Two Years Ahead Or Behind?
Oh, how her eyes pounded and her brain ached. Oh, how her body throbbed and her hands quaked. She needed rest, wanted nothing more then to sleep and dream and relax but her racing thoughts wouldn't, couldn't leave her be.
It had been this way for some time now for the young Ruby Rose, ever since the lessons being taught to her began to increase in difficulty that is. Teachers were speaking of events and tactics and theories that she had never heard of and every time she glanced around the room to see her fellow students, she became increasingly aware of how out of place she was.
So, here she was, bent over her work desk writing notes about any and all things she had never heard of, like wars, dusts applications, aura control, and semblance advantages. Ruby had been doing this for so many nights now, but no matter how hard she worked, she always seemed behind.
The young redhead paused to rub her eyes and chug down the rest of her now cold coffee. She had thought about asking for help from her friends but, every time she thought about it, she became so nervous and ill feeling that she abandoned the idea completely. Her only options were to either fail, or work far into the night. She easily chose the latter.
~ Early Morning Saturday~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blake was the first to wake and the first to see the state Ruby was in. Her eyes widened as she stared at the slumped over form of the girl. Her hair was a mess, sticking up in places that seemed to defy gravity itself. Her body was bent and hunched over the desk, the poor thing's back must ache even in her sleep. Her eyes were sunken in and puffy with large, dark bags under them and a pencil was still clenched tightly in her hand.
The fauna threw her legs out and touched the floor, which moved and crunched under her soles. Glancing down, she saw masses of crumpled up pieces of paper and even whole sheets laying on the floor. This was not good.
Out of worry, Blake decided to wake up Yang, who had slept in her own bed for once. "Yang. Yang!" Blake hissed in her girlfriend's ear. "Yang, you must wake up. Ruby needs you."
Lilac eyes shot open before the overly concerned woman quickly glanced around the room, her gaze quickly falling on the form of her little sister. Worry washed over her like a tidal wave before she hopped out of bed and went to the younger to check her out.
Blake watched Yang with amusement as well as amazement. She had learned that if either sister, dead sleep or in the deepest of thoughts, heard the others name and a word like 'trouble', 'needs', or any other form of help-inducing words, they would immediately snap to attention.
"She's out cold." Yang said, her voice soft and full of concern. "It looks like she stayed up all night again."
"Why is she doing this? She wasn't doing so before." Blake wondered out loud as she began to change into her regular attire. "Do you have an idea as to why, Yang?"
"No, and that's what's scarin' me." Yang sighed as she lifted the smaller girl into her own bed and tucked her in. She turned to see Blake giving her a questioning look and smiled. "Ruby likes my smell just as much as you do, Kitten." She chuckled as the other woman blushed.
"Should we wake Weiss? Do you think she knows?" Blake asked as she turned her back on the now changing Yang. "I doubt it, but maybe she does. I don't know."
"I think waking her might be a good idea, plus, she can help us snoop around. I'm sure the princess would love to help us do that!" Yang grinned as she slipped a clean shirt on and walked over to the still sleeping teammate. "Hey, hey, Snowy Bear! Wake up, girly!"
Weiss groaned and hissed as she tried to pat the larger hand away from her. "What? Just let me sleep! I don't want anything to do with any of your stupid-"
"Wanna help us snoop through Ruby's things?" Yang interrupted, smirking as the heiress quickly turned over to look at her, aquamarine eyes giving her a stern gaze.
"Now?"
"Yeah."
"...Right now? With her still here?" Weiss asked as she pointed over to the sleeping girl. "Speaking of which, why isn't she up? Ruby is always the first one up."
"What Yang is forgetting to tell you is that Ruby is pulling all nighters and neither of us know why. Now, it seems as though she has finally crashed and Yang, as well as myself, is trying to find the reasoning behind her odd behavior lately." Blake explained as the shorter girl got out of bed and made her way to her closet.
Weiss gave them a small 'hm' before she went into the bathroom, only coming out once she was fully clothed. "I suppose I could help you two 'snoop' through her belongings." Weiss snorted, secretly overjoyed by the idea.
