Ruby Rose, Biotechnical Engineer, who apparently had an additional Master's in 'Seduction of Hot and Scary Women', smiled wistfully at the girl in her bed. It'd been a long time since anyone was in her bed— a year, at least— and even longer since someone she liked was in her bed.
She took a strand of white from Drop-Captain Weiss Schnee's bangs and rubbed it between her fingers. Weiss snored a little, her parted mouth having formed a dark spot of drool on Ruby's pillow— Ruby's pillow, because at some point she'd invaded the tech's half of the (admittedly rather small) bed, to the point that Ruby had to get used to sharing a pillowcase with someone who seemed intent on making it soaked. Ruby, as someone who longed to literally drink synthetic (and other) bodily fluids from the person next to her, didn't mind too much, and rejoiced more in the way Weiss pawed and clutched at her sleep-shirt.
She was painfully cute. Her not-porcelain hands (ceramium alloy, as Ruby had learned from the internet, which was neither a true metal nor had anything to do with actual ceramics) kept getting little fistfuls of Ruby's big, illegible metalcore shirt and tugging it towards her face, almost in the way a mouse or roderilim brought something chewable to its mouth. It was… distressing, how adorable Weiss could be, because it made Ruby unreasonably enamored. She really liked Weiss. It was bad— she was bad. Down bad,and gradually coming to the realization that packing up all her things to follow this crazy strider-captain wasn't something she wanted to just back out of like she'd planned.
In fact, she found that all her plans were gradually coming apart thanks to Weiss Schnee. Her plan of ogling at her the whole time and imagining getting topped? Ruined. Her plan of actually getting topped? Ruined. Topping Drop-Captain Weiss Schnee? Actually doing wireplay again, after so long, with someone who probably wouldn't freak out and dip? Cockblocked, courtesy of the captain's cybers. Even the god-damned hanky-panky? Out the porthole. Weiss' sleepy ass had barely lasted a second getting spooned by Ruby, which the tech had only noticed when her exploration of the captain's waistband was interrupted by a long snore.
And yet, with Weiss here in her bed, wearing a shirt Ruby stole from her uncle's bar, her black framework thighs covered by Ruby's favorite penguin-drinking-beer-printed boxers. With her face dumbly relaxed and occasionally leaking spittle onto Ruby's pillow, the technician couldn't find it in herself to be anything but pleased with the turn of events.
This worried her. It worried her because Weiss was probably kinda crazy. It worried her because Weiss definitely killed people. It worried her because she was worried. Worried about some crazy strider woman who came in and bossed her around, then batted her pretty eyelashes, then said she'd be Ruby's special little toy, then literally gagged the shit out of her. They didn't even fuck! And yet here Ruby was, worrying about someone she'd planned on telling 'uh actually I've got this whole shop and it means more to me than you and I don't actually like you so please leave me alone', and mentally agonizing herself about it because fuck she wanted nothing fucking more than to follow this godforsaken woman around and make sure she doesn't fucking die! Fuck!
Why'd she have to look at her like that? She just had to go and make herself into something Ruby wanted to have. To hold. To pry into, break apart, to pull and lick and suck and bite, to touch and torture until her vox-entangler had to be replaced. Something to put back together, kissing all the pieces as she molded the her into hers. She wanted to take Weiss. To wrench her from the world's clutches and sequester her in her arms, to keep her safe and healthy and hers, not for anyone else to break, fix, kill, or kiss.
She couldn't help it. It was a need. A feral, scratching need that writhed up her vena cava and burned in her atrium, then charged towards the ventricle to cleave its way through her pulmonary arteries, bursting into her lungs like a parasite before exploding from every alveolus as a cry of 'please Weiss, please don't take me with you, please don't let me come, please don't die— please god, please don't let me go with her, please don't let me go, please don't hurt my heart again.'
Why did she have to be like this? She hated it. She couldn't just like someone. Couldn't have a normal crush. She couldn't even fuck casually, despite her attempts.
No, she just had to have the ones that she couldn't fucking have. First Penny, who was too much of a normal, sweet person— rightfully scared of someone who got sexual gratification from literally taking them apart— and now Weiss, who was everything Ruby wanted, including doomed as a person. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Why couldn't she just be normal? Why did she have to be made like this? It wasn't fucking fair, she couldn't help it! She never asked to be a freak! She— she just— she just wanted—
"Ru… by?"
