yes, I will also not be at training on Wednesday. Bye." With that Weiss also left the room, leaving a red faced rose and a bookworm on a bed.
"Great," Ruby groaned and leaned back against the wall, feeling a little dejected that both her sister and partner had abandoned her to an embarrassment filled afternoon of training with the girl she was crushing on. "Don't suppose you are going to leave to have sex with someone too."
It took Ruby almost a full minute to realise she had said the last sentence out loud; but once she did, her entire body lit aflame as awkwardness and embarrassment took hold and turned her a deeper scarlet than she had ever been. While she did her best to not look at Blake and play it off as a simple off-handed comment, she was well aware that the faunus girl's amber eyes were locked onto her over the book she held in her hand that hid the rest of her face.
"I'm single, so no," She chuckled throatily, and through all the nerves and awkwardness that had fallen on her in the last couple of seconds, Ruby knew the slight increase in her heart rate was due to neither.
"Oh…" She breathed hesitantly, her brows quickly furrowing together in confusion, "Wait what about you and Sun? I thought you two were a thing."
"Nope," She said with a slight smile and turned a page in the book she clearly was not reading. "He's just a good friend."
Struggling to comprehend the new information, as she had believed that Blake and Sun were most certainly a thing, she sat there for a minute and felt a warmth grow in her chest before she beat it back down.
"Do you have your eye on anyone else?" Ruby cringed at the sentence as soon as it left her mouth and glanced down at Blake to see her head tilted to the side in thought.
"There is someone I have my eye on, but I doubt it'll go anywhere."
"Oh," she replied, her previous happiness turning to disappointment at the revelation. "Sorry to hear that."
"It's fine," Blake shrugged and turned another page, though she was clearly still not reading them. "It tends to be a habit of mine. So how about you? Anyone you interested in?"
Turning red, Ruby tried to brush off the embarrassment long enough to get out pretty much the same statement as Blake did a few moments ago though failed at not stuttering. " T-there's someone I-i have my e-eye on too, b-but I doubt i-it'll go anywhere either."
"Hmm," Blake hummed, her eyes finally turning back to the pages of her book. "Two lonely souls seeking the one that will make them whole… Sounds like it would make a decent story."
Reaching behind her pillow Ruby pulled out the comic she had been reading that morning, along with a bag of cookies from her secret stash. She had taken great care when deciding where to hide them, as Yang often confiscated them, and had finally settled on hanging them from her bedpost that was covered by the sheet she used to have some privacy from her teammates. However, before she settled into her treats, an idea formed in her head and she paused to take a quick glance at Blake before letting herself indulge a little. "Hey Blake, do you want a cookie?"
"Do you have any plain ones?" The girl replied and after a quick check, Ruby gave a short nod back. "Then sure."
Putting her book aside and pulling the cover off of herself, Blake stepped down from her bed. Though Ruby had seen that the girl had cast aside her jacket in favour of the more comfortable crop top she usually wore underneath, as Blake stepped down from the bed she also saw that she had opted out of the long purple leggings she usually wore too. Due to that decision, Ruby had a fantastic view of the girl's long, smooth legs that seemed to go on for miles, and had to quickly look away as Blake walked with such grace and fluidity that she practically floated over to her bed.
Once Blake reached the bed, Ruby passed down the cookie and tried her best to not let her eyes slip to her teammates legs, a task that somehow managed to be more challenging than paying attention to Weiss' lecture on how someone should conduct themselves in public. However, with her brain filled with nothing but legs, Ruby almost forgot that she had a goal in mind, and as Blake took the cookie with a smile and turned to walk back to her bed, she somehow found the courage to follow through with her idea.
"B-Blake?" She stuttered slightly, letting out a quick cough to cover it. "I uhh… I have the new edition of that Manga that you like, the one with the samurai. You can read it too if you want."
Taking a second to look her way, Blake's eyes glanced over the front cover of the comic Ruby was holding; and with a small smirk she jumped into the air in a perfect backflip, a faint shadow vanishing from sight as she landed lightly on the bed.
