Ch. 16 Elated morning
That morning Ruby was the first to wake up. It took her a while to get her bearings and realise where she was. She was lying on a sleeping bag in the storage room, using Jaune's chest as a pillow. Apparently they had fallen asleep while talking last night.
The storeroom didn't exactly have a lot of natural light and the harsh white ceiling lamps had dimmed due to a lack of movement. The opaque glass panels of the doors to the workshop let in just enough orange sunlight to let her know it was early morning. Which meant they should probably get up before anyone happened to stumble upon them.
Ruby was still a little uncertain about things, but she was now officially dating Jaune. And despite the uncertainty she was excited about the new possibilities that came with that status.
She would have loved to announce their relationship to the world, but they had already decided to keep their relationship private. Or as private as possible anyway. Neither had any qualms about letting their teammates know, but Ruby did manage to convince Jaune that keeping her sister, and by extension all of their other classmates, out of the loop was for the best. Yang meant well, but Ruby wasn't about to have her first real relationship ended by Yang's version of giving Jaune the talk. Or worse, Yang could tell their dad. Ruby had no doubt he would drop everything just to come to Beacon to meet Jaune.
Ruby shook off the thoughts of her family ending her boyfriend and instead turned her attention to waking the sleepyhead.
"Jaune…"
She shook his shoulder in an attempt to wake him up. Jaune, still asleep, groaned as he stretched before attempting to turn on his side. Instead he pushed Ruby off balance, making her fall prone on Jaune's chest with a yelp.
Jaune's eyes shot open thanks to the sudden impact. A brief moment of panic flashed through his mind before he met eyes with her. A few moments later he couldn't help but laugh at Ruby's cute pout.
"This is your fault!"
"Good morning to you too, Ruby. How is this my fault?"
"You tried to roll over and knocked me down."
"I guess I really made you fall for me?"
"Jaune…"
"Yes?"
"We haven't even been dating for a day. Don't make me break up with you."
Jaune would be terrified by the prospect, if Ruby didn't have an amused smile on her face.
"So… are we getting up, or am I that comfortable?"
"I may consider getting up in exchange for a kiss."
"...I will if you want to, but I'd rather brush my teeth before we do."
Realisation dawned on Ruby and she sprung up, covering her mouth with her hands and showering Jaune with falling rose petals. Her eyes wide with the sheer horror of what she was about to do before brushing her own teeth.
"Good call! I need to go brush my teeth and get a shower."
"Go ahead, I'll pack up before I go back. See you back in our dorm room."
=O=O=O=
When Jaune returned to Fort Ranger, he could hear the running water from the bathroom. Pulling back the blanket dividing the entrance from the fort proper he was faced with both Ren and Nora awake but still in their pyjamas, sitting around the coffee table. Nora offered him a grin but said nothing, uncharacteristically it was Ren that spoke up.
"I take it you talked it out successfully."
"We did. Thank you both for your support."
It was only then that Nora spoke up.
"For how difficult it was to convince Ruby to even talk to you, you two sure were gone for the whole night."
"Guess we fell asleep while talking."
"You must have done more than talking."
Jaune felt like being mischievous, deciding that Ruby probably wouldn't mind playing along later. And so instead of denying he smiled at Nora before replying.
"I don't kiss and tell."
Once Ruby emerged from the bathroom, having changed from her outfit to her school uniform, she gave Jaune a quick peck on the cheek before ushering him to the bathroom to get cleaned too.
Of course this pretty much cemented Nora's opinion on what happened. Since she didn't have the opportunity to interrogate Ruby when she first came back, she grabbed her by the arm and forced her to sit at the table.
"Come on Ruby, give us the deets!"
It took Ruby a few seconds of confusion before realising what had happened. Jaune just threw her under the bus called Nora. And while on one hand she appreciated that Jaune didn't brag or anything, Nora's line of increasingly inappropriate questioning gave her the correct impression of what had happened.
Unfortunately for Ruby, her vehement denial paired with the blush on her face the mere mention of some of doing some of those things brought, didn't help things at all.
To Ren's credit he managed to keep a poker face going throughout the whole line of questioning. That however was the most he could do as his entire focus was on pretending he wasn't mentally present in the conversation. He was certain that if he tried to stop Nora his composure would crack in some way.
Nora held onto Ruby's arm as she interrogated her.
=O=O=O=
Roman woke up with a headache. Perhaps he celebrated a bit too hard last night. But who wouldn't. The plan was going well, dust was rolling in and most importantly he'd survived the prolonged company of THAT bitch.
There were several instances where he was almost sure she would either take his head off or burn him to ashes… now that he thought about it, probably both.
But she didn't. She had accepted the setbacks, saying they were inevitable, and more importantly left.
She was gone, at least for a while and while her promise of coming back with "some animals to help" didn't sound promising, for now that meant Roman was left to his devices.