No. Nonono. She couldn't be crying— not now, not right in front of her, fuck!
"Schatzi? Was ist los?"
Weiss reached out to grab her but Ruby spun out of the bed, scrabbling on the floor as she panicked. "I-I'm fine— no, no I'm not! No, Weiss, we can't do this!"
Weiss raised her head from the drool-spotted pillow and squinted at her. "Was? Ruby, vat are you saying?"
"I— I can't! I can't come with you, I'm sorry!" Ruby cried, her voice and face cracking with tears. "I'm— Weiss, I'm really sorry but I can't!"
Weiss blinked at her, long and slow, already exasperated first thing in the morning— already tired of her.
"Ruby…" she groaned, her vox-entangler hating Ruby, her optics wanting to drown her— which should've been good, considering it meant she didn't have to watch Weiss die because she hated her and never wanted to—
"Hast du Kaffee?" Weiss asked, rubbing her eyes with her wrists. "Eine coffee machine?"
Ruby looked at her through tears, babbling. "W-what?"
Weiss blearlily mimicked holding up a mug. "I need Kaffee before I can handle eine panic attack."
"I'm— I'm not— I don't—"
Weiss rolled her eyes at the girl. "Ja, you are. You are even flapping your hands und hyperventilating." She snapped her fingers at the girl commandingly. "Get me einen Kaffee und I vill calm you down, verstanden?"
Ruby looked at her helplessly, then looked down at her own hands. They shook, and she was indeed flapping them like Weiss had said. She couldn't stop.
"You can do it," Weiss encouraged, her thick morning voice tickling with low, secondary tones as she waved the technician off. After a second, she flopped back down and went right back to drooling on Ruby's pillow.
"W-what?" Ruby asked.
Weiss snored. "'As'n'ord…urrr…" she said in her sleep.
"What?" Ruby said to herself, her hands moving in front of her as if to grasp her next word as it came out of her lips. "Coffee?"
Weiss' nose twitched.
Ruby clenched her hands hard, the knuckles turning white. It helped a little, at least enough for her to take in an almost-normal breath, rise to her feet, and walk to the kitchenette. Her tubular coffee press was there on the counter, severely unused. The person who stayed over and drank coffee hadn't stayed over or drank coffee here since Ruby tried to show them her deepest desires.
Ruby took it and rinsed the dust off, numbly ignoring the way her hands moved with old, old memories: preheat with hot water, empty, boil more, add the grounds (holy shit she had grounds), ignore the shaking hands, add some water, give it a sec, add the rest, steep, stare at the steeping grounds, hold fists tight so they don't shake, breathe in, release fists, breathe out, breathe in, a little longer, ignore screaming brain, breathe out, plunger down, green mug, pour.
Ruby stared at the coffee-filled mug. Dark in the center, brown where liquid met mug. It smelled strongly of coffee, making her empty stomach roil at the thought of its acidity, but she imagined a coffee drinker might not hate it. Ruby whisked it away, somehow managing not to spill a drop despite the mug burning her hands.
"Wei… Captain," she said when she got back to her room, coffee in hand.
Weiss groaned.
"Captain."
Weiss scrunched up her nose.
"Weiss."
The captain opened one eye. "Ja?"
"Coffee."
"Mmmnn," Weiss moaned, stretching out languidly and tossing the covers off. "Ja, zat sounds good. Sofort."
Ruby huffed. "I have it."
Weiss' other eye opened. "Hm?" She seemed to realize where she was, her features briefly widening before they settled into a dreamy grin. "Oh, ja. I told you… to… Scheiße!"
Weiss bolted up like a madwoman, her striders clicking loudly against the hard floor as she rushed to Ruby and grabbed her with both hands.
"Was ist los?" she asked again, more panicked this time. "I— I'm sorry! You vere having a thing and I sent you avay! Ach, fuck, I am already a shit girlfriend!"
Ruby reeled at the cursed word, finding her hands suddenly empty as Weiss swiped her coffee and took a drink.
The captain immediately spat it out. "Verdammt!" she cursed, hacking from her throat. "Vat is zis?"
