Edit (06/19/16): Not much change other than grammar
Ruby was back in the infirmary again for the second time since she entered Beacon Academy. But this time, she woke up before Yang could even put her down in one of the beds that the school infirmary had.
"Yang, put me down!" Ruby pouted, "I can walk myself."
"Ruby, do you remember what happened a few minutes ago?" Yang asked in a serious tone.
"Yeah, I was sparring with this guy and Weiss comes to save me," Ruby retorted, "I'm not a little kid anymore, Yang. I can handle myself!"
"What do you mean by that?" Yang stated, "You were holding your chest as if you were in serious pain! You even used your semblance when the doctor told to never use it again! I let it go and this is what happens…"
"He never said that!" Ruby screamed and jumped off of Yang's arms, "He said that I can't use it for too long or I faint! You're not mom, Ya-"
Yang's eyes filled with anger and tears at the same time. But Ruby felt a sharp pain on her cheek as Yang slapped her in front of everyone that was present in the infirmary.
"I may not be mom but Ruby, dad and I are the only ones left here for you. Do you know how terrible I felt when you almost died on us? Do you have any clue what it did to dad? Dad and I fought every day because you were at the hospital in a coma! I had to give up on Blake. I'm in love with her and I still am but I did it so I could work late into the night as a bartender in some crappy rundown bar just to get some extra money for your treatment in the hospital. AND ALL THIS HAPPENED WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING BECAUSE YOU GOT CARELESS ON THE DAY OF YOUR BIRTHDAY!"
Ruby started tearing up as well but Yang still wasn't finished with venting out her frustrations, "Dad didn't even approve me working into the night when he found out because he knew that if Beacon caught me working in that bar, I'd be expelled. And even today Ruby, dad's been working extra shifts into the night to pay for everything including my arm, our tuition, and your medical expenses and I've been looking for jobs that would accept a worthless huntress-in-training. So don't you dare, Ruby Rose, don't you dare insult me or talk crap about the way I treat you. I'm doing this you're only sister that I have in this world and no one can replace you like mom.
Yang walked out of the room and Blake, hearing all of this ran after her and Ruby was left in the room with Weiss and Vi who were feeling terrible about the fight that the two sisters had and the revelation of what Yang had been doing. Hearing the reality of her injury, Ruby broke down into a fit of sobs of tears continuously flowed down her cheeks as she shoved her head down on a bed.
While crying, Ruby felt a warm hand rub her back as she continued to cry. Fortunately, it was just the three of them in the infirmary at the moment and Ruby had never cried as hard when she lost her mother.
Weiss and Vi helped Ruby get to her bed as she stubbornly refused to go out the infirmary and Weiss had to pry the red-haired girl out of the bed before they dragged her out of the hall to team Lavender's dorm room.
Vi thanked Weiss, who managed to grab some chocolate chip cookies, and laid down next to Ruby facing the wall. Vi took a single cookie and hovered it by Ruby's nose. Ruby tried covering her and her eyes so that she wouldn't be tempted by the cookie in which every single person who knew something about the long and red haired, cutest girl to attend Beacon academy that she could never resist cookies whatever she did to get her own thoughts away from eating a cookie.
Ruby took the cookie with her mouth and munched on the cookie and Vi giggled.
"I knew you could never resist it," Vi chuckled, attempting to lighten up the sad mood that was lingering in the air "I've known you for a long time, bestie. Not once have I ever seen you like this but I know you've seen me like that a multitude of times when we were back at Signal. Every single time you saw me like that, which was every time, you've never failed to bring back the smile on face. Now I want to give back to you what I naturally owe you. But first, you need to sleep. We'll talk all about this tomorrow when you're feeling all better, okay bestie?"
Ruby nodded weakly and soon fell asleep.
Lucian was tugging the sides of Ruby's pajama shirt to wake her up but Ruby swatted his hand off of her then went back to sleep. Dewitt, on the other hand, didn't pay the siblings and Ruby any attention and took his towel and went to the bathroom to take a shower. Vi accidentally fell asleep as she tried to comfort Ruby and make her to stop crying and messing up the bed sheets.
After several unsuccessful attempts at waking the girls from getting them late to class, Lucian finally gave up and simply said that they'd be late if they don't wake up soon and he waited outside the bathroom for his turn at the shower.
