The white rose did sing;
and the final bell did ring,
but only for one.
Ruby wriggled in her blankets, adjusting so she wasn't getting stabbed by Weiss' knobbly knees. Weiss didn't say anything, but she did keep supporting Ruby like a baby in her lap, arms encircled around her blanket-swaddled torso. The Fourth was a hot little fucker— in both ways, from Ruby's terrible and stupid perspective— so her scraggly furnace of a body was making the blanket-cocoon feel more like a blanket-oven. Ruby Rose, fearing an eccrine explosion en route, huffed.
"Not that this isn't nice," the Faunus started. "But do you mind letting me up? I'm gettin' sweaty."
Weiss obliged, untucking the end of Ruby's blanket from her back and unwrapping it until Ruby could help herself. "I apologize, again. Truly."
"Back to speaking all weird now?"
"Thou wert not complaining earlier."
Ruby rolled her eyes, pushing herself up to her feet and nearly passing out again before Weiss steadied her. "That's because I was dying."
"If I remember correctly— and I do— mine ability to speak thy lowly tongue faded due to thine own ministrations." When Ruby just cocked her head, Weiss restated: "You make it hard to focus on stupid things like that, dolt."
"Shit," Ruby mumbled, her cheeks warming. "That was… actually kinda romantic."
Weiss frowned. "Thou wilt never equate any action of mine as 'romantic' ever again."
"Uh…" Ruby chuckled nervously, backing away a step as her cheeks got redder— not in a good way, either, but with dread embarrassment. "S-sorry, am I, uh… misinterpreting…" she gestured between herself and Weiss. "This whole thing?"
Weiss narrowed her gaze. "You had better not. I just defeated Pyrrha Nikos in a duel for you, and I had to drink her stinking soul."
Ruby was now doubly confused. "Yeah, you beat my girlfriend— ex-girlfriend, whatever— so that… you could be…" she rolled her hand, hoping to imply a word that felt weird to use on Weiss Schnee. "Right?"
"You think I did all that to court you?" Weiss snorted.
Holy shit, every single word was making Ruby feel progressively worse. Amazing. "S-so… you're not my girlfriend."
Weiss Schnee— who was not Ruby's girlfriend despite… well, everything that's happened over the hour or two— shook her head as if the answer had been obvious. "Of course not."
And the knife twisted further. Which… was wrong. She should be bouncing off the fucking walls to know that Weiss Schnee, who she had just banged, was miraculously not her girlfriend. "O-oh," she started, trying (and probably failing) not to sound hurt. "So… Pyrrha's still my girlfriend."
Weiss recoiled severely, even backstepping as if the words were a physical force. "Nay!"
The knife… did a weird thing that felt weird and confusing, because that's what this was. "So I can get another girlfriend?" Ruby ventured slowly. "Just… different?"
Weiss scoffed, offense clear in her tight expression. "For god's sake, Florabel, no! Are you stupid?"
The knife started doing things with binomials. "But you and me, we're…"
"Nemeses," Weiss answered, sounding out every syllable. "Exclusive nemeses."
"So I just can't fuck other people?" Ruby asked, not at all excited for any of the answers to that or her follow-ups: "I can kiss other people? Physical stuff that's not sex?"
"Never!" Weiss snapped. "Dear god, Florabel, art thou some crazed harlot?"
"You're not making any sense."
"I am thy nemesis! And thou art mine!"
"I art thine… girlfriend," Ruby said extremely slowly, as if teaching a child. "Because that's what encompasses the degree of exclusivity and intimacy you're layin' out here."
"Nemesis!"
"Call a spade a spade, dude."
Weiss went bright red with frustration or shame or… whatever else could be appropriate for the mental gymnastics she was doing. "Thou art no spade! You're not a girlfriend! You're a nemesis!"
"Those two things aren't mutually exclusive?" Ruby enunciated factually. "Like, it's called a rivalry, dude. We can be both of those things."
But still, Weiss' nose scrunched up in disgust. "N-no. No," she denied indignantly. "We are nemeses, and we can not be anything else."
"You're talking in circles."
"Thou art the circle-talker!"
"Is it because I'm a girl?"
Weiss' face fell. She went from paper-white to ash-grey. Her blazing eye darted around the room.
