09/13/1999… Near Ruby's locker before the start of classes.
Ruby was struggling with a guilty conscious. It really wasn't her fault that Cardin Winchester, the guy she harbored a crush on for almost 4 years before she met Jaune had a locker right next to hers. Or that he had apparently broken up with that girl he was seeing over the summer. Or that he was complimenting her hair.
Ruby shook her head as she quietly moved stuff around her locker while trying to filter out the noises of the surprisingly loud hallway. While she was getting better and trying to filter background noises, she often found herself switching off her hearing aids once in a while for a few moments of peace.
But she couldn't turn off the part of her head that was keeping her from coming clean to Jaune about her letting Cardin flirt with her. It was slowly eating her up on the inside and had been for days. The fact that she learned Jaune's locker was just across the hall last Friday after a full week of classes when he went to drop a few things off was also bothering the hell out of her. "God, what if he saw me that morning," She thought as the feeling of snakes fighting in her belly wouldn't go away no matter how hard she tried to put it out of her head.
The problem for Ruby was she liked being hit on by her former crush. So much so that she lingered at her locker for a few moments extra morning every morning to be able to talk to Cardin for a few brief moments.
Cardin didn't disappoint either walking up to his locker with that same charming dumb jock smile he always wore when he spoke to people. "Oh hey Ruby, how are you this morning?"
Ruby smiled and tried to speak "Ahm Fane" Ruby said feeling embarrassed with her own voice.
"You okay? You look like something is bothering you?" Cardin said with a smile as he started shoving his gym clothes into his locker and started fishing for. "I mean you know if something is bothering you can talk to me. We are friends after all right?"
Ruby shook her head and said, "It's Nathing, I just have a lut on my mind today."
"Hey, you said you got your hearing aids in over the summer right, in July?" Cardin said with an enthusiastic grin "Have I told you how impressive it is that your able to speak as well as you can already?"
Ruby blushed slightly and just bashfully replied "Ah sound Weird still"
Cardin closed his locked saying "I think it's cute, but that's just me." Before he flashed Ruby a winning smile and left saying "See you same time tomorrow?"
Ruby smiled and said "Of course" in the same awkward way she always spoke when she tried to speak out loud.
Once Cardin left her sight Ruby shook her head and started walking off back to the group while she still had a few minutes to see everyone. The fact that she wasn't really looking forward to seeing Jaune was not a good feeling in her own mind.
When Ruby arrived at the table she found herself facing an interesting sight, sitting at their table was a new face, a younger girl, she suspected a Sophomore or a Freshmen was sitting at the table chatting away with Ren Nora and Jaune. Ruby saw an open seat next to Jaune and made her way to sit down.
Jaune noticed her right away and shot her a smile as she sat down. He didn't reach over and Hug her like he normally does, and she felt a certain tension from him.
Ruby nodded at the red-haired girl with the striking green eyes as she chatted away with Nora. Jaune turned and signed to her [Hey Ruby, this is Penny] Before he grinned. [I'm trying to get her introduced to everyone here so she could join us for a Dungeon Fantasy game that Ren might want to get going.]
Ruby's face scrunched up, While Yang was kinda into it on a passive level, Ruby wasn't overwhelmingly into the idea. She glanced over at the Penny girl as she and Nora were chatting away, the girl was speaking a mile a minute and maybe slightly too loudly about different classes that were frankly going over her head.
Ruby caught Ren's eyes, as he signed out [She's… Enthusiastic.]
Jaune seemed to take offense [Hey you want enthusiasm in a player right? At least we won't need to teach the entire system to her.]
Ren signed back [She'd probably teach us a few things, where did you find this girl?]
"Asking the real questions Ren," Ruby thought as she found herself wondering herself. She was finding the lack of physical contact with Jaune as of late to be rather upsetting. As Jaune looked at her with a smile she noticed a slightly, questioning look about his eyes. Ruby forced a smile back at him trying to get a read on him "God if he actually saw me chatting with Cardin… I don't even know how he would react."
Jaune turned back to Ren and signed out [Met her during my lunch period a couple days back. Since I somehow ended up the only one of us having that lunch period, I made a friend.]
Ruby's mouthed an "Ah" as she added to the conversation [Oh Okay, that makes sense.]
As Penny seemed to then rope poor Ren into a conversation about "Favorite Ranger setups" she and Nora were having and Jaune took the opening and turned to Ruby signing [What were you up to this morning?]
Ruby Felt herself getting defensive, she couldn't bring herself to tell him the truth, but lying hurt just as much. She signed out [Sorry I'm still getting used to my new schedule and I was running behind today is all.]
Jaune knew bullshit when he saw it. "She's lying again…" he thought as he forced a smile and signed [Ah okay, You've just been kinda distant the last few days is all]
Ruby's smile faded as she signed out her shoulders tensing up. [I'm not doing it on purpose Jaune,] She paused noticing the others fixating on their own conversations [I… I just got busy is all.]
Jaune felt as his shoulder started to slightly slump he signed out [Alright, that's fine, if it's something you need help with I'm here right?]
Ruby Nodded and signed out [Alright, but I have to get to class now okay?]
Jaune signed out [You still have ten minutes before the first bell,] looking at her suspiciously.
[It's nothing, I just wanted to get to class early today okay?] Ruby signed back.
Jaune nodded in an effort to bury his frustration and signed out [Okay okay, I'll talk to you later then.]
[See you after school?] Ruby signed out to him.
It was Jaune's turn to lie as he signed out [I don't think so, I have stuff to do at home later on today.]
Ruby's nodded and broke eye contact and signed out [Right okay, I'll talk to you later then,] as she got up and made her way to her class.