"They're ninja," She corrected her, leaning back against the wall next to her and Ruby hoped that she could not see or hear how fast her heart was racing. "But sure, saves me having to borrow it later. Come over here so we can both read it," She said as she pat the area on the bed next to her. " I mean how else am I going to get more cookies from you," Blake said with a slight smirk.
Cautiously obeying Blake's request, Ruby carefully shuffled closer until she felt her legs press against her teammates. It took everything she had to not pull away again due to embarrassment, but once she finally adjusted to the feeling of the heat her crushes legs generated, she placed the comic between the two of them and rested the bag of cookies in a nook between their stomachs. Finally in a comfortable position, she settled in to read the story with Blake; knowing with absolute certainty that she would have to reread it again later to understand anything that had happened.
Blake wasn't exactly sure when she had fallen asleep, or how she had allowed herself to when there was a possibility that Yang could return at any moment; but somehow, she had given over to the need to shut her eyes. The newest edition had turned out to be a special edition that was almost triple the length of a regular issue and they had been roughly half way through when Ruby's head had slumped against her shoulder, the soft breathing of the sleeping redhead tickling her skin and causing goosebumps to erupt all over her body along with a heavy blush that formed on her cheeks. Blake herself had been strangly affected by the redhead as of late, though had tried not to let it affect her friendship with her, but felt that the girl had become somewhat distant as of late, so when Ruby had offered for her to read the new comic with her, she had jumped, quite literally, at the chance.
The next thing Blake realized was that the room was dark and her back hurt, a small movement flit across her stomach and woke her from what had been a rather peaceful slumber. Opening her eyes to see what the cause was, she glanced down to see Ruby's hand resting lightly on her stomach and felt her lips pull into a small smile. Even though she should have been chastising herself for allowing themselves to wind up in such a position, Blake couldn't help but reach down and rest her own over it, careful not to wake the girl from her rest.
It had been quite confusing when it the feelings first started, they had been random and unsorted, passing thoughts throughout the day that pulled her focus from whatever she'd been doing. But as the weeks had passed, she'd found them more frequent and insistent. Instead of thoughts and notions, she was stealing glances whenever the opportunity presented itself, their current position included. Ruby's corset and jacket had been flung across the room when she first entered the dorm, leaving her in just her usual band-stamped t-shirt; and as the girl slept quietly against her shoulder, it was hard not to notice how tightly the material clung to her.
She knew she really should have moved already, or should've at least woken the girl, but she simply didn't want to. It was the closest she could ever get, so why shouldn't she enjoy herself for just a little longer. Settling on allowing herself five more glorious minutes, she leaned her head back against the wall and thought about how this started to develop into this yarn ball of emotions.
It had been physical at first, as all things were. Though she had never really been one to care about gender, it had surprised her just how attractive she found Ruby. After sharing a room with her for months, it had been hard not to notice just how perfect the girl's body was. Unlike Yang, who seemed to be made of rippling muscle, or Weiss, who was dainty but powerful, Ruby seemed to have a perfect balance. She was just taller than Weiss despite only having recently turned sixteen, and unlike her sister, the girl's body was made of lean muscle. There were no bulging biceps or clearly defined abs, though that didn't mean she didn't have a belly bump, in fact it was the complete opposite. her frequent training had made every inch of her toned to perfection, including a perfect washboard stomach that could grate cheese.
However, once she had noticed those things and found herself watching the girl, she had found much more to like in her personality. Unlike the people she had grown up around, Ruby always tried her best to treat everyone with as much decency as she could; even those Blake felt didn't deserve it. There had been a moment a few weeks prior where their team had been put against team CRDL, the fight had been quick, because while Cardin and his tedious teammates were skilled, they simply couldn't match them in speed. Once the fight was over however, she, Yang and Weiss had all made to walk away not wanting to waste any more time on them; but Ruby hadn't, she had stayed behind to help Cardin to his feet. The girl's action had confused Blake at first, the boy was the school bully, he made life harder for everyone for no reason other than being bored; yet Ruby had still chosen to help him.
