pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
(Ruby PoV)
"You spent the night in his room," Blake accused Weiss as she rejoined us.
"He had nightmares that kept him up. Dreams from Salem," Weiss responded. "Nothing happened."
"I gave it away to Adam too soon. I regret it."
"Nothing happened," Weiss repeated.
"And our Cloud isn't like your Adam," I said. "I don't regret having sex with him the times that I did. It was wonderful. If something happened between Weiss and him, it's not like what happened between you and Adam."
"And I'm telling you nothing happened anyways. I set boundaries and he respected them," Weiss said.
"He never did that at Beacon," Yang tossed in. "He was always all over you."
"He was a newborn at Beacon. And it was never as bad as I made it seem," Weiss defended. "He was always polite and… he was afraid. It was a first crush and it was never like what Blake must have gone through. Jaune, when he was Jaune, pressured me into going to the movies, not even close to sex. It's just not the same. I think he would have been scared of something like that."
"So what did you get up to, then?" Yang asked. She sounded bored.
"He told me a bit about what his new meds were like. How they all had side effects and he was on some just to treat the side effects of others. He said he felt doped up all the time," Weiss answered. "He said he felt half asleep."
"That's no good if he gets in a fight," Yang muttered.
"Cloud is skilled. He should be fine," I defended.
"I don't know. I'm worried about him, Ruby," Weiss said. "His nightmares are bad. And Salem is always trying to press on his mind."
"So what should we do? It's not like we can kill Salem. She's invincible, or close to it," I murmured.
"Does Cloud know that?" Blake asked. "I wouldn't tell him. He might decide to kill himself if he thought it was hopeless. He told me he tried it after he killed Ren and Nora."
"He tried to kill himself?" Weiss asked, astonished.
"You didn't know?" Blake returned. "He mentioned it to me when we talked about Adam."
"No, I didn't know." Weiss shot a look back through the door she came through, she looked like she might go back to him.
"Maybe we should talk to him," I managed.
"You haven't been able to help him yet," Blake muttered.
"Blake! Who's side are you on?" Weiss asked.
"His, evidently. I think he agrees with me about him," Blake returned. "I think he knows his situation is hopeless."
"He's not hopeless. He's resisting her," I said.
"How long can he keep that up?" Blake wondered. Her palms outstretched. "Even he doesn't think he can last forever against her, does he?" She shot the last bit to Weiss.
"He thinks it's permanent brain damage. He thinks he's having seizures or strokes," Weiss said. "He thinks she'll get to him. Especially while he's sleeping."
I chewed on my lip. "So what do we do? Send him back to the hospital?" I wondered.
Weiss winced. "Cloud won't like that. They took his weapon away last time. He doesn't want to go back and 'get locked up.'"
"Should he even have his weapon?" Yang asked. We all looked at her. "Well should he? He's a little fucked up."
"When he killed for the first time, I was so worried about him. It doesn't seem like he's slowed down since then. It's all been a blur," I said. "I was so worried. I thought I messed everything up. But what if this has just been in him. Festering beneath the surface. He's been sick."
"He is. I hoped that we would be able to take care of him. Are we going to give that up?" Weiss asked.
"I don't know. What do we do, Weiss?"
"Me? I have no idea."
"You've always been the smart one."
"So I should know what to do about this?" She shook her head. "I have no clue. He's in a lot of pain. All the time."
"Well, where is he now?" I asked.
She pointed back at the door she came through. "He's getting ready for another day. I don't know if he has an assignment or if he's just slated for training."
"We should be too," Blake said. she got up and began pulling her nightwear off. "I'm sure he has his head in the game."
"Blake is probably right." Weiss slunk inside and began to strip out of her clothes too. "Maybe we'll get lucky and only have training today. She stripped down to her brassiere before I looked away.
Bad bi thoughts. Now is not the time.
I dressed supernaturally fast and was waiting for Cloud outside of his room for when he was ready in just a few minutes.
He strode from his room looking tall, dark, and handsome. His massive blade was in its harness behind his back.
"Ja-Cloud, Weiss told me a bit about what you're going through with your meds. I just wanted you to know I'm here for you. If you needed anything."
He looked surprised. His eyes flickered over my head towards my room for a moment. Then they came back to me. "I know Ruby. It's just Salem. She's always on me."
"Cloud… I talked to Ozpin… I wanted to let you know that Salem is invincible."
"Immortal," he corrected. "Not invincible."
"You knew?" I asked.
"It's what I asked the relic of knowledge. How to defeat her, I mean. I have a plan. I'm going to cut her into pieces and never ever give her the chance to heal."
"You think that will work?" I wondered. My gaze brushed over his bronze and white sword.
"It's worth a shot. If not I'm doomed."
"You're not doomed. And you're not… you're not thinking about killing yourself, are you?"
