Chapter 2: She wouldn't care~

Ruby Rose

She's gonna save me,

call me baby,

run her hands through my hair

In Ruby's earnest opinion, no job is done better than while dancing. Just as true for an engineer as a dishwasher. No slick kicks meant her groove came out in her hips and shoulders. Her head snapped to the beat, hair up in a floral rag let her shake wild and free. Rhythm infused hands wiped dishes dry in seconds and made sure she never wasted a single strum unfocused on her task.

It was impossible to feel tired like this. When the flow was up Ruby could finish ten crates without noticing she was dripping from the washers constant blooms of steam. Music blinded her to the heat of Sun's industrial fryers and Neptune's chrome grills. Everyone in the kitchen worked this way, you couldn't steal music from them. If you did Yang was liable to use her hook and drag you face first into the boiling corn oil. Best thing about being the chief's sister, their bluetooth speakers always matched Ruby's favs.

"Ruby, toss a bag into the fryer would you?" Sun asked, slapping all the cheesy garlic bits onto his order of fries. Fry guys were crazy by a rule, anyone could see with his sleeves rolled up the marred mix of hair and grease burns. Frankly looked like he spent his weekends having neighborhood knife fights. "Need more parm fries."

"Oh sure!" A dish girl that can't jump onto the line real quick was a dish girl not worth keeping on. "Didn't hear the new order!" The corn oil pretended to be calm, but as soon as she dipped the fries the whole damn thing was sizzling in bubbles. Each pop sending liquid hellfire on anyone too close.

"Nah they haven't ordered them yet, but they'll come. Six tops always, repeat always order a second plate of parm fries!" Sun pounded his chest, one Ruby had the misfortune of knowing was 30% muscle 70% fur. For an idiot with hair as greasy and yellow as his fries, Ruby loved working the station next to his.

"Rubes! Stop flirting with the animals and get back to the dishes!" Yang shouted from the other side of the line, frying on the pans, two at a time despite how annoying that had to be with the prosthetic claw.

"Yes ma'am!" Ruby knew better than to talk back. Soon as she starts yapping, a cast iron skillet would fly at her mouth, take out a tooth or two. Sweet sister she was, just not on the clock. Whatever, only a short a few before Ruby was off the clock. Weekdays were slow except for lunch rush and dishwashers weren't exactly a stand alone job most of the time. The weekdays, if they could throw her shifts at all, she ended no later than four.

So she watched the clock, flashing her android more than usual between each crate she slid into the industrial washer. Slammed the lever down, heard the thundering shake as it did it's magic in three minutes everyone else's kitchen model did in sixty, and flipped out the phone once again.

No text.

Ruby groaned, slamming the lever back up and bringing the steel machine doors open. The crate of glasses came out foggy, dripping, and scorching compared to her skin. Glasses were easy. She flipped em, wiped it down and slapped it back on to switch to the next. Another load into the machine. Just a red one loaded to hell with bowls to go and she was free to toss these on top of the rest of the drying crates.

"Yo Rubes," Yang called her back from the line and Ruby came running. She had expected a spill, but things were actually slow. She was tossing a stake and letting Neptune have her stool to watch Real Madrid play Manchester United on the kitchen TV. "You look antsy, what's up?"

"I'm just hanging out, waiting for shift to end. Did I screw something up?" Ruby whispered the last bit, the owner was always looking for some reason to fire her since the Pyrrha debacle.

"Nah," Yang said, smiling at the sight of her meat turning brown and perfect. "You got somewhere you need to be?"

"I mean, not right-" Ruby reflexively checked her phone, luckily working in a kitchen made things a lot more relaxed. Weiss' name flipped up.

I'm fine now, but where are we meeting?

"Shit she's ready, yeah, no I totally have somewhere I need to be." Yang cracked a big smile. What was meant to be a slap though totally ended up being a clubbing with her bad arm came down on Ruby's back.

"This a date or something? You are like way too excited." For the first time, this whole conversation, she looked away from that steak. Oh god, she knows.

"Hanging out," Ruby gulped reflexively, "Or a date, really I'm just gonna guess later by how touchy she gets."

