Ruby stared at her report card, blinked, then shrugged. "Yeah," she mumbled, "that's fair, I guess. Weiss?"
Ruby's partner scowled down at her own before neatly folding it with as much rage and frustration as would still allow even folds and perfect, crisp edges. "Aye," she grumbled. "Fair. Tis a word for it."
Ruby snorted at her. They were waiting outside the amphitheater with the rest of their peers, all students from other acceptance blocks who had arrived on campus earlier or later. There weren't many of them— a few dozen at a glance— but the smaller hallway made their cramped number look like a crowd. Ruby was sandwiched shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Weiss Schnee (her partner; had a normal, unharmful shoulder) and Jaune Arc (not her partner; had pauldrons that were harmful to be pressed against). The energy between them was as vomit-inducing as one would expect, but Ruby tried her best not to think about it.
The press of the students had her getting more anxious the longer she was forced to stand in it, and trying to talk with the one person she had a raging (and, yeah, okay, sure, whatever, maybe a little homoerotic, but just as a physical thing, which was weird because she'd never felt or had anything like that before, but shut up) desire to violently murder was not helping. Weiss had the pleasant expression of a silently furious crime-of-passion in the works.
People kept milling, shuffling, making the whole crowd mill and shuffle as a ripple effect, but Ruby wasn't milling and shuffling right. She felt cramped. She felt penned. If she didn't shuffle and mill the right way she was going to make people mad. Her milling and shuffling would be judged. And she definitely didn't want to attract attention. That would be bad— having all those eyes on her. And how would that even happen? Well, all she had to do was get some kind of urge. One like her arm lashing out and hitting Jaune or Weiss, or stretching out when she didn't have the room for it, or making a noise like 'Caw!' or 'Fuck!', which would be terrible.
Ruby flexed her hands out until it felt like her tendons would rip themselves out of her skin, trying to draw out a tic that wouldn't have her hitting somebody. She rumbled her throat quietly, like a grunt or a growl, trying to draw out the 'Caw!' feeling or the rasp of 'Fuck!', but she just ended up sounding like a defensive dog.
"Caw," she said out of the side of her mouth, tightening her throat as much as she could while staying at the crowd's volume. "Caw, caw, c-aa-aaah— ah!"
Weiss turned. "Florabel?"
Ruby ground her jaw, but she'd already started. She couldn't stop it, now. "Caw," she rasped, louder this time, getting an additional glance of concern from Jaune. "Ffff— uck!"
It shot out louder than she'd meant it to, drawing a few more eyes. Ruby shriveled into herself, her shoulders hitching high— not high enough— she hitched them up until the muscles stretched, craning her neck around so she'd hit more muscle groups at once. She winced, straining something along her spine, but she couldn't stop until the demanding itch therein was relieved.
She tried shaking the itch out of her hands, but her tendons needed more. She made a loud 'Caw!', hoping somebody would think it was just a funny bit to make bird noises, but her throat needed something else. All the things in her body were jostling around, vibrating in their sockets— they all had spots they were supposed to be in, square holes with square pegs, but all she had were circle pegs. Nothing fit right. Nothing was slotting in.
She was going to have a blowout; legs, back, shoulders, arms, hands, throat— it was all gonna come out once— Ruby Florabel Branwen Rose was a bomb with a fuse that sparked down with each unsatisfying syllable that passed her vocal chords. Somebody was going to get hit, she was gonna make a fool of herself, and the press of the crowd was too thick to get out.
Jaune was already fully facing her, asking concerned questions, and each 'I'm fine' she gave only dug her in deeper. It didn't matter if she was fine or not. Here it comes.
A hot, clammy hand snatched Ruby's left one, squeezing until the knuckles threatened to buckle, but the sharp pain was a paltry fee for the relief that came when Weiss' pull drained away the overflow between Ruby's ears. Ruby froze at the feeling, reveling rigidly in the overriding satisfaction of her Aura being sucked away. It was a positive feedback: her Aura was sucked away, leaving a head-empty pleasantness that only became more intense as the stress of sentience was sapped into Weiss. The vacancy rolled in so intensely it made Ruby's whole body pulse.
Ruby's knees buckled, and it wasn't even until Jaune jumped to hold her up that reality snapped into her. Wide-eyed, she stared at her partner.
Weiss stared forward, her jaw set, her right hand clutched tightly by her left like it'd betrayed her. Ruby could track the splotches of red crawling up her neck, all the way up until her eyes locked on her partner's mouth where the bottom lip was firmly tucked in between her teeth.