Bing-fucking-go.
"Holy shit, dude, seriously?"
"Th-that is not it."
"Oh my god, it is."
"N-nay, I would never— tis— I—"
"You know that's normal, right? To like girls?"
Weiss looked everywhere but Ruby, her posture huddling tight for security as if she were her own comfort-plushie. "N-nay, 'tis… 'tis degeneracy! I am no—"
"Oh, babe, I know you're not saying that after we just—"
"I was showing thee thy place!" Weiss blurted. "A-as a— a— a heast!" She shook her head. "A heathen! Beast!"
Ruby frowned. "P-pleeeease, Florabel," she mocked sharply. "I-i-if it would please you, Florabel!"
"Silence!"
Ruby crossed her arms. "I can't believe you."
"I do not have… those thoughts about women!" Weiss whined, weakening audibly. "I— I— I never have! I don't! It— it—"
Ruby's arms slowly unfolded, her eyes widening. "Just me?"
Weiss slapped both hands over her own face. "Be silent!" she cried into her own hands. "I… I am not…"
"Gay."
"That."
Ruby frowned. The patheticness of Weiss Schnee wasn't the same as earlier. This was just sad. "Okay, princess, look," Ruby breathed deep and let out a long sigh, slowly pushing her hands out as if to make way through everything they'd just said. She took a couple slow steps to her nemesis. "It's okay, okay?"
Weiss barely spared her a glance, but that one glance looked like it very much disagreed. Ruby stretched out a hand towards her, stopping when Weiss flinched, then slowly landing it on her shoulder when she didn't move away.
"It's okay, seriously," she repeated. "I won't tell anyone, we can keep everything secret. Or at least try. I mean, Yang would eventually find out but she's not a blab so—"
"Is that supposed to be comforting?"
Ruby winced. "S-sorry. I mean… no one will judge you, and it's not like I'm not gonna go around calling you my gay girlfriend if you don't want me to. Shit, even now I feel like you're more 'nemesis' than 'gf'."
Weiss parted her hands just enough to stare at Ruby with one obviously confused eye.
"What I'm trying to say is: it's cool. I mean, we don't have to do anything right now," Ruby shrugged casually, though she said that with a lot more ease than she felt between her lungs. "In fact, we probably shouldn't. Tonight was… a lot. We should, like… think about stuff. Right?"
Weiss' hands slowly separated from her face. She looked around the room again, but this time her eyes stayed low and moved with less panic— in thought, rather than seeking escape. "R-right. Tonight was… that. Time be my need."
Ruby nodded. She ignored how that stung. "Yeah," she said with false ease. "No need to go, uh, jumping in, haha."
"Aha-ha-ha," Weiss also fake-laughed. "Yes. We should… wait. No need to make such rash declarations when the sun is so low."
"Yeah, whatever… you said."
"Aha… right."
"We'll… wait."
"Wait. Yes."
"Waiting's what we'll do."
"Aye."
"I'll, uh… go. Somewhere."
"So will I."
"..."
"..."
"You, uh, gonna leave?"
"Once you do."
"Right."
"Yes."
"Haha."
"Ahaha."
THIRTY-ONE MINUTES LATER
They had not waited. At all. It was actually a little bit embarrassing how quickly they'd gone back to banging as soon as Weiss' last awkward chuckle left her mouth.
"How about I take you on a date?" Ruby mumbled, barely alive and swaddled almost exactly the same as earlier, though this time they were actually on the bed.
"Aye," Weiss agreed, smoking something that would definitely get them in trouble later. She ashed it on the sheets before passing it to Ruby, who had to take a drag directly out of Weiss' hands since her own arms were under the blanket. "I've never been courted before."
"We don't have to call each other girlfriends," Ruby supposed. "I guess 'nemesis' is like a synonym for 'girlfriend', in a way."
"That's what I've been trying to say."
Ruby blew the smoke rudely into her nemesis-girlfriend's face. "Shut the fuck up, princess."
Weiss smiled. She had an odd smile, kind of pinched in the middle— like a beak, ironically enough— in a shape that Ruby had only ever seen when Yang was making a dirty joke and trying to be coy about it. It wasn't particularly attractive, especially compared to Pyrrha's white-gold smile, but it was nicer to see. Ruby found herself especially entertained by how quickly Weiss caught herself smiling and tried to hide it.