"That is a terrible game plan!" Yang shook her head but kept her grin, "Do the pans and clock out." Ruby jumped at the order, damn near clicked her heels for all the magic they had. Pan's were a bitch, they sat in filthy warm water right near the front and would need to be scraped clean. Worth, Ruby thought. Her arms were already scaled red and fingers calloused by steel wool. She could take on the world.

"Sun," Ruby mumbled, noticing the order hanging in the window. "You got a second order of parm fries."

"I am the King!"

The chorus of Jackie and Wilson, kept up in her head and propelled her across the two miles from one side of Newport to her place with Yang by the boardwalk. Technically up in the bay in the single street long Barrio. Second story wood condo painted white at the bottom and not at all at the top. Despite the view of the boardwalk, the river, the bay, and the mini-golden gate bridge that was Newports claim to fame, all visible from the glass wall of their living room and wide porch, this was considered the poor part of Newport proper. They dropped nine hundred for this place a month, including water. What a world.

Sure her bedroom was small, a two by two if you used her body as a ruler, with taped up sci-fi posters, an unfinished paint job, and not enough closet space for the flood of clothes Ruby kept despite herself. How she managed to fit a tiny workshop littered with old throw away circuit boards, face down photos, and discarded projects was a mystery even to her. It made the room an acrobatics show to navigate, with occasional scabs on her legs proof enough of it's difficulty.

Yet, after showering way too fast thus leaving her hair a still wet mess, she had space left on her bed to lay out a series of outfits, each with their strength and weaknesses. And one guide, Pyrrha.

So, given you're the only ex who talks to me it's your sworn duty to tell me which leaves you most blown away.

Ruby compiled three examples, a more feminine patterned skirt and black v top that worked with her nicest red leather jacket. Beside that, a slightly more traditional lesbian uniform. flannel, skinny jeans, ripped at the knees, worked well with a beanie or snapback if she felt extra. Then lastly a camo parka that was maybe a little too thick but just had the finest fluff around the hood, a band-tee to show off her casual personality, and the nicest dark jeans she had. Considered maybe going dress pants, but that clashed and no way she could hike in it.

Pyrrha3: Of course, um, but what kind of girl is this?

The perfect kind, like holy shit, she's drop dead gorgeous Pyrrha! She's got this mystic air to her, somewhere between haunting and mysterious like if you turn away you'll never see her again. She's like a fable and I met her alone on top of seal rock right near sunset. Omg Pyrrha she's like perfect, I'm hyperventilating. 3 3

Ruby found it an odd feeling, getting totally swept up in someone again, despite knowing she always rushed headlong into things. It was just so hard not to let the waves drag her after the newest crush. Mostly, she was thrilled she could finally talk to Pyrrha about it again.

Pyrrha3: Don't do that please! Lets start on what's your read of her. Do you think Butch or Femme?

She's a rock solid Femme, her make-up games so sharp you could cut yourself on it.

Pyrrha3: That's lovely, but I meant what do you think she's into? How did you look when you asked her out on a date? If she said yes, you should stick with something that speaks to your earnest aesthetic?

And that almost knocked Ruby right of her gilded illusion. So it wasn't a date yet, but this was some star crossed lovers stuff. She wouldn't force it of course, but Ruby had that feeling, like she just knew there was something more behind those eyes. Weiss, Weiss, she seemed so…. sparklingly dark? The type of girl that haunted her daydreams and left her parched and thirsty. Weiss defied description, and Ruby couldn't eat that up faster.

Flutch, alsooooo it's not technically a date yet. . I sort of offered to show her around town, but I promise it's got a date like atmosphere, like who shows around strangers?

Pyrrha3: I do?

Ouch

Pyrrha pleaseeeeeee, pick an outfit, I need my confidence to bring out my best self! I don't wanna mess this up. :'D

Ruby resends the pictures to add emphasis, and Pyrrha stalled. She always was the sweetest thing, Pyrrha's always helping, can't ignore a request. She's never in her life uttered the word no, Ruby was pretty sure, and that's probably what ruined everything.

Pyrrha3: Stay middle of the line. Go with the skirt to accent your femininity plus the band-t and one of your hoodies to show you're beautiful, but not trying to impress. A plain red one prefered, something that also hints at your cute tomboyish charms. I'd do some makeup, but only a little. Lip gloss not lipstick for today if that makes sense.