She wasn't going to admit this to anyone, but she had developed feelings for the other girl. Weiss didn't know when, Hell, she didn't even know why, but the feelings were there and had been for some time now. She would have to be a mad woman not to want to go through the younger girl's things.
"Ha! Knew it!" Yang laughed as she patted Weiss on the shoulder, almost causing the other to choke.
"It's too early for your shit, Xiao Long!" Weiss hissed as she regained her composure from the brutal 'love taps', as the older woman called them.
"Awww! Don't be like that! We're a team after all! And we even have a common goal today!" The blonde smiled as she pointed over to her little sister's desk. "To plunder that there desk! Ruby is bound to keep her secrets in there!"
Weiss and Blake stared at the simple desk before turning to look at each other. "There's no way." Weiss dead panned. "Why would she keep her secrets in a desk that anyone can get into? Even Ruby isn't that dense."
"Have you tried opening the desk? I bet you can't!" Yang sang as she skipped over to the object in question and made a show of all the locked drawers. "Ta-dah! All locked!"
"What?! Those desks didn't come with locks! How the hell did she manage to-"
"Is that why she went to the hardware store all those weeks ago? To buy locks?" Blake asked, cutting off a fuming Weiss.
"Yup! Where as I'm the cook, Ruby's the handy woman!" Yang chuckled as the other two just face palmed.
"I always have to look twice when I see you in the kitchen with your apron on." Blake sighed. "But I rather have you in the kitchen then with a hammer."
"You only have to look twice cause you know you want somma this!" Yang smirked as Blake blushed and looked away.
"Will you quit it!" Weiss snarled at the flirty girl. "No one wants to hear any of this! Let's just look for the key and get this over with! I want to enjoy my weekend after all." The heiress crawled up to Ruby's bed, lifting up her pillow before hopping down and lifting the mattress ends to see if there was a key under it. "Now, where would she hide a key?"
"Ah! The tricky part! Ruby's pretty good at hiding stuff, so good in fact that she forgets were she hides it if she doesn't touch it everyday." Yang chuckled as she pointed to her head and gave it a small tap. "You know what they say about artists and all that."
Blake smiled at the blonde before she pointed to the slumbering girl. "I'm sure you've found a way around this, knowing you as I do."
"Ah! You know me too well!" Yang grinned as she stepped over to Ruby and poked her shoulder lightly. "Ruby? Ruby?"
"Hm?" The younger replied, the noise almost to soft to hear.
"Where's the key to your desk?" Yang waited for a response for a few moments before asking again. "Ruby? Where's your desk key?"
"Safe." was the only word the other mumbled before she cuddled further into the blankets.
"Well, great." Weiss groaned as she threw her arms in the air. "We know it's safe. How so very wonderful."
"How odd, for her to choose that word as her answer, though." Blake pointed out, her slender fingers rubbing her chin in thought.
"Whadda mean, Blakey?" Yang asked as she watched her girlfriend ponder the word. "If it's something important, of course she'll put it someplace safe."
"But what's safe to Ruby?" Blake pointed out, a small smirk on her lips. "That's the question here."
Weiss pondered for a moment before turning to look at the brawler. "Well? What does Ruby do or go when she gets scared?"
"Huh? Oh, well..." Yang paused for a moment before she shrugged. "I don't really know. She's always been a brave girl."
"Safe doesn't have to involve fear. It could also be a place where she finds comfort or feels at ease." Blake explains, smiling as she watched Weiss' eyes widen.
The white haired maiden turned to face the cat fauna before pointing to the blonde. "You can't be serious! You aren't trying to refer to Yang, are you? She's a brute who catches things on fire! Who could find safety or comfort in that?!"
"Hey! I've gotten better at managing my flames! I can't help it I'm this hot." Yang wiggled her eyebrows at her kitten before laughing at Weiss' groan.
"Besides the bad puns, I believe Ruby has indeed hidden the key with Yang." Blake walked over to Yang's bed before turning again to her teammates. "We know she couldn't have hidden the key on Yang's person, but I do believe that she has hidden the key in Yang's things."
