Chapter Four: Turn it all Up


Ruby sat lazily in the living room couch with Yang watching afterschool cartoons and sharing a bowl of popcorn. Their favourite program was on but it was playing an old out of season holiday rerun just before airing the first episode of its brand new season. Having memorized the plot and lines of this particular heartwarming episode, Ruby chose to spend the time staring at her scroll resting quietly on the coffee table. There was an unanswered message waiting for her but Ruby couldn't decide what to do with it.

She imagined a whole host of possibilities and some she wished she never entertained in the first place. But the one that struck Ruby the hardest was a conjured up a conversation involving her friend Penny and their most recent fight. It played out like most of their chats, simple hellos and pleasantries. After that it would devolved into a screaming death match where the two girls swung excessive exclamation marks at each other instead of swords. And when the dust cleared, neither of them would be standing; their friendship as dead as they were to each other.

A loud, mirthful chortle jostled Ruby out of her musings, forcing the young woman back into reality. She whipped her head around rapidly taking in her surroundings, trying to gain her bearings after getting so lost in her thoughts. The new episode of Budgies she had waited an entire summer for was well into its final act; Ruby had been spacing out for close to half an hour. Yang continued to laugh out loud, tears dotting her long eyelashes, completely oblivious to her sister's darkened thoughts. Ruby looked back and forth between the TV screen, faking a laugh or two before the credits to avoid suspicion and the bright blue LED on her phone blinking in slow intervals.

As the final sponsor logo faded to black, Yang caught her breath and glanced over to Ruby. She wanted to ask her fellow fan what they thought about the episode but saw that Ruby was more interested in her scroll.

"Just answer it," Yang barked, annoyed by her sister's level of thick-headedness.

"No, what if it's Penny yelling at me?" Ruby whined like a depressed child.

Yang rolled her eyes, huffing in irritation, and reached for the device. "If you don't want to answer it, I will."

"No, no, no, no!" Ruby yelled, repeatedly swatting Yang's hand away. "It could be Penny or it could be Weiss sending me something!"

"Dude, she isn't going to be sending you a dick pic," Yang grumbled as she settled back into her seat. "Just fucking answer it!"

"Ew! B-But what if she did?"

Blake chose that second to laugh and chime into the conversation with her two cents. She had been in the living room with them the entire time but spent it reading instead of watching the children's show.

"I don't think your hero has one of those," she said to the distressed redhead calmly.

"Internet searches are a thing," Ruby said in her soon-to-be future wife's defence. "I'm not going to judge."

"You refused to speak for a whole day when you walked in on Jaune taking a leak. You would not be cool seeing one on your scroll," Yang snorted, snickering at the somewhat fond memory of her sister during her "straight" phase.

Ruby blushed furiously and threw a throw pillow at her sister screaming, "You are the absolute worst!"

"C'mon, Ruby," Blake said smoothly as she swiped the scroll off the table before its owner could retaliate, "you've been pinning over this girl for a year. The least you could do is check to see if she actually messaged you."

"But what if it's Penny—or worse, her dad!"

"You can't avoid her either," Blake chided. "And it really is your fault for not being honest with her."

"But—"

"Ruby!" Yang cut in abruptly, slinging her arm around her sister's neck. "You were the one that called Penny a kid, and in my book that's kind of a dick move. You gotta woman up and own your mistakes or else you'll be on the fast track to losing your best friend."

"But it's been three days and she still hasn't messaged me back in-game!" Yang and Blake gave the redhead a dry look, their faces saying all they needed to say. Ruby scrunched up her nose and loudly grunted, "What?!"

"Just answer your damn scroll and find out then!" Yang yelled out in frustration, throwing both her hands up into the air again. "Seriously Ruby, you have no right to call someone a kid when you're acting like this."

Blake took that as her queue and tossed the scroll at Ruby saying, "Relax, it was just hero girl. She'll be meeting you at Fleur-de-lis in two hours, so get dressed."

"What?"

"Hm?"

Ruby blinked slowly somehow managing to look both excited and hurt at the same time. "It… it was Weiss?"

"Yup," Blake nodded with a lopsided smile. "Just a heads up but she's pissed you made her wait so long to answer."

"Crap—but wait, floor-do-what now?"

"Fleur-de-lis," Yang repeated with an almost perfect Eastern Atlesian accent.

Blake looked moderately impressed by her girlfriend's foreign flourish. Yang took Blake's momentary speechlessness as a compliment and grinned cheekily back at her with a playful wink.

"Yes," Blake said clearing her throat, pink dusting her cheeks. "What Madame Xiao Long said."