Pyrrha3: And don't push it! Be safe! And have a good time and if it's not a date rejection is just a new friend instead!

What a mom.

Thank you! You're my hero! I'll try to send you a pic so you get jelly :D

"You got this!" Ruby vocalized like a spell to bend reality to her way. Vocalized again and again as she dressed, gussied up, fucked up, restarted, and gussied up again.

Done. Ruby stared into the mirror and couldn't see it, not even a little, it was just the same Ruby. A mess pretending to be pretty and special with the advice of the last human who could stomach kissing her. But pretending would work, and tonight was going to be different, magical. Weiss was special, she was gonna be different, see right passed all that and find exactly what made Ruby special, that something even she couldn't see.

And if not, she wouldn't care.

"You can do this," Ruby always had a grin, but this one wasn't pretend, "today's going to be amazing."

Ruby successfully won driver duty with a Ford that can offroad. Now she would be the one to provide pick up like a gracious gentlewoman. Or at least she declared so before spinning out of the driveway.

Ruby could feel the relative wealth of the land when she felt the wheels kick up dirt, then rocky gravel, onto one lane and then the two lane coastal highway that ran up the span of the Pacific. She reached the real promised land at Newport Bridge. All the majesty of the Golden Gate, slightly downsized, twice as windy, and all without a centimeter of San Fran smog.

Passing the bridge was like passing the gates of wealth, though maybe Californian's wouldn't call any of the coastal villages that. Yet from this perspective, from the fishery, the boats, the loggers up in the forests of Toledo, and even the meth heads of Eddyville, all of them whom worked for a living, it was insane the estates you could find heading south and that's exactly what the GPS dragged Ruby towards.

Weiss wasn't a Yachats girl, which was great news because she didn't own enough helicopters to grab the kind of people who had seaside estates there. Waldport beach houses could still fall into the hands of a middle class family. Sure as hell not Ruby's family, but like a normal family.

Weiss' place, not one of those estates.

Ruby drove right up into the heart of the beach where the water was louder than her engine and the threat of seagull shit wasn't entirely irrational. Up on the rocks sits a single story house built on stilts of wood with its hotdog body stretched so far out beyond the cliff edge one mistimed fart could probably send it all tumbling into the sea and out forever. This is the kind of place one builds when you can shrug off a total collapse as a setback.

Alright, I just got to impress a princess.

And on cue, before Ruby even turned off her engine, there Weiss was sipping away on a 1188 brew popping out the front door. She dressed in an entirely different flare now, her jacket a black leather that liked to shimmer like gloss off her shoulders and contrast with the white for her ponytail. It was technically a hoodie with the cloth inlay that ended in a flipped down hood, but it made Ruby's look like gutter rags. That and the designer jeans, make up that walked the fine line between date and outing, and just the sway of her walk, Weiss looked like the kind of femme that could beat the ever living shit out of Ruby.

She's perfect.

"Hey, pick up for one on the truck of adventure!" Ruby knew it was lame as the words dripped from her mouth and she supremely regretted rolling down her window.

Weiss looked at her, sipped again on her beer, and walked away. To the recycling of course, but Ruby couldn't help but feel like there was a statement in that. With a crash of bottle, she came back though so not apocalyptic.

"Do I need to bring anything specific?"

"Nope, everything we could do I got stuff for it in the truck bed, only thing missing is you."

"And I'm found, mystery solved." Weiss popped the passenger door open and crossed the threshold like she owned it. In a way Ruby liked that, Weiss looked like the type to own sports cars at home, so if her old Ford was good enough to act like she owned it well…

"So, I've got a plan," Ruby announced shifting in reverse and starting down the crunching sands of her beach front driveway.

"Shit, I hope so. You kind of sold today on having a secret native only plan."

"And I do!" A scheme that was uncannily similar to the top rated date Ruby ever took Pyrrha on. "You just gotta trust me."

"Considering I'm in a strangers car, I believe I've granted as much trust as can be reasonably requested."

"Well let's try to have an unreasonably good time then. First stop, downtown Newport, land of hidden gems and shops no one has even heard of."

"Then how are they open?"