Something about that moment had stuck with Blake. Everyone she'd known prior to Beacon would have preferred to kick the boy for good measure, not help him up, but she had left the White Fang for that reason. She was tired of the violence, anger, and retribution that they felt was necessary to be treated with respect; so to end up on a team whose leader was as different from those people as someone could possibly be had made her want to be better.
Though it wasn't only that Ruby made her want to improve on herself, there were smaller things she had noticed. Like how whenever someone on the team was feeling down, Ruby would try her best to take their mind off of what was bothering them, even if it was for a couple of minutes. Random pillow fights and trips to downtown Vale were not uncommon with the girl; and despite the former being much more childish than the latter, both often left her smiling more than she could ever remember doing before.
Something Blake also noticed about Ruby was her reading habits. While the reaper often borrowed and made attempts to read some of the many novels Blake owned, she would also often let out a sigh of annoyance and put it aside in favour of a comic. However, she would always go back to it. Though Blake could easily understand how someone who didn't share a room with the girl might think her lazy or unwilling to pay attention, she knew the opposite was the truth. Ruby liked to approach things with everything she had, if something was beginning to become tedious or she felt her interest waning, she would put it aside and pick it back up when she felt she could give it her all again.
On the other hand she was one year younger, and did not want to take advantage of the girl. Nor did she want to want to ruin the girls innocence with her convoluted mind of perversions. It was always interesting to see Ruby's reactions to things in the world around her, whether it was a simple case of a child crying because they lost their balloon, or a dropped ice cream cone, she dealt with them as efficiently as a grimm of enormass strength, quickly and with a grin on her face asking if you were okay.
Another issue was Yang. The boisterous blonde had become a better friend than she ever would have thought; she would even go as far as to say she was her best friend. But she was Ruby's sister, Ruby's very very protective sister. Blake had personally witnessed her stare down the first boy that had tried to talk to the girl and though she had never really had enough friends to have learned from experience, she knew that dating your best friends younger sister was a big no go for a lot of people. She didn't expect Yang to be any different.
However, all of those issues paled in comparison to the real issue, and that was that Blake had been in the very same position before. With Adam. Just thinking of the red haired goat made her face throb in remembrance of the beatings he would give. While she certainly remembered a time where he had been very genuine, he had eventually fallen into manipulation. Years of bad influence had only encouraged his worst attributes, leaving him to be nothing more than a spiteful cunt who was only out for himself, and anyone he could use as a tool toward that end was used then tossed aside. But Ruby wasn't him.
The two had personalities that were different in every way imaginable, there were also some undeniable similarities. Aside from the color scheme that had made Blake a little nervous upon seeing the girl for the first time, they were both leaders; and good ones at that, both being perfectly capable of directing their team and adapting to a situation. They both inspired those that followed them, but again there were clear differences in how they did that. Adam ruled through fear and empty promises, always preaching that what he did that which was justified, that he only did what he did because others had done worse to the faunus. But Ruby inspired through compassion. She preached love and empathy, asking people to only act in ways that helped others.
What was it about the two that had appealed to her? They were beyond different. Was she simply attracted to those who were born to lead? Those who were born to inspire? If that truly was the case, then she could think of none better than Ruby. She was everything a leader should be and so much more. Every action she took was made solely to improve the lives of every person she came across, but where could Blake fit into that. She had fought against people like her before, she had made the world worse with her actions; even in that moment of them laying on the bed, she was selfishly stealing a few moments for her own happiness when she should have moved long ago.
Blake let out a deep sigh as she knew she was right. She and Ruby were likely to never be more than friends, and maybe that was for the best. The young reaper was destined for greatness, whereas she was an ex-terrorist. The most she could do was try and help the girl with whatever she needed; so with that in mind, she gently began to pull her hand away from Ruby's and prepared to move back over to her own bed. However, as she pulled away, Ruby's fingers parted and Blake felt her own slip between them as they tightened and held her hand firmly in place.
"...cookie, no. Don't leave me, I still have to eat you..."
