Blake, Yang, and Weiss stood on the three sides of Ruby's bed. They were looking down at the beds occupant, Ruby Rose if that can be believed, who was dead to the world. She was tightly swaddled in her blankets, in part to keep her from kicking them off the bed again. Her pillows had been confiscated save for one, which propped her head slightly up. Her gob was offensively open, her jaw slack and to the side as she breathed noisily from her mouth, drool leaking through the corner of her lips.
"She looks like she's dead." Blake hummed, reaching out with a finger and poking the girl on the side of the mouth. Ruby grumbled some sort of garbled command whose phonetics can't be written in any script. Blake grimaced at the noise, retracting her finger and wiping it against her jeans.
"She's still breathing, so that's good." Yang muttered. She levelled a suspicious look at Weiss, who seemed a little green. "Just what were in those pills?"
"Vitamins." Weiss said, weakly.
"What vitamins turn people into zombies?" Blake's face scrunched up.
"I uh." Weiss stammered. "Well, they might have been a bit more than vitamins. She said something about horse tranquilizers, narcotics, she was far too delirious to really clearly say. But they're... well."
"My sister has drugs?" Yang guffawed, her brows arching. Weiss grimaced and nodded. "And you gave them to her?" Weiss nodded again. "I can't believe you drugged my sister."
"She asked!" Weiss huffed, crossing her arms. "Besides, she's fine. She's just sleeping." She motioned to the mummy on the bed who looked just about ready to get entombed.
"She's been sleeping for like, sixteen hours." Blake countered, pointing to the clock on the wall. "That's not normal."
"You can go three days without water, she's fine." Weiss dismissed. "Besides, what else would we do?"
"Take her to the school nurse?" Blake stated the obvious.
"Then they'd know. I am not getting labeled as some sort of small time drug dealer. And I will not accept my partner being labeled as some sort of... of junkie."
"Well I don't want my sister getting permanent brain damage or something from some weird mystery pills!" Yang growled. "If she's not up in the next hour, I'm taking her to a doctor no matter what."
"Fine!" Weiss shouted, her teeth baring. She looked back to Ruby and let out a shaky breath. "But she's fine. She's gotta be."
The trio were silent for a few seconds before a chime sounded. They all looked to Ruby's bedside table where her scroll sat as the LEDs on its front began to blink.
"Must be Pyrrha." Blake shrugged. "Should we tell her?"
"Absolutely not." Weiss vetoed with a hiss. "We tell her she's not feeling well and sleeping, nobody can know!"
"Fine, fine, geez." Yang rolled her eyes. "She does seem like the sort of person that'd tell a teacher, huh?" Yang placed her fist on her hips and grimly shook her head. If dad or Qrow found out about this there'd be a unique sort of hell to pay.
Thirty seconds after the chime a ring tone started to play. Weiss started to move toward the scroll as the default tone shifted to a custom one. Electronic beeping turned to a rising, swelling string section in an orchestra. High chirping of violins floating over a deadly deep rhythm of violas, a double bass thumping out a dirge. It sounded like boss music, the sort you hear in a fight you're scripted to lose.
They all hesitated, but after a shared look Yang approached the scroll with trepidation. The music reached a rise, one section lifting a guillotine like cranking a wheel, another the nervous murmuring of a crowd. It was evocative, it rang in each of the girl's bones, it seemed to saturate the room with stress. Weiss couldn't place the piece in her vast musical library of classical music, it sounded too bizarre, too malicious to be anyone in recent memory.
Before Yang could place a shaking hand on the scroll, the sound of a jaw clacking shut filled the room. Ruby came to life in a flurry of activity, blankets being thrown this way and that as she dove to her scroll. She snatched it out of Yang's reach and rolled to a stop beside her bed. Flicking the scroll open and holding it to her ear, she began to speak to the person on the other end of the line.
"Uh. Hi." Ruby began, her voice hoarse, and she coughed into her elbow a few times. Her teammates could hear a feminine voice on the other end, and it didn't sound too pleased. "Yeah, I was sleeping. Yeah. I took some meds— yes those ones. I'm fine."
"Who is she talking to?" Yang wondered aloud, and Weiss kept her mouth shut.
"I'll call you back later, OK? I promise. Yes, I promise. I'm sorry." Ruby sighed. "I'll be there."
Ruby shut her scroll with a groan. Her forehead made an audible thud as it impacted the hardwood floor. Blindly, she threw the scroll back onto her bedside table. She missed, and it clattered to the ground. She didn't seem to care.
"Uh. Sis?" Yang hazarded, looking down at the girl. Ruby responded by groaning and pulling herself up and into Yang's bed, beneath the blankets. "Are you OK?"
The blankets on Yang's bed flipped over, and Ruby presented herself as if she'd merely woken from a substantial nap. She stretched her arms over her head and sighed, the noisy sound of joints popping making the other girls flinch.
"I'm peachy." Ruby lied, turning a smile to Yang and shrugging. That smile turned into a grimace as she shook her head. "Woah."
"You've been out since yesterday." Blake said.
"And what time is it?" Ruby asked, massaging her temples.
"Noon." Weiss answered.
"Yeah this is a dehydration headache." Ruby muttered. She looked around before reaching over to Yang's table and grabbing her water bottle off of it and started emptying the contents into her mouth.
"Weiss said you took some drugs and immediately passed out. It looked like you were dead." Yang crossed her arms, her expression two parts disapproving one part relieved. She watched as Ruby finished the water and started gasping for air. She'd just pounded a couple litres without stopping to breathe.
"Yeah, yeah. I took a half pill of some painkillers. Supposedly they're good enough to KO a large animal. Turns out I'm not a large animal. Smaller dose next time." Ruby explained between gulps of air, shivering a bit.
"So they're like, literally actually horse tranquilizers?" Yang asked, exasperated.
"Yeah. I mean, I don't know." Ruby shrugged, holding her hand to her forehead. "I bought them from this guy. He wore a, like," she motioned putting on a house coat, "like a lab coat? Some sort of scientist I dunno. He was in his mid twenties, wore like, converse and had thick rimmed glasses he looked like a real nerd so I just trusted him. He said they were painkillers. Good ones. Said they'd kill a horse. Gave me like, a couple dozen. Real nice guy, met him out behind a club or something I'm not sure." Ruby coughed a bit and shook her head. "They work really well though, I don't feel anything at all." She stared intently at her covers at the other end of the bed where one of her feet were wiggling. "I don't think that's the right foot." She said, quizzically.
"So just some random drug dealer. You just... you just bought these?" Blake asked, stunned.
"I found out about them from a friend of a friend. Super legit just, I don't know, maybe a quarter pill next time. I feel like death and my mouth tastes like... like..." She shuddered. "When you forget to brush your teeth after your girlfriend's birthday. You like, wake up the next morning and..." She looked between her teammates, seeing no understanding on their faces, "Right. Someone, just, please get me a toothbrush."
"I'll do it." Weiss quickly offered, turning and walking away. Meanwhile Yang's eyes lit up and she elbowed Blake in the chest mouthing 'Told you so!'