He sighed. He met my eye. "Don't freak out on me Ruby."
"I won't." I vowed.
"I'm always thinking about killing myself. It seems like the fastest way to get away from her."
My mouth dropped open. "Cloud…"
"Other times it seems like exactly what she wants. I have no idea what to do."
"You're not going to hurt yourself, are you?" I pleaded and begged.
"Probably not today."
"Cloud…" I murmured.
"It has nothing to do with you, or how great you are to me." He pulled his hand down and cupped my cheek. "It all has to do with her. With my mother. Her control over my mind isn't simple. She is constantly attacking my subconscious. That's what makes it hard to resist. If I'm paying attention it's easy enough for the most part, but I have to constantly be afraid of what's slipping through the cracks. Like calling her my mother, for one. That's constantly coming through, no matter how hard I try. I have to be afraid of what else is happening like that."
"She is your mother," I whispered.
"That's not why I call her that, though." He sighed and shifted. He grabbed the hilt of his weapon for a long moment. Like he might draw it. But against what? It was just him, I, and his loud thoughts in a long corridor.
He released the long red handle and sighed. He rubbed his face hard.
"Weiss mentioned you were having strokes and seizures."
"I asked her not to share that with you…"
"What? Why?" I had to wonder. My heart broke a little.
"I didn't want to worry you. This is normal for me now. I was worried it would break your little Ruby heart."
"Too late…" I grumbled. "You should know you can share anything with me."
"You're right. Of course you're right. And you'd be right to be worried about me. Something is happening to me that I can't understand."
Weiss, Blake, and Yang walked out of our room but only Weiss walked over to us.
"You told her about the seizures," Cloud commented.
"Of course," Weiss said. She crossed her arms. "It was never up for a discussion."
"Fair enough," Cloud whistled. "Fair cop."
"Blake mentioned you tried to kill yourself," Weiss went on. "But you didn't feel like sharing that with us."
Cloud scratched the back of his head. "It slipped my mind amongst everything else."
"Uh huh," Weiss muttered tursley. Her expression made it clear that wasn't going to fly. "Are you forgetting anything else?"
I crossed my arms beside her but I don't think I managed to direct the same amount of disappointment at him as she did.
"I promise to tell at least one of you if I remember," Cloud vowed.
"'At least one of us?'" Weiss echoed. She leveled her glare at him and flared her nostrils in his direction.
"Both of you, then." Cloud agreed. "And the moment I remember."
"That's how things need to be for this to work," Weiss said.
"You got it." I thought Cloud might salute at her but that would be just a bit much.
"Look I don't want to be the bad guy here," Weiss murmured. "But this needs to be ironed out."
"You're not. It's on me. Pinkie swear," Cloud seemed all onboard.
Weiss sighed. "We're worried about you. We don't know how to help you."
"I think that no one can. And I resent putting you in that position."
"We want to be in that position," I said softly. "We want to try our hardest to help you."
Cloud looked stunned. His jaw worked for a moment while he tried to figure out something to say. "You're right. I'm sorry. You of all people I shouldn't be cutting out like that. I just don't know what to do. And I'm scared. I'm scared that there's nothing you can do."
"Let us try," I whispered.
He reeled back like I struck him across the face. He flinched back and had trouble meeting my eye.
He gave a slow firm nod of assent. It couldn't be mistaken for anything else. He was giving his word that he would do what he could to help us help him.
"Now," I said with all that cleared up. "Do you need to go back to the hospital?"
"I don't know. They weren't the most helpful. They took my weapon away. They take everything away. There's nothing to do but wait for my next meal. It makes me feel like a dog."
"You're not a dog," Weiss murmured.
"I am to Salem," he countered. "She's so old and strong. I'm like a dog to her if she's like a person to me."
"Is anything getting better on your medication?" I asked.
"Maybe the hallucinations but it's hard to tell." He rubbed his face with his hand. "There's not exactly a good reference frame for it. How loud they are. How intense they are."
"How many medications are you on at this point? You said they kept prescribing things."
"Four. Two tranquilizers, an antipsychotic, and some other one that's supposed to help with racing thoughts and tremors caused by the others."
"Is that a lot?" I asked Weiss with a look.
"I don't know," Weiss muttered. "I'm not a psychiatrist."
"They want to get me down to just two medications. They're still experimenting with what works and what doesn't. Some of the medications can make things worse more than they make things better. It's not exact and I just have to trust that they know what they're doing."
"Maybe we need to get a second opinion," Weiss crossed her arms. "Maybe we need to talk to a private provider."
"That means telling them my story again, and it'll take time."
"And it will cost money," I said.
"Money isn't a problem. I have some bank accounts from when I stole from people on the wrong side of the law with millions of Lien, still," Cloud said.
"Who'd you steal that from?" Weiss asked.