Despite the words being typical Ruby random nonsense, Blake felt her breath catch and her heart begin to race quickly for fear of the girl having woke from her sleep. Carefully moving her head to the side to check, she found herself able to breath again as she saw that the redhead's eyes were still closed and her breathing was still gentle. With that the fear passed and she couldn't help but smile at the idea of such an innocent dream, so not wanting to intrude on it any longer, she teased her fingers free from the girl's grip and carefully lowered her team leader onto her pillow.
However, before she could go any further she was pulled down to the mattress beside her leader with a final proclamation from the cute girl, "... No cookie... you get to stay here beside me... til I get some milk... eat you."
Blushing heavily as her face landed only a couple of inches from Ruby's, Blake felt herself wanting to obey and stay as she was told; but she knew she couldn't. It was too big a risk and there would be no way to explain such a position to their team should they be caught. So after a quick glance around the bed, she saw a pillow shaped like a dog's face and reached out to grab it.
"Sorry, little rose," She breathed quietly and carefully pushed the pillow into the girl's arms before reaching up to move a strand of hair out of the pretty girls face. "But Yang would kill me."
Getting up from the bed, she heard Ruby whine a little bit as she cuddled into the corgi pillow and winced in sympathy, as there was nothing more she wanted in that moment than to sleep a night in the rose themed girl's arms. As she dropped sadly to the floor and made her way across the room back to her bed, she saw something that made her heart drop. Since waking up, she had been too fixated on Ruby to take in her surroundings, but sat in the darkness on her bed with a nonsensical frown on her face, was Yang.
Even through her black and white night-vision, Blake knew the blonde's eyes were far too black for them to be her usual lilac and though the girl said nothing as she slipped off the bed, she made a clear point of standing in front of and glowering down at her before heading into the bathroom to change into her nightwear. Oh shit, was the only thing that ran through Blake's head, and she hoped that she had not just screwed up everything between the two of them because of her stupid crush and quickly got ready for bed before Yang got out of the bathroom.
Unfortunately, she had just finished getting dressed when Yang came out with her war face on and grabbed her roughly by her yuka. However, before Yang could say a word, the door to the hallway was pushed open and framed in the light was a wincing Neptune holding up a very drunk Weiss, who was barely able to hold her drink that well at the best of times.
"Sorry for interrupting... Whatever this is... but could I get her to her bed before she passes out?" Neptune said in a frightened yet exhausted tone of voice.
Not bothering to reply to the clearly struggling boy, Yang glared daggers at her for another couple of seconds as Weiss giggled happily. Finally though, Yang released her and turned to help the boy, leaving a shell-shocked Blake standing there shaking. As she calmed herself down, she watched Neptune and Yang bring a drunk Weiss to her bed, though the heiress was currently not interested in doing anything except running her hand over her boyfriends exposed abs. Eventually though, Neptune and Yang managed to set Weiss on her bed and the boy kissed her goodnight before giving a nod to Blake on the way out and shut the door behind him. Still standing stock still, Blake waited for Yang to finish tending to Weiss and once she had, the blonde stood up and made her way back over to her.
"Since she's going to get up in a couple of minutes to throw up, I don't have the time to deal with you right now," her partner said angrily and reached up to pull the blanket off her bed and throw it over to Weiss'. "But we will be discussing what I just saw later, and you better have some fucking good answers to my questions."
Giving her partner a brief nod as the girl made her way back over the drunken snowflake's bed, Blake turned and let out a small sigh of relief as she climbed onto hers. By the grace of the gods, it seemed her execution had been postponed.
A/N
Hey, Toxic again, Anyway I just wanted to say the next chapter will probably be about 10 days or so after this chapter, we still have a few things to iron out and polish up on TWTCIA, which we're currently working on, if you don't know it then go and check it out, if you do then thank you for joining us for another story.
Don't be afraid to leave comments, myself and Raalm love to see them and reply, we love to get feedback on our work, and as this is the first fic we're fully working on together we'd love to know what's going through your heads so far after this chapter.
Anyway its back to the Editing dungeon for me as I have a bunch of work to pour over and check for the upcoming chapters of warmth.