Half an hour passed, Vi woke up and looked up at the time and at the same time panicking since they were already late for classes. She shook Ruby and the red-haired girl simply moaned in annoyance.
"Ruby, we're late for class!" Vi panicked and headed to the shower while Ruby, still drowsy from sleep tried to get up only to fall down to the floor on her side and groaned in pain.
"I need to take a shower," Ruby moaned as she tried to get up from the floor and then headed to the bathroom not realizing that Vi was already inside taking a shower. Her eyes still blurry from the dried up tears that hardened during her sleep, she undressed herself and got inside.
Ruby suddenly heard a gasp and she rubbed her eyes to see Vi covering herself with her two hands.
"Sorry!" Ruby apologized, "I didn't see anything! My hair blocked everything, I swear!"
"It's fine," Vi stated, "Just get ready when I leave."
After showering, the two friends quickly dropped by the cafeteria and to Ruby's delight, they only had a handful of strawberries left and she shared with Vi as they rushed into their first class.
Professor Port was lecturing on the anatomy of Beowolves and what kind of weapons was best used to effectively combat these creatures of Grimm when Ruby and Vi tried to sneak inside only to be caught by the professor and assigned the two to stay for break for being late to class. Ruby groaned and Vi glared at Lucian who never woke them up after his turn in the shower.
Other than their punishment for being late, everything went smoothly and Ruby was actually looking forward to combat class. Her turn to spar with another student was already done so all she had to do today was watch the rest of the first year students fight each other until one loses enough aura energy.
"Hi, Weiss," Ruby cheered, her face glowing with happiness, "Thanks for saving me yesterday and I'm sorry about what happened too. I think I went too far with Yang…"
"Don't apologize to me, you dolt," Weiss snapped, without the glare, "Do it to your sister. You didn't do anything to me, obviously."
Ruby looked down and asked where her sister was and Weiss replied that she was crying her eyes off in her their dorm room. Ruby felt sad and relieved at the same time. I can talk to Yang after this class since it's the last one for the day, Ruby thought to herself.
The matches continued to be hosted by the headmaster but she was more vigilant this time due to Ruby's match incident and she kind of felt bad but Ruby saw new weapons and Ruby couldn't contain herself as she stared in wonder, devising ways how each weapon that each hunter-in-training used them effectively in her own imagination, which she tends to do whenever she met new weapons especially in Atlas or Vale weapon conventions.
The class ended with the last match being one-sided for the short guy with short daggers compared the tall guy with a large gun-blade. Ruby told Vi to go ahead to their dorm room so they could talk later which she agreed and replied that she had something to do anyway and asked Weiss to go with her to their dorm room so she could talk to Yang and apologize.
"Yang?" Ruby called out softly while slowly approaching her sister, "Are you awake?" Weiss took a seat on her own bed and crossed her arms and simply observed whatever was going to happen between the siblings.
"Go away, Ruby," Yang hissed, muffled by her pillow."
"I'm sorry, Yang. I didn't mean to make you angry…"
Yang did not respond verbally. Instead, she lifted her body upwards in a sitting position with her pillow covering her torso and glared at Ruby. Ruby wanted to sit right next to her but didn't know whether it was a good idea to sit next to an angry close ranged specialist-slash-brawler.
"Come sit next to me," Yang said, making space for Ruby on her bed and patting the bed indicating where Ruby should sit. Ruby complied and sat down next to Yang. Weiss gave a small smile which captivated Ruby for a second before returning her attention back to her sister.
Yang suddenly hugged her sister, something Ruby did not expect an angry sister to do when she was definitely angry. "I'm sorry, baby sis. I knew I was being too strict on you but my overprotectiveness always got in the way because of you know what… I failed as a sister, Ruby. I thi-"
"Don't say that!" Ruby interrupted, "You'll always be the best sister for me. I'll never think less of you because you're my only sister, Yang and I'm really sorry for being not a good sister to you."
No words came out of Yang's mouth and she hugged her sister tighter.
"Yang, y-you're crushing me…"
"Oh, sorry about that," Yang apologized, loosening her deathly grip on Ruby.
"I'll talk to you later, Weiss, Yang." Weiss nodded and Ruby left the room. Aqua and Blake came in as Ruby opened the door and she said hello before dashing off to her room.