Ruby blinked. "C-coffee?"
"Mein Gott!" Weiss thrust the mug back into Ruby's chest, and the technician took it like the dumbass she was while the captain continued her complaints. "Zat is hell-coffee! Unless you are trying to kill me, zen take zis back und give me some fucking Zucker! Verdammt nochmal!"
"Zook… er?' Ruby repeated limply.
"Shoo-garr!" Weiss clarified, much more mockingly.
"But… but then you won't taste the coffee," Ruby objected, blinking at her own words.
Weiss waved her hands in the air, gesturing above them as if her reasoning hung overhead in bright neon letters. "Ja! Zat is ze point! Coffee tastes like shit!" she pointed at the green mug in Ruby's hands like it was a feral animal. "Vhy in ze fuck vould I vant to taste coffee!"
Ruby crinkled up her whole face, reaching an ascended state of confusion. "What?"
Weiss pawed at her chest and gave her puppy-dog eyes, which apparently she could fucking do. "Und Milch," she requested, pouting pathetically. "Bitte."
Is this how she led people into battle? Into their deaths? Is this how she bent others to her whim? Fucking puppy-dog eyes? Did she really think that would work? On her? The fucking expert of doing puppy-dog eyes? The one who, just minutes ago, was having a panic attack because she couldn't let herself be swayed by Weiss? The one who, for the fucking record, made a great goddamn cup of coffee, as assessed by certified genuine coffee drinkers who didn't muddy such a sacred cultural cornerstone with sugar and fucking milk!
Ruby returned with a be-Milched and be-Zuckered coffee about a minute later. Weiss scooped it out of Ruby's hands with genuine glee, taking an unseemly slurp.
"Köstlich," she moaned, her vox-entangler stroking all her vowels in a way that made Ruby's throat parch. "Mein Gott, Ruby, ven you're not trying to poison me you make a lovely cup."
Ruby pursed her lips. "Thank you," she said tightly.
Weiss took an even larger, even less seemly gulp— as though her jaw biont included a fucking culvert— before returning the mug to Ruby. Among everything else, Drop-Captain Weiss Schnee could also down ninety percent of a full mug of coffee in two ungodly gulps, and that was apparently all she wanted.
Weiss stretched her beautiful arms fully up, wrapping them around each other as she twisted her waist through all its knots. Ruby's lended shirt, large as it was, only hugged the apexes of her strider-joints and her breasts, which were enough combined to make Ruby turn away despite having seen both those parts in great detail.
"Now, about zis panic attack," Weiss started after a while.
Ruby stiffened, expecting the start of a monumentally depressing 'we need to talk'-type of conversation.
"Did ze coffee trick vork?"
Ruby relaxed unceremoniously. "The what?"
"Ze trick vhere I tell you to do something mundane and it brings your focus avay from ze anxiety."
"The…" Ruby lagged, then looked down at her hands. They weren't shaking anymore. "You… you tricked me out of a panic attack," her voice gradually grew to a sharp whine of accusation. "You dick! You're supposed to comfort me!"
Weiss shrugged. "Ja, but I vanted coffee, zo…"
Ruby stared at her, her anger boiling, but… annoyingly distant. She wanted to yell, maybe say something awful, but all the incandescent words in her mind just slid away. It made her feel empty. She clammed up, one arm crossing over her front to hold the other. "I… I…"
Weiss looked at her— looked at her, that way. "You?"
Ruby bit her lip and averted her gaze.
'Uh actually I've got this whole shop and it means more to me than you and I don't actually like you so please leave me alone.'
'Please Weiss, please don't take me with you, please don't let me come, please don't die.'
She opened her mouth.
Weiss cocked her head. A stray lock of white fell over her face, drooping down from the weird bedhead-position it'd been in. Weiss tried to blow it back, her miscolored bottom lip pouting with its twin in a shape Ruby was desperate for, but she only succeeded in fucking her hair up further. Failing on those fronts, she started using her hands.
"Weiss, I—"
"Oop!" Weiss yelped, her hair somehow caught between the flush articulations of her fingers. "Ru—Ruby! Rub-beeeee!" she whined, holding out her hair-entangled hand, hopping madly on her striders as she winced. "Ruby, bitte! Help!"