"Well that'll take us hours to sort through since she just throws things over her shoulder!" Weiss snapped as she glared at the taller woman, who just crossed her arms and shrugged.
"That's the point."
"Excuse me?"
"That's the point, Weiss. Ruby knows her key wouldn't be safe in any of Yang's belongings unless that belonging never moved." The ninja slowly pulled the pillow from beneath Ruby's head and showed it to the others. "Remember how Yang kept tearing her pillow case off in her sleep and you had bought her one that zipped up?"
"Yes, only barbarians sleep on pillows with no case." Weiss pointed out.
Blake unzipped the pillow case, then turned the pillow around and began to give it a few small shakes. To their surprise (except Blake's) a small key tumbled out from inside the case and onto the floor. "See?" She then lifted the small girl's head and replaced the pillow. "It was indeed safe."
"Aw! That's so cute!" Yang squealed as she fought off the urge to hug her sister. "I'm hugging her when she wakes up!"
"She'll wake up now if you don't be quiet!" Weiss hissed as she picked up the key off the floor and sat down at the desk. "Now, stop clowning around and let's see what's in here!" The heiress was about to slip the key into the top left drawer when Blake quickly took the key and went over to her bookshelves. "Hey! What are you doing?!"
The cat merely smirked as she showed them what she had done, which was trace the key's outline onto a slip of paper. "This way we can make our own if we need to get into the desk again."
"Genius!" Yang shouted as she fist pumped the air. "No more hiding stuff from us!"
"That's quite an invasion of privacy, don't you think?" Weiss asked as she crossed her arms, watching the ninja come back over to the desk and unlock the first drawer.
"Coming from the girl who got out of bed just to help us snoop through her leader's things?" Blake shot back with a teasing tone. She chuckled when the heiress snorted, a blush dusting her cheeks.
Upon opening the drawer, they were greeted by sketch books of different sizes and some other art tools. They made note to scan through her books at another time before dropping down to the bottom left drawer. This one was filled with Ruby's tools and whetstones as well as vials of black dust, Weiss huffing at the poor quality and saying how she would be replacing it with her own grade. The top right drawer was filled with countless items ranging from sizes and shapes, nothing more then knick-knacks. The last drawer, and their last hope in finding the cause of the odd behavior, was filled with papers which were oddly placed face down.
"I can't believe we want to all this trouble for...for...this!" Weiss groaned as she snatched a sheet of paper and waved it in front of the other girl's faces. "I should have stayed in bed! Ruby just isn't the type of person to hide anything worth while!" As she spoke this, Yang quickly grabbed her wrist to stop her waving. "Ow! Not so tight, you mongrel!"
"So...that's why she's been like this." Yang whispered, her eyes full of concern and hurt. "But...why didn't she come to me?"
Weiss was about to ask for the blonde to explain her statement, but then noticed she could see through the paper herself. It was a test from one of their classes, and it was marked horribly. The grade upon the paper was that of barely passing, if it indeed passed. So, she was having trouble in her classes?
"I don't understand, though. Ruby is always working on assignments and studying, how can she be doing so poorly?" Blake asked no one in particular.
It was then Yang released Weiss' wrist and began to look through the rest of the papers, finding more of the same. "This just...doesn't make sense." It was then something clicked for the blonde, something that shook her to the core. "Oh gods...she's two years ahead..." Yang looked up to stare at her baffled team mates. "She's two years ahead!"
"Or rather...behind." Blake finished, her gaze turning to see the slumbering face of the younger. "I...I never even gave it a thought."
"I feel dreadful, awfully dreadful." Weiss sighed as she hugged herself. "I'm always bringing that point up but...I never thought about what that truly entailed."
"And I was so happy that my baby sis would be here all four years with me that I completely forgot about all the lessons she was missing." Yang sighed as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Now look at her, all run down and burnt out. Oh, why didn't she come to me for help?"
"We should wake her and demand for her to tell us why she refuses to ask us." Weiss huffed as she went to go do just that, but when Yang moved in front of her, she paused. "What are you doing?"