Ruby sighed. "Sorry I, uh…" oh god, this was gonna be depressing. "Let all that happen. With Pyrrha. I was mad and she was… there."
Weiss shuffled a little so the cocooned (and sweaty, but too high to care) Ruby reclined deeper into her lap, making it easier to pass the thing that Weiss apparently acquired from the food service industry. They both exhaled fragrant smoke. Should've opened the window.
"Are you really a slaver?"
Weiss stiffened. "Aye," she admitted after an extended while. "Once upon a time."
Ruby leaned back, resting her head on Weiss' shoulder so she could stare up at her face. Weiss didn't stare back. Her expression was unreadable. "Any context for that?" Ruby asked. "Because I'm assuming that's not currently the case."
"It's not, no. And…" she sighed. "Florabel, it is complicated. And difficult to talk about. My tragic backstory is best saved for when my mind is sober, and when I am more amicable to an unpleasant mood."
"Uh, mind stooping to my lowly peasant's Valish on that last part?"
Weiss side-eyed her, but there was a tiny smile somewhere in the blazing blue and the fading silver-green muddle of her eyes. "This is nice. Let me have this."
"O-oh." Ruby felt her own bastard smile worm over her lips, and fighting it only made it worse. She tried to look away to hide it, but Weiss just cupped her chin, raised her face up, and kissed her slowly on the lips. Her breath and mouth tasted bad, but so did Ruby's, so she let her eyes flutter shut as the throttled siphon scraped little bits off her being. It was nice, but they both stopped as soon as their dry tongues had a meeting that was mutually unpleasant. Ruby giggled despite herself. "Do we have a cup around here?"
Weiss nodded across the room, where all three-and-a-half of the team's backpacks sat beside the door. Ruby noticed that Weiss' shitty canvas bag (the half) had what looked like a hand-made webbing sticking out of the side and grafted on with thread— a water bottle holder, and indeed there was a water bottle within: a cheap plastic one the Academy provided to every student. It was (thank god) only half-empty. Ruby wiggled and whined in its direction.
Weiss scoffed, but pushed Ruby up to slide out from under her. She moved to the bottle like a newborn fawn, her muscly legs shaking and stumbling beneath her, and returned with a scolding frown. "Art all thy people so lazy?"
"I dunno," Ruby said giddily, shrugging. "Do I need to start carrying a spray bottle around for you?"
"Eh?"
"To spray you with," Ruby continued, smiling widely. "Every time you say something bad, you get a spritz. Like a misbehaving pet."
"You're… queer."
"And you're blushing."
"Thine eyes art closed!"
"I can hear the blood rushing to your face," Ruby hummed, wiggling forward to give Weiss space behind her again. "Now get back here. If you stay away too long I might de-sweat and realize how awful life is when I'm overly warm."
"What?"
"Cuddle me, woman!"
And so Weiss did, scooting in behind her and spooning her sat-up. The movement had the unfortunate effect of jostling the thing Weiss kept burning between her lips, ashing it on Ruby's head. Ruby shook it free, lamented how much ash she'd be dusting out of her bed, and pocketed the spray bottle idea for later.
"Nasty ass," she grumbled. "You're only doing this because it's not your bunk."
Weiss chuckled out smoke, though her chuckle was somewhat more akin to a witch's cackling laughter, just lower and breathier. Like a goblin. "Verily," she said easily, passing what was left to Ruby— not much, and it burned hot enough to make Ruby cough when she took the last hit.
"I'm sleeping in your bed tonight, asshole," she wheezed, feeling a little woozy between the high and the cough fucking up her bloodless head.
"No you are not."
"Yeah, I am," Ruby asserted, thrashing in her blanket so she could scoot down a little and glare at her partner/nemesis/girlfriend-in-all-but-title. "Like it or not, princess, you got my shit all dirty. So either clean it, sleep in my ashy-ass bed, or nut up and be gay enough to sleep with me."
Weiss grumbled. "I don't want to clean it."
"There are two other options."
"I don't want to sleep in the ash!"
"Then you've only got one choice!" Ruby countered with finality. "And I'm pooped, so figure it out."