Ruby, pitying the poor idiot, grabbed her wrist before she could start ripping her scalp apart. "Omigod, babe, you idiot—"
"Ich kann nichts dafür!"
"Normal language, dammit!"
"Fick dich!"
Ruby, to arrest her idiotic panic, grabbed both of her shoulders to root her. She held the captain's gaze solidly. "Stay. Still."
Weiss pouted, but managed not to rip any more hair out.
"You dumbass," Ruby admonished, finding an unwelcome fondness intruding on her voice. She took one of Weiss' beautiful hands and held its fingers still, working her strands out of the joints. "There," she said when they were all out. "Now we can…"
Ruby's voice hitched, her gaze caught by Weiss' bright, happy bionic blues. The captain smiled at her, then pulled herself up by Ruby's shoulders to kiss her on the lips. It was an easy kiss— warm and soft. Chaste. Gentle. Ruby found herself returning it before she even knew, then missed it when it was gone.
Weiss looked at her. Again. In that way. It was torture.
She wanted to stay. She wanted to scoop Weiss into her arms and twirl her around (though that required an exospine she didn't have) and kiss her on the face. She wanted to return her to the bed and make her cry for her rose. She wanted to pull that poor, doomed girl apart and leave her name within, to spell R-R on the insides of her magnificent palms.
Flesh and machine, blood and synth, air and current— the altar of Weiss. She wanted to worship, and to do it in the way only she could.
She knew she was crazy. She knew she was easily obsessed. She knew it was stupid and irresponsible. She knew she'd see those glistening bionic blues dim, for that slightly paler, slightly more pastel lower lip become a glowing pink in comparison to its flesh-twin's dying mauve. Those ceramium arms— perfect in color, texture, and beauty— would become blindingly pale next to the rest of her greying skin.
Weiss Schnee was an incomparable thing, and she was on borrowed time. Borrowed time, from which Ruby had stolen precious hours by exorcising her cybers. She'd nailed the girl's coffin herself.
She must've been making a pretty obvious face, because Weiss' true smile fell into a sad one. Her deep blue optics looked like she could read Ruby's mind.
"I… we can't," Ruby said, her voice carving her throat out. "You're… you'll…"
Weiss' terrible smile, sad and knowing, quirked up into an even worse smirk— just as knowing, but so fucking cocky. There was nothing but confidence in her eyes, nothing but trust in her voice, and her words were a promise that shouldn't be touching Ruby's ears, they should be on someone better! Someone stronger! A lieutenant or another captain, another strider, a pilot! Someone who was normal! Someone who could do it.
"Ruby," she asked— was asking, because Ruby knew the next words before they came out, knew exactly how they'd rumble her vox-entangler like a funeral bell— "I von't die. You'll protect me, ja?"
'No, nonono. God, no. I can't, I can't do that— I can't promise that— I can't— I won't—'
'I've— I've got a whole life, here! It's not much, but it's not… that! It's not watching my girlfriend die! It's not killing and getting killed!'
'But I'd just be a technician, Weiss! You'll be on the frontline, where I can't help! And even if I could, I've never handled a gun! I've never done any of this!'
'Don't do this to me. Don't. Please. You— you know I've been hurt before, right? I can't do that— not like this! This'll be even worse! This'll be so much worse, Weiss! This'll kill me!'
'No, Weiss, my sister… she'll never let it happen, she'll kill me— she'll kill you! She's a Pilot! She's not just gonna let me run out with a strider!'
'Just run! Fuck, Weiss, just run away! Desert! Stay here, with me! I know it's impossible, I know it's stupid, but god just say you will! When have you had something— done something— that was just yours! For yourself! Do it, Weiss! Do it for me, because youre driving me fucking crazy and I barely even know you! Just let us have a few normal days before they find you, let me give you a taste of something pure instead of killing and killing and dying, end-over-end, until we're both pulverized nothing! Die on an ice cream date with me, Weiss! Die somewhere you can be happy, because I'd rather see your brains get blown into a bowl of frozen milk than see you die on the battlefield! At least the first one lets you die with a smile!'