Ruby stood in front of room one hundred twenty-five and gently opened the door only to find Vi and Lucian arguing about something Ruby didn't understand. Dewitt was in the middle of the two, acting as a buffer between the siblings in case they start getting into a physical fight with each other.
"You just won't listen to me," Vi roared.
"Of course I won't listen to a thing you say. You've been getting on my nerves!"
"Hi, Ruby," Dewitt calmly said.
Ruby waved at Dewitt and took Lucian by his wrist and used her semblance to sit down in a chair and grabbed Vi to her bed where the two now sat together.
"What is happening between the two of you?!" Ruby questioned.
"Luke started all of this!" Vi spoke, trying to calm down as well.
"These have been going at it for at least five minutes," Dewitt stated, "I don't even know what it's even about."
"Lucian, you're the leader of team Lavender. Couldn't you make some sort of terms that'll make you and you and Vi sort of happy?" Ruby was practically begging Lucian.
"So now you're on her side?" Lucian said sarcastically and angrily.
"I'm on both of your sides!" Ruby replied, "Besides, you haven't answered my question. Why were the two of fighting the past few days? I was going to resolve with the two of you but because of my poor health, I haven't had the time!"
"Fine!" Lucian yelled, "We're fighting over her freaking relationships with other people and I don't approve of who she likes!"
"Um… Is that it?" Ruby stated.
Vi gave a frustrated groan and attempted to punch his brother in the face but with Dewitt's quick thinking, he was able to put the distance between the two together again. "You act as if you own my life! Guess what?" Vi screamed, "You don't! Grow a pair and get over it! Besides, do I even say anything about you having a crush on my bestie? No!"
Ruby's eyes widened at the sudden fact that Vi had just disclosed. Not that Ruby has anything against her leader having a crush on her but no one has ever liked the socially awkward girl that only has the time for Crescent Rose, Vi, Yang, and weapons. But she realized that she wasn't the one that should be widening her eyes when she saw Lucian cover his face in embarrassment. Dewitt almost snickered if Lucian hadn't punch his shoulder hard.
"Uh…," Ruby said, "I don't know what to say about all of this…"
"Bestie," Vi said, chuckling slightly, "You've been dating Crescent Rose for as long as I remember. You even sleep in bed with her by your side.
Ruby's face turned red and flustered and she puffed her cheeks, "No, I don't! Don't change the subject, Vi!" As soon as Ruby finished speaking, Lucian ran for the door and went outside in a hurry. "Vi, that wasn't very nice of you! You should've kept it a secret if he didn't want me to know."
"Well," Vi said, "He was going to tell you next week anyway. But this is about me! I'm being selfish right now but he's just pissing me off so much."
"Okay," Ruby said. She stood up and walked over to Dewitt and motioned a hand over to the door.
"What? What did I do?"
"Girl's talk."
"Okay," Dewitt replied.
Once he was out of the dorm room, Ruby plopped herself onto her bed and clutched her chest which was beginning to ache. Vi saw this and realized what their commotion had done to her.
"I'm so sorry, bestie!" Vi said in a worried tone, "I didn't mean for this to happen to you."
"Don't worry," Ruby said, "I need to start using my semblance for frequently anyway. My last visit to the doctor had me start using it anyway alongside with my medicine. I think that you should talk to your brother about this in a more calm way and does Lucian know him?"
"Yeah," Vi replied, "You know him too."
"I'm not going to pry for any information on who you like, Vi," Ruby spoke, "But I hope this would help solve your issues with Lucian and now I have to think about all of this… If you need someone beside you when you talk to Lucian, don't hesitate to ask me."
"Thanks, bestie," Vi said apologetically, "It seems that you helped me out with my problems once again."
"Always glad to help my best friend, Vi."
"Want to talk about what happened with Yang?"
"No, thanks. We resolved it already but thanks for the offer though and do you still have those strawberry stash you kept two days ago?" Ruby grinned deviously and Vi chuckled and took out a bag of strawberries inside her drawer closet and the two ate the strawberries together as they told stories to each other.
Four days later, Ruby and Vi decided to go to downtown Vale together when Vi convinced her bestie to go clothes shopping with her under one condition: they hit a dust shop. Ruby needed to buy the latest issue of Weapon Magazine and see if there could be some components that could allow Crescent Rose to use raw dust for the blade.