"Oh, I'm a madam now!" Yang beamed.

"Those are two different words from two different languages just so you know," Blake corrected her with a slight frown. She turned her attention back to Ruby and said, "It's the café across Penny's bookstore. Weiss was kind enough to give you the two hour window to get ready, so why are you still sitting here?"

"R-Right! The snooty café," Ruby stammered out with a heavy blush.

She got up and walked rigidly over to her little closet in the living room and opened it to reveal a heaping pile of unwashed clothing and empty hangers. Ruby paled at the disastrous sight and nervously turned her head back to Blake and Yang. The two older women looked at her like a lost cause and sighed a collective sigh of disappointment. Ruby managed to eke out a small grimace before getting dragged away by her grumpy sister.

"Good luck, Ruby," Blake chuckled choosing not following after them.

Thirty minutes and one giant pile of clean clothes later, Ruby found herself standing nervously in front of Yang full-length body mirror in an outfit deemed worthy of a first date. The blonde circled around her like a hungry shark eyeing its prey, measuring Ruby to her lofty ex-model standards.

Yang didn't know a thing about Weiss so she couldn't dress her baby sister up in a way that pleased the quite possibly older woman she wanted to date. All Ruby could tell her about the savvy painter was that she went to a university, goes to the gym, and liked to wear white. A lot of white. It wasn't much to go on and Yang honestly hated how white looked on her, so Ruby was stuck with Yang's choice of mellow earthy colours and Blake's slimming black.

The first few outfits Yang slapped together were too dark and made Ruby's pale complexion look too "gross" and pasty. The next had too many colours that clashed with Ruby's natural auburn hair, but complimented her fair skin. The last was just Ruby desperately trying to cover her naked upper body and a pair of comfortable adult-sized My Little Budgie panties. Yang had to give her sibling a scrutinizing look for that one.

Ultimately the doting older sister resorted to tossing a few articles of Ruby's clothing into the dryer with a scented fabric softener and prayed to God there weren't any hidden stains in embarrassing places. Yang even surprised Ruby with the gift that keeps on giving, a lovely set of black and red lacy lingerie. She wasn't about to let the girl go out in chara-undies. She'd scare poor Weiss off long before Yang would get the chance to strike the fear of God into her should she break Ruby's heart.

Though speaking of the redhead, Ruby almost died from embarrassment when she saw it. But after getting over the initial shock, Ruby still accepted the gift because she "didn't have anything else to wear" or at least that's what she wanted Yang to believe. But being the amazing older sister she was, Yang spared Ruby the teasing. Not because she wanted to avoid embarrassing her sister any further—she knew already Ruby didn't have anything sexy to wear—but because she wanted to savour it when the time was right and her gift was put to use. It was what any really good sibling would do, and Yang prided herself in being the best. Even if it meant serving her virginal sister to some gorgeous stranger like a delicious dressed duck on a silver platter.

Alright, that definitely hit a nerve.

Yang stopped her pacing behind Ruby so the girl could see her menacing glare in the mirror. She breathed in and exhaled through her nose, a flicker of fire sparking in her violet eyes. Ruby seized up, her brows knitting nervously together as she squeezed her lips together like a hoodie with a pull string. She shrunk back into her shoulders trying to make herself as small as possible in preparation for her upcoming death. A death caused by pure embarrassment because Yang was about to let loose some sagely sister advice to go along with the sexy undies.

"Ruby, this is a big day for you," Yang started out, speaking as calmly as she could to keep herself in check. "You've been in love with this girl since day one; hook, line, and sinker. I also know that this is the first time you've ever been physically attracted to someone. And not in the totally superficial way you used to when you tried to fit in."

"Lies and slander!" Ruby yelped with a massive blush burning her cheeks.

It was all true though. Ruby never found anyone quite as ravishing or delectable as Weiss Schnee, and the thought of being intimate with her was what made the best dreams. Plus, the idea of their future together was something out of a cheesy romance novel.

She was your average hometown girl and he, in this case a she, was a brooding billionaire (which may or may not be true considering Weiss gave up a hefty sum like it was chicken nugget money) with too much time and money on his hands. When they meet sparks instantly fly and the hometown girl finds herself embroiled in the dashing debonair's world. But a conspiracy to take away his fortune comes to light when all the wrong people find out about the billionaire and his beautiful rose.

Yang looked at Ruby dryly putting a swift end to the young woman's fantasy. "Thin walls, Rubes. Thin walls."

The redhead immediately lost all the colour in her face, her eyes wide like she'd just seen a ghost, slack jawed and speechless.