'Please don't fucking look at me like that! Stop it! For God's sake, stop! You're killing yourself doing this, you— you can't let me come! You can't let me watch! It's wrong, it's cruel! Stop looking at me like you know I'm gonna say—'
"Y-yeah. Sure. Aye-aye, Captain."
Weiss smiled at her, in the same way her mother had in the end. Like she really hadn't expected someone else to be there— perfectly ready to go on alone, but so, so glad that she didn't have to.
And back then— even with her mother lying on her deathbed— Ruby had managed to smile, so she found it in her to do it again. It was easy. The smile came naturally, crinkling her eyes in the same way a real one did.
But Weiss, with her milspec eyes, didn't fall for it. She frowned. "Hey, don't do zat. Vat's wrong?"
Ruby said it with her smile still on, because it was one that didn't come off easily. "You're gonna die, Weiss. Now, without that cyber, you're fucked." Ruby turned her face up andchuckled at the ceiling. "I'm gonna watch my girlfriend die. Then I'll probably die. I might even have to kill people first— me, Ruby Rose, notorious gun-despiser."
Weiss blinked. "You… you know ve don't alvays die, right? High casualty rates, ja, but it's not instant death."
Ruby rolled her eyes. "But it is death, one you can't dodge anymore."
Weiss waved her off. "I am an expert at not-dying, I'll have you know." Then, with a smile that was far too easy, she added: "And I'll have an expert at protecting me at my side."
Ruby reeled. She blinked. She shook her head and flapped her lips. "Y-you… what?"
The captain raised a brow. "Oh, you didn't think I vould have you lazing around mein Quartier als ein high-functioning mantelpiece, oder?"
Ruby's chest wound up tight. "You… you mean I'm…"
"Fighting, ja!" Weiss declared happily. "Dein eigener kleiner Krieg: beschütze mich, stirb nicht."
"B-but I'm… I don't—"
"I vill train you!" Weiss claimed proudly. "It vill be good reason to get some time alone, ja?"
"I— but I hate guns!"
Weiss snorted. "Zen it is good zat you vill be vith ze striders!"
"W-what does that mean! And— and— maybe I don't want to kill people! Or fight!"
"You don't have to kill anyone, Liebling," she rebuttal, her lips set smugly. "You are here für mich. Protect me. Mit deinen… Gadgets."
Ruby reeled, face scrunched as if she'd been assaulted with a particularly bad smell. "My what?"
"Wie die Videospiele!" Weiss elaborated, gaining the same cheerful wistfulness as when she'd revealed her cybers. "Meine Engineering-Girlfriend… so geil."
Baffled, Ruby could do nothing but press her palms to her eyes and try. "Engineering… do you think this is a fucking game?" Her voice sharpened, a ridiculous chuckle slipping out like the razor-sharp crags of a jagged beach. "Are you fucking serious? This is my life! This— this is—" Her jaw fell open. She stared, furious. "You're fucking manipulating me!"
Weiss' brows bore furiously down. She opened her mouth. Ruby kept going.
"You come in here swinging your big dick around like you've got all the money in the world, acting like an injured animal so you can get me to fix you up!" She leveled a finger with the shorter girl's chest. "This was a fucking front just to poach me!"
Weiss pushed her back, her arms almost sending the girl to the floor. Her anger immediately shattered and she lunged to help, but Ruby slapped her hand away, wincing as her meat hit alloy.
"This is bullshit," Ruby seethed, smarting. "Fuck you."
"I— I did not mean—"
"Fuck. You!" Ruby spat, all her inhibitions and anxieties uncoiling out of her chest and springing through her lips. "Fuck you, fuck you! You're trying to get me fucking killed, just so you can have some… some fuck-buddy who can fix your augs! Just so you can take all the pent-up war shit out on me!"
"Ruby—"
"Don't you fucking Ruby me! Don't— don't—" Ruby's eyes suddenly stung, her nose stinging too, her throat thickening as her words started to crack. "Don't fuck with me! Stop it! I… I didn't do anything, I… I just wanted to fix your augs!"
There were more words— 'I's and 'you's and 'but's— but they never got much further than a syllable. They all gummed up in Ruby's throat, thrust out so quick at first but now slingshotting all the way back down her gullet, choking her. She looked at Weiss, who just stood there with a look of shock and fear, one hand extending towards her— still so beautiful, still drawing her in— like some kind of biomechanical siren.