She told Jaune she was fine. Probably. She was pretty zoned-out, so much so that Weiss had to push her forward once the crowd started moving.
"Cease thy gaze, Florabel," Weiss said, more a muttered suggestion than the command It was supposed to be. Absently, Ruby nodded.
Even when they were all sitting in the stands of the grand Amphitheater, Ruby couldn't stop staring at her partner. Weiss didn't notice or didn't care, her reddened skin slowly fading back to its deathly paleness over time as she watched the proceedings. A couple teachers got up onstage and said some words, even squeezed some laughs from the students. Goodwitch said her own speech— more of a vocal syllabus from the muffled bits that floated into Ruby's brain. Then, with the three-legged tapping of a man and his cane, Ozpin took the stage.
Weiss grimaced, hatred pulling her lips as fear flooded her gaze. She turned away from the headmaster. This put her eyes on Ruby, who hadn't stopped gawking. There wasn't an easing to Weiss' expression, but the fear melted into pure anger as she stared at Ruby. Regardless, she didn't say anything. Ruby caught a sparkle behind her bangs.
Instinctively, Ruby reached out and pushed the hair away, revealing mangled ocular tissue with a glimmering silver twinge that turned the milky wound white-gold where it was paler and rose-gold where it was pinker. Weiss stared at her with two eyes.
The anger didn't go away, but Ruby didn't want it to. She didn't want some soft, sappy gaze from Weiss, some sympathetic or pitying look, she wanted that fury. She wanted that little shred of hatred that was squared away just for Ruby Florabel Branwen Rose, because Weiss hated her for everything the was, Ruby hated Weiss for everything Weiss was, and there was a perfect harmony in that pure expression. It was simple. It was understandable. No matter what they did, Weiss would be a disgusting, wretched bitch of a Fourth Archivist. No matter how they acted, Ruby would still be the neurotic, atheist Faunus with enough skill and will to challenge her.
That was what it meant to have a nemesis. Equal forces pulling on each other until they both ripped apart. If someone handed her a knife, she'd ask for another one so Weiss could stab her, too— it just wouldn't be fair otherwise, and Weiss deserved that fairness. Weiss loathed her in a way nobody else had before. It was beautiful.
"Ruby Branwen-Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long,"
Ruby broke her gaze with Weiss, looking down to where Ozpin had apparently been assembling teams.
"Will form Team RWBY, led by Ruby Branwen-Rose."
The words washed over her.
"Thus concludes Block One, you may leave for your dorms if you want to start unpacking— I understand it's late. You'll receive your dorm assignments through your device—"
Weiss jerked her out of the seat by the collar. Ruby let herself be dragged from the Amphitheater, past the doors, out into the hall. A door opened. Ruby crashed into a shelf, bottles and mop-handles falling around her. The door shut. Darkness flooded the room.
"Florabel," Weiss hissed from the cramped dark, jerking her by the front of her collar again, back up to her clawed feet. "Thou wouldst dare usurp my rightful place as leader?"
Ruby didn't really hear her— she was busy lunging at Weiss, pushing her back against another shelf as she locked their mouths together. Bottles and cans clattered to the floor, and Ruby had to fumble around with one long bird-leg just to lock the door.
Weiss smacked her hard enough to separate their lips and push Ruby back, her weakened Aura immediately buckling to the stinging blow. Weiss was back on her in the next moment, grunting into Ruby's mouth as she battered the girl's spine against the other shelf's metal frame and knocked even more things down. Ruby roughly thrust a hand into Weiss' hair, threading her fingers beneath the root of the girl's braid and tightening her grip, making Weiss hiss and back up, trying to relieve the pull, only for Ruby to push forward in tandem. Weiss' hands scrambled up, one clutching Ruby's neck while the other scratched at Ruby's cheek, but she never stopped kissing her. Ruby's free hand grabbed the wrist around her neck, trying to yank it away, and Weiss gave. Despite having more mass to push against Ruby's muscles, at least enough to put up a solid resistance, Weiss' arm went completely slack the moment Ruby pulled.
Grinning against Weiss' lips, Ruby tugged her partner back by the hair until Ruby had her pressed against the door, one arm pinned up against it while the other continued digging its nails into Ruby's face. Ruby pulled her down by the hair, standing straighter on her long legs so she could tower over her partner, forcing Weiss to turn her head up reverently as Ruby's tongue dove through her lips.