Unfortunately she had also hinted at needing Neo for something down the line.
The fact he had then drunk two bottles of expensive whisky on his own and passed out in his apartment was of course unrelated to that. He couldn't afford to show his attachment to her. If he did? The facade would crack and losing his life would be a forgone conclusion.
Though maybe if it was either his life or Neo's? He was no longer sure which he would choose.
Right now though he could do nothing against the bitch. And knowing that hurt.
=O=O=O=
Team RNJR sat about for most of the day. Most of it was spent doing homework and other class related things. Ren was mostly done with his work and spent his time helping. Surprisingly Nora had done most of hers, while Ruby and Jaune were behind. The pair were preoccupied with their weapon projects and kept pushing the homework back in favour of spending time in the smithy.
Jaune's notes came in handy throughout the day. His grimm studies notes were as complete as they could be. His history notes, while hastily scribbled in handwriting so awful he had to read them out loud for Ruby to copy them down. Ren had notes from each class as well, though he only focussed on the main point and often missed out on some of the details.
Ruby mostly took note of broader topics she'd need to catch up on later as while she skipped two years, she still received the most formal huntsman training out of all her team. Unfortunately for her, "later" was in fact now so she had to read up on those unknown topics before doing her homework.
Jaune tried to help where he could but outside of what they learned in class he was about as lost as the rest of the team. Nora on the other hand, having already finished all her homework at that point, provided explanations of many things. Though outside questions related to dust her answers had to be frequently amended by Ren. And even where dust was concerned, Jaune was fairly sure some of those procedures were either workarounds or just downright violations of safety procedures.
It was a mostly peaceful day, one the whole team spent together. That is right up until a very excited Yang gave all of them a fright by loudly knocking on the door.
For a brief second Ruby contemplated just how Yang found out so quickly. Then she realised it likely was about something else entirely. Mostly because Yang would break down the door on her way to maim her boyfriend.
"Guys? You in there?"
"Coming!" shouted Ruby before getting up, much to Nora's amusement until she got elbowed by Ren. That morning's conversation was still fresh in their minds, but that was no reason to reveal the private relationship.
"Finally! Why didn't you reply to my messages?"
"Oh, we were studying for the whole day, so all our stuff's on silent mode. No distractions from homework."
Ruby deflated a little when she mentioned homework. She was the last one still working on it.
"Right… anyway Goodwitch sent a memo about a field trip. The girls from BSMT came up with a plan for a three team picnic. But no one could get a hold of you guys though."
"...so they sent you as an envoy."
"Pretty much. Can I come in? The fort seems… different from the last time I was here"
"Sure, come on in."
"Huh, it is different…" said Yang as she looked around the fort before heading to the table.
"Yeah, we remodelled this Friday."
"She means we washed the blankets."
"Hey, I also got us a table!" Ruby was incredulous at Jaune's remark. They did so much more than just wash the blankets.
"Fair point, we can finally do schoolwork as a group from the comfort and safety of the fort."
Yang plopped herself down on one of the spare pillows and sat at the table with the rest of the group. The coffee table was covered with textbooks, notes and snacks. Snacks Yang immediately started munching on.
"So where are we going? What's the plan? Ruby, show us the memo!"
Nora was excited and rightfully so. This was going to be their first mission as a team. Ruby followed her demands and took out her scroll.
"Right… let's see…Forever Fall? Bla, bla bla, follow expected behaviour, sortie on Wednesday morning, rolecall at 0630, departure 0700, expected return 2200 same day, joint collection and survival exercise, prepare to the best of your ability… Seems like we'll have some time to do as we wish during the survival part."
"That's about the jist of it yeah, Maroon thinks we should be able to do the task and have plenty of time to spare for a picnic lunch, take some team photos and generally chill. Unless we stumble upon a pack of Grimm or something The boys are in too, even Cardin seems to look forward to it."
"Sounds like fun."
"Ooh, can we bring pancakes?"
"I don't see why not."
"Great, I'll tell the others you're in. We can hash out the details tomorrow."
"Ok, see you in class."
"See ya! Oh and good luck with your homework Rubes."
Yang exited the room at about the same moment as Ruby face planted on the table. The last piece would take so much longer now that she could think about nothing but the upcoming trip.
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
So this one is a bit of a breathing room after last chapter. Not much actually happened and it serves as a conclusion to the events of ch.15 and as a prelude to ch.17. Though we got to see a bit of Roman and his side of the story, so that's kinda cool.
On a presonal note I'm experiencing a sort of crash now in terms of energy. Now that the semester is done I want nothing more than to sleep for a while. Allas I got myself a summer job so I get to wake up at 5 am to catch the bus every morning. This will take a while to adjust to, though hopefully it wont affect the posting schedule.
Hope you're looking forward to the next chapter: Ch.17 Field trip