"Don Corneo. Then I killed him. Neo and I did. I still have those private bank accounts, they didn't take them from me when I was arrested. Didn't know that they existed."
"Hang in there, Cloud. We'll find something that works for you," Weiss murmured. "It can and will get better."
"I just… I just don't think we will. Don't think it will. Mother's hooks are in me deep. And if this is all I have to look forward to, maybe I should kill myself."
"Don't think that way," I pleaded.
"I am thinking that way. All the time. I can't help it," he muttered. "I obsess about it. Part of why I think maybe she wants me to do it. She told me to run away, in a whisper, once. This is the ultimate form of that. I'm terrified that if I try and kill myself I won't die and I'll become even more of a burden on you both."
"Holy shit," I breathed, eyes wide.
"Let's get that second opinion. It's a good place to start," Weiss said. "Then we'll see. Just… just don't do anything rash."
He gave us a shaky but agreeable nod.
pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
"How's your boyfriend and girlfriend?" Penny asked as the truck hummed along.
"We had a date that went well the other day. All three of us. But… but Weiss and I are worried about him. I worry about him all the time. He has all these dark thoughts. Remnants of what Salem did to his mind," I answered. "I don't know how to help him. He's struggling and I'm not sure how to reach him."
"Well what did Salem do to him?"
"She took over his mind. He says she spoke and he had to obey."
"Like he was programmed to?" She asked. I looked at Penny. She was a machine for all that she was a real person too, maybe she had some insights I was lacking because of how she was made. "I'm slated for a sparring match with him later this week. His powers make it so that he might be able to keep up with me and present me a real one on one challenge. My abilities often make it difficult for an individual to contest me alone. Ironwood said to treat it like I was fighting Cinder Fall because of how he might have magic. It might be my best chance to practice against such a foe until Winter becomes the new winter maiden."
"That's…" I paused. I hadn't had the chance to go up against him myself any time recently. Not since before Weiss and Yang showed up in Mistral. "I should spar with him too. We always used to back in Anima. I miss it." I shook those thoughts off. "And he says his subconscious is always under her attack. He's afraid of what might be coming through when he's not paying attention. And even when he is sometimes things slip past him."
"He's on a medication regiment, yes?"
I nodded. "But he's not sure how well it's working."
"If I found out I was programmed to do something I hated I'm not sure how I would respond," Penny said. She shook her head slightly. "It would make me sad to say nothing else. And he killed his friends. I can only imagine how hard that would be."
I nodded. "But Salem hasn't had any control over him since then."
"That he himself knows of. If I was programmed against my will I don't know that I would notice it. Would I? Could I? Perhaps that's what he's afraid of. He might be afraid of doing her will unknowingly."
"He said that about killing himself. That he wasn't sure if he would just be playing into her hands if he did take his life. It's… it's too scary to think about. What if I lost him again? It would be my own fault."
"No one would hold you responsible. Salem is a monster. And she's doing something horrible to him. She's hacking his brain."
"Is there any way I can keep him safe? He doesn't sleep well. He says he's vulnerable to her while he does."
"He's probably right. And sleep is a time for the brain to repair itself. Has he suffered any other brain trauma related phenomena?"
"He thinks he's having miniature strokes and seizures because of it."
"Ruby… this sounds bad," Penny confessed to me. "It sounds like she's winning. Slowly but surely. She's breaking him down into what she wants him to be. If he was a machine like me it would be fast but this wetware attack is slow going."
"What do I do, Penny? How do I save him from this?"
"I'm not sure that you can, it sounds like he must fight as well as he is able against her attacks. For as long as he is able."
The truck rolled along for a quiet moment.
"He has sisters, right? They might be able to shed some light on this. The successful models may know more," Penny murmured.
"They work for Salem. She has them too."
"Ruby…"
I felt like crying. I felt so utterly helpless. How could I possibly save him from this… this nightmare he lived in.
"I'm going to be there for him. Whatever he needs. I won't let him lose himself. Not over to Salem."
"Ruby I think… I think you should start to let go. Remember him how he was, before it's too late. Before she takes him."
"I'm not going to give up on him. I refuse to abandon him." I was adamant.
"I think you're going to hurt yourself. I hate to see you this way."
"Weiss and I will come up with a plan to keep him safe."
"It doesn't sound like you can. He's being hacked remotely. Not unless you kill Salem. Stop things at the source."
"We can't kill her. She's immortal. Like Ozpin." It was so unfair. It felt like checkmate five turns ago. "I won't let him walk through hell. I would lose myself for him."
"Ruby…"
"I mean it. If I have to fight Salem herself I will. Cloud says he knows where she is all the time. Like some kind of radar. We can find her and beat her. She's only immortal. Not invincible. That's what Cloud said. I'm going to help him cut her into tiny pieces so she can never harm a hair on his head again."
pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
-WG