"She's sleepin' and that's what she needs most right now! Trust me, there's nothing I want to do more then shake some sense into her but...there just as to be a reason why she didn't come to us!"
"Maybe because she felt she couldn't?" The girls jumped to see Jaune standing at the doorway, a look of understanding written across his face.
"What do you mean?" Blake asked.
"And why does it sound like you knew about this?!" Yang snarled, flames erupting from her locks.
"I-I...well...I found out by accident..." Jaune gulped as he held his hands in front of him. "I...kinda sorta...copied off her during our last test and...let's just say I could have scored better on my own."
More flames arose from the blonde as she took a step closer to the trembling boy. "How long? How long have you known?" The growl that came from the girl sounded more like a beast then a human.
"We ju-just figured it out yourselves!" Jaune squeaked.
"'We'?" Weiss asked. As if on cue, or perhaps ratted out, the rest of team JNPR poked their heads into the room, each one looking sad and even guilty.
"At first..." Pyrrha sighed, her eyes downcast. "We had thought she just did not answer the questions fully, but upon reading her answers..."
"We then discovered that she knew nothing about the material nor of the events that led up to them." Ren finished for her. "We assumed that she would have reached out for help, but upon hearing all of the noise coming from in here we then figured that she didn't."
"Then Jaune was all like 'I'm sure it's hard for her not knowing any of this stuff and I'm sure her pride has taken a big hit.' And then we were all like, 'what do you mean'? And then Jaune said-" Nora was then cut off my Ren's hand over her mouth.
"I said that she was so happy that she got accepted here and that she was with her older sister and now she was doing horribly. I know how awful that feels, just like I know why she didn't ask for help. She didn't want anyone's pity or to feel like a burden to anyone, she wanted to do it on her own and feel good about it, instead of bad." Jaune explained. "It's why I refused help from Pyrrha, but now that I'm getting help...I wished that I had asked sooner."
Yang chewed on her lip in thought before she huffed and turned around. "I'm hugging her." She spoke before quickly making her to the slumbering girl and wrapped her in a hug, dragging her from the bed; covers and all, and just held her closer to her chest.
"And here I thought it was Ruby who was the hug lover." Weiss groaned as she watched the brawler cuddle the smaller sibling like a teddy bear. "Would you just put her back? I though you said she needed sleep?"
Ruby began to groan and move in Yang's arms before speaking. "Hmmm, what's with all the noise? Why am I floating? Is this a dream?"
Yang chuckled as she pressed her cheek against her sister's."No baby sister, this isn't a dream." She felt the other give off a sigh before kissing a temple. "So, we broke into your desk and guess what we found."
Ruby stiffened immediately at her older sister's words. How did they find her key?! She had hidden it so well! Now, to make things worse, they knew about her grades and probably thought she was stupid or something. Lord knows what Weiss was thinking about her right now. Ruby let loose a deep, pitiful groan before she buried her head into the crook of her sister's neck. Though her eyes were still covered up by her sleeping mask, she still didn't want to be facing anyone.
"You could have at least let her wake up first." Blake sighed as watched Ruby try to make herself shrink.
"Wanna talk about it?" Yang asked.
"No." It was a bitter, quick snap that sounded so alien coming from the happy girl.
"Well, too bad." Yang snorted. "So, start talking." There was a heavy silence in the room, everyone waiting for the youngest to either start talking to them, or start biting her sibling's neck, aiming for the jugular vain.
"Alright...My classes are...I'm not...I'm not stupid! I'm just..." Ruby swallowed hard, the forming lump in her throat making it hard to speak as well as the burning tears that was welling up in her eyes. "Having a hard time." There was a pause before the red head continued. "I...I don't know why I can't just...learn the stuff! I try! I pay attention in class and I take notes!"
"Rubes..." Yang sighed as she let her sister down so she may stand before she removed the sleeping mask from the younger's eyes. "You know that we don't think any less of you, hell, we just now realized what being two years ahead meant, if anyone should be called dumb it should be us!"
"Excuse you, but I don't think we should go that far." Weiss mumbled.