Weiss' whole body surged up towards Ruby, and the nails on Ruby's cheek moved to the back of her neck, pressing into the flesh even more painfully. Ruby pressed her body into Weiss' in turn, trying to get as close as physically possible, as if she could simply barrel through the girl's skin and tear her apart from the inside. Her tongue scoured over every inch within, burning hot and wet as she branded 'FLORABEL' over all the spots where 'JAUNE' didn't belong.
It was spiteful, it was hateful, ravenous, tongue-on-teeth, grip tight in Weiss' hair, but it was what she deserved.
Then Weiss moaned. The sound rumbled up her throat. It danced along her tongue, along her mouth, a gentle vibration that laid its kiss on Ruby's lips. It was different. It changed things.
It made Weiss' nails leave the flesh of Ruby's neck, her fingers instead wrapping around to hold her. It made Ruby cradle the back of her head instead of gripping her hair, pressing their kiss impossibly deeper. It made Ruby's hand crawl up Weiss' wrist and lace their fingers together. It made Ruby separate, the both of them breathing each other's air, just so she could look at Weiss. She was the only thing Ruby could see in this darkness. She was the only thing Ruby could feel.
Weiss' eyes were soft, the silvered one shedding some ethereal light as it slowly dwindled away. The need Ruby could see, the need she could feel herself, was gentle. It was a need for something light. It was a need for indulgence.
It was warm, but it wasn't a burn. It wasn't a stab or a punch, it wasn't a scratch of nails or a snap of teeth. It was slow, but it was just as desperate as before. It was a change. An adjustment. A belt-sander to a razor's edge. A rose stem, pruned. The death of violence.
Simplicity made confusing. Pure metal hate alloyed with something else, something weak. That wasn't what they were. That wasn't what they needed. Nemeses were nemeses, never more, never less. Stars fated to collide, never to merge.
Ruby pushed her partner away, scrambling back, tripping over a fallen thing and sending her ass-first into an empty mop bucket. For a second, Weiss reached after her, but her hand pulled back the next moment. Ruby could see the same exact thought process burn its way through her head. Without another word, Weiss fumbled the lock, whipped the door open, and ran out into the hall.
Ruby stayed in the mop bucket.
When Ruby found the Team RWBY dorm— her team's dorm— she was surprised to see Weiss actually there. Not there as in mentally present, though, since she had one arm slopped over the side of the top bunk. She audibly snored.
Ruby looked across the room, finding an identical set of bunk beds with her sister and Blake laying up top and on bottom, respectively.
Team RWBY was asleep, all except for their leader. Their leader, Ruby Florabel Branwen Rose, who was her. She was their leader. She would lead them. The semantic meanings bounced around in Ruby's skull fruitlessly, having no impact on her. Shouldn't she be anxious? Angry, even, that Ozpin clearly did this just to mess with her?
How long had she sat in that mop bucket? Two hours? Is that why she wasn't angry? Because she was tired?
Ruby approached the bunk beneath Weiss', finding her luggage case already laid across it, likely brought by Yang. Figuring the other door to be a restroom, she took a sleep shirt and some gym shorts in with her. Peeling her cassock off was exactly as unpleasant as one would expect, but she quickly had the sweaty mess of it dumped on the floor. Shimmering herself into her gym shorts, she caught contrast in the mirror that drew her eye.
Red, purple, crawling down her neck and collar in mouth-shaped bruises— results of the same kind of crazed whatever that she and Weiss just had in the janitor's closet, with much the same kind of sudden ending wrought by a collective return of their mental faculties. The marks were a dark constellation on Ruby's front, impossible to ignore compared to her pale skin. She forced her eyes up, focusing instead on her hair as if she could convince herself that was what she'd meant to see. Not the hickeys, but the big lock of hair that kept escaping her low ponytail and now dangled over her face.
Sighing, she yanked out her hair tie. The mass of her hair immediately floofed out into the blown-back shock of her mother, with the only signs of mum's influence being the red-black color and the fact that she had it cut down to her shoulders like a normal person, rather than just never cutting it like mom. Bastard that it was, the escaped lock simply fell back down when she tried to push it back with its kin. She scowled, but her hair had long since developed an immunity to mean looks.
Frustrated, Ruby didn't even fix her shirt when she realized it was backwards. She just crawled into the bottom bunk below a snoring Weiss, trying not to think about how weird her shirt felt, or how weird everything was, but everything she tried to ignore just visited her as a nightmare. She barely got an hour of sleep by morning.