"It's chill though. You're exploring your sexuality, I get it. Been there, done that. You never got the chance to with Jaune or anyone really. And I know for a fact that I wasn't any help growing up either. I just want you to know that it's okay if you decide to go home with her after your date. You do you, bro—sis." Yang cracked a small smile that did little to alleviate Ruby's horror-struck expression. "I—look, Ruby, it's been me and you ever since we ditched dad in Patch. I'm not sure if he ever really gave you the talk, and it really isn't my place to tell you now that you're twenty-one..."

"Yang?" Ruby timidly mumbled trying her absolute best not to offend her sister by interrupting. But the situation the caring blonde was dragging them into was just too awkward for her not to say anything.

Their father, bless his drunken heart, didn't give her the talk but not without trying; he was still a good man. Ruby was stubborn and never give him the chance to even when he sobered up years later when she started dating. She was one step ahead of him and somehow always managed to slip through his grasps whenever he tried to broach the subject. Ruby was too socially awkward and scared to stop him should the talk ever lead to him explain things she didn't ever need to know, so she wasn't about to have her sister do it in his place.

"I know what sex is," she said plainly and openly. "Just because I chose not to do it with Jaune, doesn't mean I'm ignorant. I like to think you taught me better than that."

"Thanks for the compliment but that isn't what I'm trying to say here," Yang said with a quiet, grateful chuckle and a slight shake of her head.

"Uh, then what are you saying?"

"Back then I really didn't want you to end up like me—taking your lack of parental guidance and nurturing out on some poor boy's lips."

"Still not getting the point here."

"Ugh—what I'm trying to say is it's different with hero girl."

"Why do you guys keep calling her that?" Ruby looked over her shoulder, finally able to ask the real burning question on her mind.

Yang shrugged her shoulders. "She saved you from making a mistake."

"And what would that be exactly?" Ruby sighed heavily.

Yang was doing her version of the Ruby Ramble again. The blonde smiled, paying no mind to Ruby's impatience, as she lovingly smoothed out the younger woman's shaggy hair using her open palms.

"She gave you the strength you needed to finally break free and be who you were meant to be." Yang wrapped her little sister up in a warm hug, resting her cheek comfortably against Ruby's head as she did so. "You didn't show it but we could tell you were miserable—we all did. I can't even begin to tell you how many times Jaune came over just to ask what he could do to make you happy. And each time I kept telling him it was out of my control. He knew you in a way I never will. I really had some hope for him, I just never thought he'd be the type to try and sneak around the way he did—I'll never forgive him for that.

"But think about it this way, back then you were so caught up in living your little picket fence fantasy you would have stayed and heard him out, forgiving him and moving on with your lives as a couple. And don't even try to say you wouldn't because I still remember that time you tried to get into Cardin's douche troupe back in middle school."

Ruby winced at the uncomfortable memory. She knew the guy and his friends were bullies, but in her eyes they were the cool kids with awesome lives. Yang never let Ruby forget how they goaded her into bullying a poor Faunus girl for a whole month before Yang stepped in and clobbered the snot out of the boy in charge. It was a dark time in her life, not something she planned on ever revisiting.

"Hero girl, I think it's a little presumptuous to say now, but I really think she's good for you. As far as stepping stones go."

Ruby raised her brow in Yang's direction, a laugh ghosting over her lips. "She's short, but not that short."

"Bah! You get what I mean, right?"

"I think so," Ruby said nodding her head. "Hey? Thanks, Yang. Y'know, for always looking out for me."

"I got you, Ruby. Always will."

After Yang's sisterly advice, Ruby got handed over to Blake for the finishing touches. The dark haired woman was a professional makeup artist and a damn good one at that. She got to work with famous movie stars, models, and even ran her own popular U-Tube channel dedicated to book reviews and makeup tutorials. Her makeup career was actually how she met Yang and the rest was, as they say, history.

Blake was the quiet intellectual type, in short the complete opposite to Yang, and it really showed through when she worked her magic on Ruby's face. The older woman only opened her mouth to ask Ruby the most basic of questions and spent the rest of their time in comfortable silence. It only took her five short minutes but the results were astounding. Blake modestly claimed it was all due to Ruby's natural good looks, but the proud glimmer in her golden eyes told a different story. The Faunus woman knew she was a miracle worker, she didn't need to have someone tell her.

"You look amazing," Blake said with her proud grin shining through her dull monotone.

Ruby blushed, or at least she thought she did. The pink dusting her cheeks was either her own work or Blake's, but for now she opted to think it was Blake's because there was no way she could look this attractive blushing on her own.

"Hero girl is going to absolutely love you."