"Weren't you all like, 'I feel dreadful for not thinking', or something like that?" Yang mocked, making her voice high and whiney.
"First off, I do not sound like that and lastly, fuck off." Weiss snorted as she crossed her arms, a dusting of color on her cheeks.
Before Yang and Weiss started to really go after each other, Blake cleared her throat to gather everyone's attention. "I believe what we're trying to say, in our own roundabout ways, is that we care for you and do not think poorly of you."
"Blake is right, if you need help, you should just ask. It's really no trouble." Pyrrha smiled as the rest of her team nodded in agreement.
"Yeah! Ren can help us both! It'll be a quiz party! Jaune and Pyrrha don't play because they're too busy making out, but it's fine!" Nora rambled, ignoring the sigh of Ren and the shouts of denial from the blushing couple.
"You also have us. I could tutor you in battle thesis and your essay writing and I know Blake is very good in history." Weiss pointed out. "I have no idea what the brute could help you in, though."
"Excuse you!" Yang mocked again, earning a snarl from the smaller, white haired maiden. "I happen to be awesome in everything, thank you very much!"
"The only thing you are 'awesome' in, is snoring and eating!" Weiss shot back, her eye twitching in annoyance. It was really too early for any of this.
Ruby smiled as she hugged the blankets tighter around herself. "I'd...I'd like that."
~~ Bonus~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ruby groaned as she stumbled her way down the hall, making her way toward her room and to her glorious bed. She had been getting tutored by everyone in one way or another and making up tests if the teachers allowed her to do so. She has made quite a bit of progress, she had to admit, but with all the work she had been put through (Weiss and Blake were tyrants), she was ready to just fall into her bed and go off to Rubyland.
After bouncing off the walls and almost tumbling over her own feet, she finally made it to her room and opened the door to see that everyone, team JNPR included, hanging out in their dorm room looking through and messing with...
...all her things...
...from inside her desk...
Ruby's eyes shot open as she saw Pyrrha, Jaune, and Blake going through her sketch books. Weiss was switching out all her dust powder with her brand and even adding other types, Nora and Ren playing with her knick-knacks (more like Nora pretending to attack Ren with them), and Yang was telling everyone the tale of Sir Floats...her rubber ducky...which she was waving around for all to see.
Everyone turned to look at the steaming red head, her eyes closed tightly, fists clenched and held firmly against her sides, her small form shaking in anger.
"Rubes?"
"HOW?! How do you keep FINDING my key?!" The younger barked, throwing her hands up in the air. This was not the first time her team as well as her friends have found their way into her desk without her permission. "I've hidden it in the flour, I've hidden it in my underwear drawer, I've even built a secret compartment in Weiss' head broad! How in the world do you keep finding it!" She stomped over to Yang's poster of the Achieve Men and removed it to show her small key taped behind it. "And you always put it back like I wouldn't know you found it!"
"Ruby, listen, we-" Blake was about to explain about the spare they made when her leader turned and glared at her, shutting her up immediately.
"Well, no one will be getting this key! EVER!" And with that, the cloak wearing fifteen year old dropped the metal key in her mouth and swallowed it. "AH! NOW WHAT?!"
Everyone stared at her, mouths agape in horror and awe at what they had just seen. It was then that Blake slowly lifted the spare key into view of everyone just as Yang rushed over to Ruby, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her wildly.
"WE MADE A SPARE, YOU DUMB ASS! THERE WAS NO WAY WE COULD KEEP FINDING THAT DAMN THING!" Yang turned to everyone as she threw the dizzy sibling over her shoulder. "I'm taking her to the nurse!" And with that, she was off, screaming for people to move out of the way or die.
As everyone sighed and held their faces in their hands, Weiss just blinked as she looked at her head broad. "...I feel violated and used all at the same time."
"When did she even have time to do that?" Ren asked as he turned to see the remaining members of RWBY just shrug.
Blake snorted playfully, smirking all the while. "I think Weiss can agree, when it come to Ruby and Yang, logic goes out the window." Of course, no one could argue with that statement.
