Note: For a request submitted to rwbyships on Tumblr.

Request: Ruby Rose & Blake Belladonna (Ladybug); "Platonic Ladybug, bored Ruby bugging Blake well(sic) she's reading (Blake finds it secretly adorable, like a little sister)". (Request by Anon)

Family of Choice

Summary: Blake is, as ever, trying to read. Ruby, bored, is being a bit of a pest, but Blake finds it hard to stay mad.

Ruby was getting bored.

Blake was able to put that impression down to basically intuition, tipped off by her leader's restlessly drumming fingers, weary sighs, and the fact that the two of them were sitting back-to-back, and Ruby had just flung her head back to rest on Blake's shoulder while groaning, "Soooo boooored…"

Blake did not deign to reply. It was a lazy Sunday; Yang was ensconced with a punching bag somewhere, and Weiss had disappeared, citing some important call, though she wouldn't tell them for what. If it was something that needed work done, maybe she could offer to help with the research.

They had no homework, and all was quiet on the…extracurricular front. They had been poking around, trying to find out more about the intruder Ruby had confronted during the dance last semester. But the Atlesian Military was stonewalling even Weiss, and Ruby hadn't seen her friend Penny, who she was convinced might be able to help them.

Stymied, Blake had elected to use her free time to relax and vanish into a book, this one an old favourite about a jaded smuggler and his ragtag crew that became something more like family.

Ruby flipped around to rest her chin on Blake's shoulder instead. "Blaaaake…" she whined.

"You know what always cures my boredom? Reading a book," Blake said pointedly, nudging Ruby's bony chin over an inch or so, so that she was no longer jabbing a pressure point. She turned a page, equally pointedly.

Evidently unimpressed, Ruby blew a raspberry, jumping to her feet and tugging at Blake's sleeve. "Let's grab a common room with JNPR and do some karaoke!" she exclaimed.

Blake gave her a flat look. "You've got the wrong teammate for that."

Ruby pouted. From anyone else, it might have been a scowl but…Ruby just wasn't capable of that. "Weiss never sings in front of me," she complained. "It's totally unfair, because she's really, really good!"

Blake blinked as she turned another page. "Really? I hear her sing from time to time, and she doesn't stop if she notices me listening."

Ruby was pouting worse than ever, hands flailing as the story unfolded. "I know! She only stops if she realizes anyone else can hear. Yang and I heard her from down the hallway last week, and she quit the second I turned the doorknob. So I thought, 'Well, maybe she only sings when she's alone', but when we came in, you were in bed reading."

"Huh. What was she singing?" Blake asked, actually lowering her book, trying to remember the occasion Ruby was talking about.

"Um. That new single Pyrrha is always humming," Ruby said, face scrunching adorably as she tried to remember. "The one JNPR all danced to. 'Shine'?"

Ruby tried to whistle a few bars; she was almost certainly off-key, but Blake thought she recognized the rhythm. After a moment, her mind filled in some of the words.

"Isn't that a love song?" she said uncertainly.

Ruby shrugged. "Yang decided she was secretly serenading you, waiting for you to catch on," she giggled.

Blake threw a pillow at her, returning to her book to hide the color rising in her cheeks as she tried not to think about how much that thought appealed. If that were true…

She was about to lose herself in the book again, when Ruby appeared in front of her in a shower of petals and dragged the book back down to peer at Blake's face.

"You're blushing."

Fighting to keep her composure, Blake raised an eyebrow, but Ruby just grinned and poked at Blake's cheekbones.

"You can deny it all you want, but I can see it," she sing-songed.

With a huff, Blake let the book drop, fixing Ruby with a gimlet eye. Sensing danger, Ruby vanished again, and Blake's fingers closed only on scattered rose petals.

"Ruby…"

"Oh come on, Blake, let's go do something. I know you've read that book before; you gave it to me!" Ruby cajoled.

"I picked this out to read because of you, since we were both going to read," Blake sighed, marking her place and setting the book aside. At Ruby's puzzled look, she clarified. "I think of us like River and Simon," naming two siblings who gave up a cushy life to take care of each other.

In another storm of rose petals, Ruby had wrapped Blake in a rib-cracking hug. "I love our team," she gushed. "'Cause I have Yang, and Weiss is warming up, and you're being more open, and it's like I have three sisters now!"

A/N: Ladybug is just as adorable when it's totally platonic! I am all about families of choice.

(Also maybe some hinted background Monochrome because I'm 95% sure I know who requested this and they won't mind and also I just want dashingicecream -senpai to notice me because their Monochrome art is so adorable I want to live in it.)

On a separate note, I recorded a podfic for my own story Thinking Makes It Seem…, (part 11 of this very collection). It is only available on AO3 due to FFN's limitations, and it's pretty terrible (I definitely need more practice), but I tried.
*pins on a crumpled and misshapen gold star*