"No one knows~"

At the end of her note, Ruby flashed Weiss an experimental smile, an excuse to see if she was getting to her, getting a laugh. Between looking at her, and the road, Ruby saw a woman who viewed her with all the suspicion of a used car salesmen at the end of the fiscal quarter, but Ruby also saw the right crease of her lip stay up.

Ruby couldn't make her laugh or smile, but if she could make her grin, well, this could still be perfect.

And for a while it was. First stop on the other end of the road was the Ripley's Museum, less for the shitty puppets and fake crap, but for the arcade and ice cream. Weiss played like it was weird, but no one gets that far in Time Crisis without having lost their plastic gun game virginity before. Then the Kite Store where Ruby could show her the utter magic of a shop that manages to stay open despite having the clientele outnumbered by their collective fingers.

The crystal store after was a bust. Weiss detested the faux magic side of crystal stuff, going as far as openly complaining about the industry praying on miserable people hoping for something to wipe pain away. In spirit Ruby agreed, but pretty rocks were never a bad addition before, and she supposed it kept the conversation animate, something that didn't change once they hit the real high point of downtown.

Newport had no proper bookstore. What it had was a wooden townhouse converted into a library of used books and relics. The old lady that managed the place felt like a cross between a sweet grandmother and some powerful, shrunken antiquarian who sold arcane scrolls of magic in the back. Ruby loved the place for its feeling, this maze of wooden staircases and lime green carpets. They didn't always even have bookcases, sometimes she'd just find stacks of old sci-fi novels out of print or on this date(?) Weiss discovered something fresh.

"It's….massive."

It was nine volumes thick,a few feet tall, just one book. The Goblet of Fire in braille, just on the floor next to the standard print like it wasn't something awesome.

"Yeah, they have it in Cyrillic and Chinese too I think. Haven's got everything."

"It comes to my attention that I don't think I've ever seen seen a book in braille before, it's kind of alluring." Her hands flipped over the cover and scanned the pages with her finger, though after saying that, Ruby was pretty sure she couldn't understand it. "I grew up in a city and I wouldn't even know where to find one, and here in this fingernail sized town it's on the floor for anyone to read. It feels important."

"I don't know if anyone here does read it," Ruby shifted, feeling a little gleeful. She liked when they felt the same kind of things mattered, a desire for a more equitable world. "But they could."

She taps the white page, a metronome as the air shifts to the awkward.

"I think I'd be dead without books." It's near a whisper that Weiss didn't even seem to notice she said it. As if it was just a trick of the light. Ruby thinks she can see cracks in a mirror.

"What?"

Weiss shuts the first volume with a thud and just like that the crack is gone.

"Do you think they have Sometimes a Great Notion?"

"What?"

"It's one of my favorite movies, but it's also a book. Set in Oregon. Kind of famous?"

Ruby swallows and dodges.

"If it's a book, Haven has it."

"Then come." Weiss stood back away from the window sill she rested on, and takes Ruby's arm. Not enough to be astounding, but just enough to be alarming. "Let's hunt."

"Seriously?" Weiss awaits for Ruby at the edge of the doorway, right at the wooden steps that lead to the soaked and uneven roads of downtown under siege by storm. The old lady must have noticed given she triple bagged the book.

"The seas be a moody lass~" Ruby annunciated with the charm of a pirate, utterly unsurprised to see the skies go from pleasant to grey to rainstorm in just one store visit. Ruby already had her hood flipped up and ready to make a run for it.

Weiss, of course, isn't a local. She's a girl with a hand bag and a tiny umbrella that will not save her.

"Well at least I came prepared."

"Weiss, that's really not going to wor-"

"And there!" Weiss snapped out the wireframe, triumphant. Ruby's urge to say something was squished under just how smug she looked walking out into the street. The waves were crashing only a few yards away and Third Street is horizontal, with nothing blocking the wind once one walks onto the street...

A step.

Then another.

Then whoosh.

This happens to tourists from time to time, a gust rips through and warps that little wire umbrella. Suddenly it's inside out and flying free of the holders hand.

"What the fuck!" Ruby broke into giggles as Weiss chased it down a half block before she had it again, the white and blue of its cover all ripped by then. Ruby just walked, letting all the rain slap against her back with a familiar cold texture that came with being an Oregon native.