"Ugh, Blake, not you too!" Ruby groaned in exasperation.

"Hey, if she doesn't instantly beg for your hand in marriage I think I need to have my license revoked." Blake chuckled in good humour and ushered Ruby out of her seat. "You have forty-five minutes left on the clock, get moving."

"I—what? But it only takes ten minutes to drive there?"

Blake shook her head and sighed. "Your first date with her and you want to show up empty handed?"

"G-Good point," Ruby gulped out of nervousness. "What do you suggest?"

"Flowers are always a good call," Blake said with a shrug. "Been a long time since my last first date, haha."

"Jaune got me a Happy Meal for ours…"

Blake arched a beautifully sculpted eyebrow in disbelief. "You are not getting Weiss a Happy Meal."

"So flowers?"

"Flowers, and don't be cheap."

Yang poked her head in curiosity getting the better of her, chewing on a cheese sandwich. She gave the two women a thumbs up and crammed the rest of her meal unceremoniously into her mouth. Blake watched her girlfriend, a former model, nearly choke on her food just to say something she knew was encouraging. It was safe to say that Blake wondered what went through her head when she dated other people, because Yang was definitely the one. Somehow.

"Lukkin gurt, Ruby!" Yang said with her mouth still full.

The redhead look to Blake for a translation.

"She said, 'Looking good, Ruby.'" Blake sighed dreamily. "I love her so much."

Yang swiped her hand at Blake clearly flustered by her suave darker counterpart.

"Right, anyway, flowers. Where do I go?" Ruby asked trying to get things back on track. She was running out of time and the only two people she could count on were too busy flirting to help her. "Seriously guys!"

It took a moment, but Yang eventually managed to swallow her food. She breathed out a sigh of relief, mumbling something along the lines of "I thought I was going to die" before finally speaking up and saying, "That one place, y'know?"

Ruby squinted her eyes at Yang, a big frown dragging down her pouted lips.

"The one with the ugly ficus?" Blake chimed in with a laugh.

The blonde eagerly nodded her head. "Yeah! Freddy the fugly ficus—where was it again?"

"The other side of town."

"Crap."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Ruby screamed in frustration, putting herself between Blake and her sister. "First you tell me to get Weiss flowers and now you're talking about a ficus. Which do I get?!"

The exasperated couple shared a knowing look that literally and metaphorically went over Ruby's head. Then, at the height of the tension, in a unanimous deadpan, they said, "You are not getting hero girl a ficus."

"Just for that, she's totally getting a ficus," Ruby huffed spitefully.

If her family was hell-bent on being weird, then she might as well get started early with Weiss just to make the transition from her sophisticated upper-class to whatever it was they were. Plus, getting Weiss some sort of shrubbery fell in line with her quirky nature. It was perfect!

Weiss Schnee, prepare to be wooed Ruby style!


I don't do these much since I hate how it ups the word count unfairly, but the affection you people have shown this story has really touched me. I want to say thank you for not giving up on it despite the horrendously long update times between my works. It's honestly gotten easier to juggle everything the more I have pending. It channels my need to drop and work on something else quite well, which is why Colour Blind got its fourth chapter out so soon after the third.

Mushy-gushy aside, I'd like to address some reviews that sparked my interest. I'm not picking these as some sort of call-out post. I was generally excited someone questioned my idea instead of just blindly going with it. My stories are so much more than they seem with hidden meanings and subtle hints to the overall plot without giving things away.

Ryulord1111: In the first chapter during its second act, I put in this this easily overlooked passage: "She was in love with someone else. However, not everyone got the message" (Colour Blind, Chapter One). Penny wasn't being thrown under the bus, no one has. This isn't that type of story. Colour Blind has a deeper meaning than just being a title.

People react to things differently and I've been praised for my painfully human dialogues during scenes like this. Penny was hurt Ruby kept a secret despite being someone she counted on during her transition. She really wasn't out to become Ruby's lover. She wanted to be completely honest with her. Yes, it would have been nice if Ruby reciprocated her feelings but Penny knew better. She knew how much honesty was beginning to mean to Ruby and show her that she wasn't the only one coming to terms with their homosexuality.

Plus, it's just a shitty feeling that Ruby was purposely keeping her at a distance.

I wonder why?

TacoKing23: Adults do the exact same thing when they're pushed into a corner. It's a natural thing to do to lash out when you're faced with something that threatens you. In this case Penny saw Ruby's lack of trust in her as a direct assault on their supposedly rock solid friendship. How Ruby will make things up to her will play a greater roll in the future. Because a real friend will not let things end after just a hiccup.

ODST110: Yes my friend, ouch.