Weiss looked around as if a secret cuckold was hiding invisible in a corner, waiting to deliver unto her some sage advice. Thankfully, she did not find one such invisible cuckold, and sagged with defeat.
Ruby squeezed her arms up out of the blanket so she could patronizingly pet her partner. "Oh, Weissy-poo," she cooed awfully. "Baby-yyyy, it's okay! My scaly raptor feet only get super cold and could eviscerate you if I have a bad dream! All you have to do is cuddle real close and be real sweet. You're great at that!"
Weiss looked on the verge of suicide. This was extremely entertaining, and elicited a goofy laugh from Ruby.
"JK, dude," Ruby lied, not at all kidding, though she continued more comfortingly: "We don't have to. I can, like, sleep on the floor. Though that'd probably be weirder if Y and B came in."
Weiss sighed. "No, no, we can…" she sighed again, from the heart. "Bed?"
Ruby nodded, tapping the line so she could blink easily out of the blankets and stand on her own two feet. She stretched them out, rolling her ankle and coiling, then uncoiling her clawed phalanges. Weiss watched with surprisingly genuine-looking interest, her one blazing eye surrounded by a reddened sclera. Her bare shoulders and neck were a mess of bites and bruises, though they were more faded than they should be so soon after the deed.
"How does it feel?" Weiss asked curiously, her voice a little distant, as if the question had slipped out on its own.
Ruby cocked her head and played a little stupid. "Being a Faunus? Sucks. The feathers only look cool and are a little warm, but they're not as warm as being able to wear a full coat over my arms— or anything that covers them, for that matter. They can buffer a fall a little, but not really enough. And the legs are fun, until you go shopping and get to look at all the things that are super incompatible with the body you were born with, and the things that are compatible are like friggin' collector's specials with a price tag to boot. And I can't wear shoes."
Weiss opened her mouth, but Ruby continued rapidfire, blowing a few months' load of baggage all over her nemesis' red-blooming face.
"A-and, like, it sucks being the only one here— the only one I've seen, at least. It's not like there's a Faunus club; there probably aren't enough to form one, assuming I'm not the sole Faunus on campus. And I have anemia. And my bones are hollow. And my claws tear up any floor that's softer than concrete. And I have Gille's syndrome, which doesn't friggin' help, and there's apparently a cult of racist psychos out there who probably still want me dead!"
Ruby panted, wobbling on her feet a little. Weiss stared, wide-eyed.
Ruby winced at herself. "S-sorry, Weiss, uh… that was a lot. Sorry. Didn't mean to, like, trauma-dump on you. I just couldn't stop once I started."
Weiss shook her head. "N-no, it's… it's okay. I apologize for asking."
"Don't apologize for asking."
"Sorry."
Ruby sighed. "Look, I… thank you. For asking. I appreciate it," she looked at Weiss as earnestly as she could, because she really did appreciate it. "It just sucks, not having anyone to talk about it with."
And Weiss' quiet, awful, screechy little voice just had to speak up in that sheepish way that Ruby couldn't ignore. "You couldst talk to me."
Ruby stared at her. She stared for a long time. She put her silver eyes on the Fourth like she could threaten her with a look, a promise of murder in the case of deceit. "You… really want to know?" she asked slowly.
Weiss nodded even slower. "Thou'rt my… partner."
"And your nemesis."
"And my nemesis," Weiss agreed. "But I've already shared a good few of my weaknesses with you. What say we even that tally, for the sake of fairness?"
Ruby looked left and right with her eyes, mentally rolling the idea around in her head. "Yeah. Okay. Fine."
"'Tis whatever," Weiss added, with a smile that could only be perceived via electron microscopy.
"Whatever, yeah, but not tonight." Ruby hummed, then jerked her head towards the bathroom. "Whatsayest thou we brusheth our dentines such that we might retire?"
Weiss rolled her eyes, but got up and followed Ruby to the restroom where they brushed their teeth in amicable silence, then crawled into Weiss' bed with a similarly friendly quietude. Weiss said she couldn't focus enough to skin-siphon while unconscious, so Ruby opened herself up to be the big spoon before Weiss pushed her down flat on the bed, made a dutiful face that was really ugly (and not extremely cute), and sprawled spread-eagle atop her nemesis.
Ruby snorted. Weiss snored.