"We don't use umbrellas, the Pacific gusts are kinda hell!" Almost to prove her point Ruby had to shout over another northwestern rush. Weiss on the other hand ducked under the dripping roof of the nearest porch, opting to ignore that it was obviously private property.

"Well then what do you do?"

Do it, time to be cool.

"We run, really really fast."

Ruby offered her hand, hoping a vain hope that Weiss didn't notice her right foot tapped a mile a minute, or the nervous sweat that would have drenched her auburn hair if the rain hadn't done so already.

If she did, Weiss hid it, like everything else, behind a steel glare. Still, that was the romantic side of it, the mystery that something could just up and change her life forever, utterly, and just finally.

Weiss took her hand in the end. Took it tight as Ruby turned heel and together they booked it. Splashing down the sidewalk, slicing through puddles, dancing past cars, smiling through the hair that stuck to their faces and eventually laughing between panting at that overcoming rush. A kid's exhilaration, the reanimated corpse of childhood that told Ruby to be alive again, and Weiss too, she believed.

They didn't make it to Ruby's truck, not that Ruby really planned for that. She dragged her to her favorite spot on rainy days, especially with a date. A pagoda of glass by the arts center, a little shield. Under the guise of a break, they smashed through the door and huffed along to the empty benches.

"Holy shit...you can run."

"I did...fencing."

Ruby wasn't sure how fencing helped cardio. Not that she would argue. Ruby prefered collapsing on a bench with her date and subtly dancing between exhausted and giddy with the adrenaline of a mini adventure.

Weiss wasn't shy about it either. She happily laid back against the concrete center pool and against Ruby's shoulder. Soaked together and hot from the run, soon to be cold from the rain, this was the ideal place. Public, but private. No one would run in the rain just to come here; Ruby was confident she was alone in that kind of idiocy. The rain too, the way it warped the glass, muddying all light till it devolved into blotches of luminessence. Ruby only knew by estimation were street lights now flipping on, it made the place translucent enough to be safe, but blurry enough to be free.

Ideal to talk, to breathe, and enjoy each other.

"I suppose this gets in the way of us seeing the rest of Oregon's natural wonders today?"

"I don't mind a little more rain," Ruby laughed as all the little adventures she had planned shifted around. Mountain climbing was out, but other options always presented themselves. "Nye beach is right there."

"You're absolutely mad."

"Mad is swimming the 'Nye River', aka the run off. Highschool Ruby was mad, this me's just a can do kind of person. I mean honestly, what's it matter, we're wet anyways."

"Well you can shove any plans that end in me becoming a wash rag." A very firm pass given the groan she made as she peeled her hair from a sopping ponytail to better dry.

"Food then? I know this great place that makes absurd omelets," Ruby offered, honestly prefering to not go anywhere at all. Still, adaptable, had to be adaptable.

"For dinner?" Weiss shot her a look that had "really" glued on the blue irises of her eyes, but as far as Ruby considered it she wasn't gonna stop if it got her looking at all.

"Well if you really want to be traditional, we got good Thai food at the docks."

"Yes, traditional Thai dinner as my German forefathers did and their fathers before them." Weiss played up her accent earning a dual chuckle before the rain overtook the conversation.

A silence fell, Ruby just watched. Mystery girl with the mystery scar and her cryptic references and their alluring pull that just made Ruby beg to see more. She looked like she had stories, how that happened to her eye, why she was here, how she got so pretty, or her silver hair so natural. How she looked out at the glass like she could see beyond it to the sea, like she'd known it for longer than Ruby had.

How every time Weiss shifted her glossy pink lips she made Ruby lick hers, and how so degrading, embarrassing, mortifying, it was that she seemed to know exactly when to turn her long pale neck just in time to see Ruby do it.

"What?"

"Nothing just," Ruby went pink but didn't back down, "you're having fun."

"Me? Perish the thought."

"I mean, you just, you seem happier today." Weiss' eyes opened wide and then shifted narrow, leaning closer towards Ruby like she was going to gleam something from her other than how fucking gay she is.

"Some days it's easier to be me than others," Weiss admitted, still searching. Still leaning deadly close and grinning all the while.