Ruby's heart tugged to Weiss, and she fully broke down.
Despite how much she hated it, despite how much it sickened her, Ruby tucked herself into the pathetic comfort of Weiss' cautious, cold-armed embrace as though the woman were her late mother returned. She was a wreck. She was a wretch. She was latching onto the shirt-covered chest of the woman she'd just thrown a quadruplet of 'fuck you's at, crying into the fabric, making a fool of the Ruby Rose she'd just so adamantly defended, and she was beginning to feel better. She felt all of her own objections melting away— not even rebutted or countered— just committing abrupt suicide one-by-one with each mucusy sniffle she made between Weiss' breasts.
Why did she want so badly to give up? Was her life really that bad? She did… what she loved, kinda. Distantly. She hadn't seen a biont in months before Weiss, just cybers upon cybers, but she was a mechanic at heart. A bio-mechanic, yes, but a mechanic nonetheless.
But cradled in Weiss' godly arms, hearing their tiny servos whirr under Ruby's weight, feeling the metal holding her— cold and hard in its material, but so perfectly articulate that it felt softer than any human embrace— she marveled. She still marveled. She was going to die on a battlefield like a fucking useless idiot and she marveled. She wanted so badly to touch them. She was an idiot. She was stupid. Stupid, stupid, "Stupid."
"Ruby?" Weiss whispered, leaving a long space between the syllables.
"I… nevermind, Weiss," she croaked into the now-wet shirt. "I'll come with you."
"No, Ruby, don't…" her vox-entangler crackled, sounding sad for the first time Ruby had heard. "You shouldn't. You're right, I… I'm sorry."
Ruby said nothing until Weiss tried to pull away, at which point she wrenched her down by the shirt. "N-no, Weiss, I can do it. I swear."
Even to her own ears, she sounded painfully desperate. "I have no doubt," Weiss said quietly. "But you don't want to. And I don't want to make you. You don't deserve that."
Her 'w's took the same dull quality that Ruby's did: perfectly harmless, perfectly devoid. So much of Weiss was perfect, even the flawless agony she wrought on Ruby's insides. "I don't…" her voice was so weak. She sounded like a corpse, one who had died purely from yearning. "I don't want to…"
Weiss pulled her closer again. The captain smelled warm, like a person. No perfumes or body wash wafted from her skin, just the gentle musk of a living human.
"I want you," Ruby said into her embrace. "I just want you. And… and I want to… protect you, but… god, Weiss. Fuck. I barely know you."
Weiss pulled her away, just far enough for their gazes to meet, and looked down at her with pity. A fresh coal of anger started to spark in the technician's gut, roiling like acid reflux until she realized it was guilt, not pity. "I'm sorry, Ruby."
"No, I…" Ruby dejectedly nuzzled back into her chest. "I'm sorry."
There was an 'it's not your fault' or a 'don't be' rolling off of Weiss, but she didn't let it out. Instead, after a long while, she started to stiffen. Her hold on Ruby got tighter. Her heart, so close to Ruby's ear, started to pound. Her vox-entangler crackled, heralding a short, breathy bout of chuckles that Ruby wouldn't have noticed if she weren't ear-to-chest with the other girl.
The technician pulled her head away and looked up strangely at Weiss. She nearly jumped when she met the captain's eyes. She was smiling.
"What?" Ruby asked, still sobbing a little. "What's so funny?"
"Is zat really vat it is?" Weiss asked, her accent graciously returned. "You don't know me vell enough?"
Ruby looked around and sniffled, unsure. "I… I guess. Partly. It's… a big reason."
The captain barked out one harsh and imperious laugh, the sound rumbling with her semi-bionic larynx. "Vell zen! It's a good thing I've never been on leave before!"
Ruby rubbed her puffy eyes on the other girl's shirt. "Huh?"
Weiss cackled. "Ich habe ein shitload of time saved up!" she grabbed one of Ruby's hands, clutching it tightly between the two of them. "Ruby!"
The technician reeled, a little fearful of the sheer childlike joy that alighted the other girl's face. "Y-ye—"
"Let's go on ein date!"