The two visited a clothing store first and Ruby having no interest in looking like a girly girl was dragged around by her cloak by Vi around the store. When Vi saw some clothes that she wanted to wear, she told Ruby to stay put and went to the fitting rooms to wear them.
Ruby patiently waited for Vi to come out and she immediately regretted not bringing her headphones and scroll with her and Ruby quickly got bored. Clothes didn't interest her a single bit and Ruby thought that she was probably doing it for the guy she liked. Nonetheless, Ruby found everything in the clothing store boring and Ruby was going to be stuck there for at least an hour based on their previous escapades at Signal Academy.
While waiting and looking up the ceiling to count how many tiles there were, Ruby looked down and saw Weiss to her immediate right. Weiss was browsing the store's catalog and choosing what to buy.
"Hey, Weiss," Ruby greeted making Weiss jump slightly, "Fancy meeting you here."
"Hello, Ruby," Weiss acknowledged, "I assume you're shopping for clothes?"
"No," Ruby said sadly, "I got dragged by Vi into coming here and none of the clothes here would look good on me anyway."
"Hmm…" Weiss looked at Ruby's body from to toe and thought of something and pulled Ruby for her to follow her. "I think I can prove you wrong."
Weiss grabbed a bunch of clothes from the racks and brought Ruby to the fitting rooms and they entered inside a single room.
"Ruby, I want you to take off your clothes and put these on," Weiss handed her a long red dress and a black stockings that would go well with the dress, "It'll be simple but you'll like it when you see yourself."
For some reason, stripping her clothes off in front of Weiss made her embarrassed ten times more if she were to do this in front of Yang but she didn't want to waste Weiss' time nor did she want to make Vi think that she ran off and left her alone so Ruby quickly took off her garments. Plus, Ruby forgot to bring her scroll along with her headphones so she couldn't contact Vi if she wanted to.
Ruby asked for some help taking her corset off and Weiss agreed but as soon as Weiss was able to remove the corset, her fingers had accidentally brushed her back and sent chills to her entire body.
"Sorry about that," Weiss said.
"N-no! It's fine!"
"You seem tense," Weiss noted, "Are you alright, Ruby?"
"Y-yeah! It's just cold in here. Hehe. Yeah, it's just cold in here…"
"Alright, then."
Ruby took off her long sleeved shirt and underneath remained simple underwear, nothing special. Feeling more embarrassed, Ruby turned away from Weiss and put on the dress at once. Then, she took out her feet from her boots and replaced her pants with the stockings that Weiss had made her wear. Once she was done, she turned back to face Weiss.
"Go look at yourself on the mirror."
Ruby followed her instruction and saw herself a completely different person. "Whoa! Is that me?"
"Yes, and I think you look very beautiful and I proved you wrong."
Ruby's face filled with red and with her pale skin, the blush was very noticeable, "T-thanks, I guess…"
"Do you like it?" Weiss asked.
"Very."
"Okay, take them off and I'll buy them for you," Weiss said.
"You don't have to, Weiss. I have enough Lien to pay for these!" Ruby said.
"It'll be my gift as thanks for your sister. I owe her a lot of favors ever since I started attending Beacon."
"Oh, thank you so much then."
"You don't have to be so formal, Ruby. You're a friend's sister which makes you my friend too."
"Thanks, Weiss!" Ruby wanted to hug Weiss but the things she felt earlier stopped her from doing so.
"Anyway, let's get you dressed back and out of here," Weiss said with a warm smile.
Ruby nodded and left the fitting room. When they got out, she saw Vi sitting on a bench looking at her scroll.
"There you are, bestie!" Vi sighed in relief, "I thought that you left to the dust shop without me! Thanks for looking out for Ruby, Weiss."
"No problem," Weiss said.
"Sorry. Hehe," Ruby smiled, "Weiss dragged me into buying clothes."
Weiss left the two to pay for Ruby's clothes and gave the shopping bag to Ruby who thanked Weiss at least five times before letting go.
"Now to the dust shop," Ruby yelled, making everyone at the clothing store look at her. Ruby shied away and felt embarrassed again but to her, this was a different kind of embarrassment.
"You two move along. I still haven't finished shopping here and have a nice day," Weiss said.
"See you later, Weiss," Ruby waved.
The two friends got out of the clothing store with Ruby carrying a single bag while Vi held five or six bags with both her arms and they headed their way to the dust shop called "From Dust Till Dawn"