"Then I'm doing a good job," Ruby said, heart having a seizure. The lean in, the lines, the look, it had to be now, she was sure, for the story book kiss.

They did kiss. Not much fanfare unless the pittering on roofs of rain counted for fireworks, or the distant rush of wind wrapping around their little sanctuary could fill in for a parade. It wasn't that Ruby expected just a kiss to change everything, she wasn't that naive, even if she wanted it to. Not the best, most powerful kiss ever to rock the northwest pacific, but Ruby would happily go for another three, four, forty, four hundred.

That wasn't the big problem, the crowning fuck up, Ruby realized, was Weiss hadn't been expecting even the one.

She didn't recoil, there wasn't a slap, nothing harsh, nothing stopping her, but Ruby's own sense. When someone doesn't kiss back, don't keep going. You've read the room wrong, you read it so fucking wrong.

"You….oh this is…"

"I'm sorry, holy shit. I'm sorry, I really got an impression you wanted me to… I read it wrong I just." Ruby didn't know how to explain in a short, fair, and concise way that she'd been reading into every single ounce of air they shared together and so it turned to auto pilot. An autopilot that had her back away on the bench so as not to come off predatory. As not to screw this up even more.

"I didn't think you'd..." Weiss actually laughed, leaning away, the sound almost muted in the rain had Ruby's ears not been hyper fixated on it. "You really don't want to do this." Weiss shook her head back and forth and stood while Ruby clamoured back to her own two feet.

"No I did, I just thought you wanted it too so I went for it, but like no pressure, if you're not into it, let's go get dinner and just ignore my dumb-"

"I'm just going to go home."

"Okay," Ruby muttered, "I'll bring you straight home." She couldn't hide the air of mourning to her voice, as unfair as she knew it was. It wasn't like this was the first time it's happened, but it kept feeling fresh. Whatever kept her from learning her lesson also kept her from getting used to the whiplash of falling too fast.

"No need," Weiss declined with an irritated sigh, "I'll just call an uber. Thanks for showing me around." A childish impulse on Ruby's part maybe, but that felt spiteful.

"Are you sure….the rain?" Ruby knew not to follow.

Weiss chuckled, though the sudden rush of wind as she opened the glass door completely whipped it from the sound spectrum and all the warm air obliterated into a frigid wet chill.

"What's it matter, I'm wet anyway." The glass closed and the last line of the night was punctuated.

Between being offended that Weiss didn't trust her to bring her home, mad at herself for breaking the trust that made Weiss feel like she couldn't be safe asking for a ride home, embarrassed at herself for the story she was going to have to tell Yang in an hour, or just wanting to cry from the cocktail smoothie of one part self loathing, one part defensive denial, and one part a fresh new reflective brand of self loathing, that a thought struck her. It occured to Ruby, that by herself, the pavillion on the outside had to look a little less like a shield and a lot like her own personal fish tank. Like a glass cage for just her and Weiss' copy of Sometimes a Great Notion, cover up for her to see, the best cosmic joke of the century.

A/N: So here's chapter 2. After nearly a year. God Decision is wayyyyy harder to write then the others. I feel so much more pressure with this one and I hope chapter two is half as well written as chapter 1 was. For this story I kind of really wanted Ruby and Weiss to kind of reflect Depression and Malaise common in a lot of people of my generation. Weiss of course deals with her own Suicide and her story deals with deconstructing the "do x thing and everything will be better" narrative, but Ruby deals more with the kind of hope that somehow something's going to suddenly happen in your life to pull you into the fantastic. That someone out there is going to make you happy. She's much like an older Ruby who because of her situation never had the opportunity to really chase her dreams and do something great with her life and help others. She can't stop dreaming tho, but now she feels like her only hope is to be saved by someone to relight the hope she use to be a beacon of, and that's the sort of mindset I'm intending to critique here, waiting for someone else to give you a life again.

So while these two chapters have been very angsty and Decision is very much about how love won't suddenly make the world rosey, it will ultimately be a "cautiously optimistic" story. So don't run away screaming just yet. These two moody nerds got plenty of story left to not find the miracle cure within each other, but something to get by within themselves with a little support.

Thanks to TigerLily for doing an amazing job looking over this fic for me and witnessing this mess. I love her to bits she is a dear friend and a great writer.