Jaune watched her go and as he leaned on the table. He glanced over at Weiss who seemed to have been following the conversation pretty closely.
After school Jaune did go straight home and was lounging in his bedroom alone with his thoughts.
"So Ruby's lying to me now," he thought as he tried to make it all make sense in his head. "I guess it would make sense, she had a thing for Winchester in the past, I guess she had some kind of crush on him for several years before we met."
His vision distorted as he knew what was coming "Maybe she decided she was better off with someone that wasn't so broken upstairs." The all too familiar voice of Pyrrha said off to the side.
"Did I forget my meds today?" Jaune asked Pyrrha.
"Yeah, you did, you're so fixated on your girlfriend you forgot to take your evening dose." The hallucination said to him.
Jaune sat up and walked over to where his pills were on the shelf. Before he took one he asked Pyrrha. "So do you think she's cheating on me?"
"I don't know, what do you think?" The hallucination said in a perky tone.
"Some help you are sometimes…" Jaune said in reply before popping the pill into his mouth and downing it with a swig of water from a nearby bottle.
"How helpful am I supposed to be? I'm dead after all," Pyrrha said in an unhelpful tone. "The real question is not 'is she cheating'" She walked over and leaned on his desk next to him pushing up her glasses as a faint glow played off of her. "The question you need to ask yourself is what you're going to do about it if she is."
Jaune closed his eyes as he felt the medication kick in slowly banishing the hallucination from his mind. As his mind settled back into a more balanced state he heard Weiss knocking on his door frame. "Hey, Jaune?"
Jaune opened his eyes to see Weiss leaning on her walker as he signed [Yeah, what's up?]
Weiss pulled up into his computer chair sitting down with a groan on it and asked: "Well, I was going to see if you needed the internet tonight I was going to get into a chat with Blake and…"
Jaune waved it off [Yeah yeah, you can use my computer if you want.]
Weiss nodded "Ah, yeah thanks Jaune." Before sitting and staring at him in a way that made Jaune uncomfortable. After a moment she asked "So, is everything going okay with you and Ruby? You two have been kinda keeping each other at arm's length for the last few days."
Jaune tried to shrug it off and signed out [I haven't noticed Weiss.]
"Liar, look just because you can't speak doesn't mean I can't tell when you are not being honest with us," Weiss said as she rubbed her sore legs. "You know you can talk to me."
[It's really nothing Weiss,] Jaune signed back [I'm sure whatever it is is all in my head anyways.]
Weiss sighed and shook her head as she spoke, "This stoic bullshit you do is not doing you any favors here Jaune, your not happy, we can all tell." Weiss leaned forward "You're my friend, Ruby is too but you're here and she's not."
Jaune leaned back and mentally dug his heels into the ground. [Weiss, okay I'm stressed out about a few things related to Ruby right now. I'll admit that much to you. But I don't want to get into it, it's between me and her.]
Weiss said bluntly "I understand that, but whatever it is it's pushing you backwards, your starting to slip into that state you were when we first met you. I don't want that for you." Weiss then followed that up saying "So yeah, tell me what's eating you up, or I'll grab your mom…"
[Your a bitch Weiss,] Jaune signed out looking stern [But fine, as long as you understand it doesn't leave this room.]
"You have my word, I won't even tell Blake," Weiss said with a relieved tone in her voice.
[The truth is… Back on the first day back, Ruby said she was looking for Velvet in Blue hall right?]
"Vaguely, I might have been paying more attention to Blak at the time," Weiss said.
[I had seen her in the white hall being chatting up by Cardin.] Jaune signed out with shaking hands. [She lied about it, it's bothering me that she didn't just tell us that.]
Weiss clicked her tongue trying to let that sink in. "Oh…" Weiss leaned in and signed out to keep the conversation more private [Are you saying you suspect that's she's, what, cheating on you?]
[I don't know Weiss. But she had been showing up late the rest of the week and always from the area of her lockers, I don't even think she knows my locker is near hers.] Jaune said.
"You need to talk to her about this Jaune. Don't let this fester or it'll be the end of your relationship with her," Weiss said as she rolled the chair next to him "She deserves a chance to explain herself if nothing else."
[All right,] Jaune signed. [I'll talk to her when I see her tomorrow.]
Jaune paused and clenched his fists. [That being said, If what I'm afraid of happening, is happening, I'm going to dump her.]
Weiss felt her stomach twist in knots but knew she agreed with him "If that comes to pass, I have your back."
Weiss left the room and left Jaune alone with his thoughts once again.
So here we are, with Chapter 43. This fic is about six months old, and I'm already posting chapter 43. That is just crazy to me. Hell, it might overtake Dust eater before too long.
This chapter is, of course, playing with the widening cracks in Ruby and Jaune's Relationship. I'm aware that it is a bit controversial, in this fandom at least, to show Ruby as being less than a hundred percent faithful to Jaune. But it's playing out into an exciting mix up of the story itself. The Group Dynamic has been stable and I do enjoy playing off of each of the groups, even if I think Yang is criminally underutilized in the story. But it is what it is.
So I want to give shoutouts to the staggering number of people that dropped reviews on the last chapter. I mean Ways, Holy shit, dropped like two pages of reviews and feedback by themselves which I really do definitely appreciate.
Calmuk, to answer your question, It's Neptune. He's the most hated non-evil character in the fandom it seems. Or he's at least the most hated on the r/Rwby Reddit discord I'm an active member of. I guess I should have been more clear on that topic.
So I want to mention here that I am working on non-Fan-Fiction projects on the side which is making my output on here slow a bit, if any of you are wondering what's going on with Dust Eater. I'm just not in the mood to write Dust Eater right now.
But hey as always, I want to thank all of you again for reading, and I hope you all have a great day.
