Alarm bells. The nuclear ones. The BWOOMP-BWOOMP one you set thinking 'oh yeah, no way I'm snoozin' through this one,' only to achieve a level of snooze you had previously thought impossible.

That's what was going through Weiss' head. And, much like that spike of anxiety, then dread, then resigned hopelessness when you wake up two hours past that alarm, she had resigned herself to it. Gormlessly, she gazed into the mirror, finding a reflection that was equally lacking in gorm.

Ruby fluttered into the mirror's frame, beaming with a befanged smile. Without answering any questions as to the identity of this aforementioned 'We,' Ruby had picked Weiss up— while still hugging her, which the lethally-trained Huntress had kicked, bit, and thrashed furiously at— and carried her to the bathroom with all the ease of a dad with her shitty toddler, plopping Weiss in front of the wide, yellowing vanity.

It was this moment that Weiss finally got to see how awful she looked.

Her hair was problematic, to say the absolute least. It looked as though bathing with a toaster hadn't quite been enough, and the rest of her wasn't much better. She wasn't in her dress anymore, now some dark sweats and a black XL hoodie printed with a trio of wolves serenading their mother the Moon— surely of some occult significance, but the throughline between meat-jar Vampires and werewolves wasn't immediately clear. Beyond the fact they were both fetid creatures of the night, of course.

One such fetid, horrible thing reached around Weiss' front, snapping the Huntress out of the thoughtless stupor she hadn't meant to enter. At the Huntress' jolt, her hand froze.

"O-oh, uh— sorry," Ruby said. "Didn't mean to spook ya. I'm just," she motioned to the messy locks of white that'd fallen at Weiss' front. "Trying to fix your hair. Is it alright if I touch you?"

Weiss squirmed. Why'd she have to ask every time? "Is the Binding stopping you?"

Ruby shook her head. "I felt a little push, but it went away after you jumped."

"Then you don't have to ask."

"Yeah, I do."

Weiss shook her head firmly. "No. You don't. I'm not a house, and the Binding's not stopping you; there's nothing making you hesitate and waste everyone's time."

"It's not—" Ruby sighed, a little hint of frustration scraping its undertones. "You literally said not to touch you without permission. Like, I like you, Weiss. Romantically. Confirm to me you understand that."

Never in Weiss' life would she ever comprehend someone liking her, let alone a literal bloodsucking monster. "Sure. I understand."

Ruby rolled her eyes, as if Weiss had said it with the tones of a very obvious lie (which she hadn't), before continuing, "Fine. So, when you like someone, the general goal is to not make them uncomfortable."

"I'm not uncomfortable."

"You jump every time I touch you."

"Not every time."

"Since last night, yes. Every time."

Weiss scowled. "I'm just jumpy, okay? I'm not uncomfortable. I have well-honed senses, so what if it makes me a little paranoid? That's what keeps you from—" doing stupid things like this— "getting surprised."

Ruby cocked her head at the Huntress, one corner of her mouth creasing, brows lifting in the center— disgust? Pity? "You know it's okay to be uncomfortable, right? I'm not gonna be mad. Even if I was, it's not like— y'know."

Weiss didn't know, but she didn't push it. She just wanted to get whatever this was over and done with so she could go back to her apartment, then lie face-down atop her sheets until the too much went away.

But, resigning herself to the cruel demiurge that was her life, Weiss instead lifted her chin and shut her eyes. "Go ahead. And I'm not uncomfortable, for the record. I was just… thinking."

Ruby hummed, at first with a disbelieving note, then with another, more genuinely pensive tone as Weiss' awful hair was gently coaxed behind her. Without delay, the Vampire set upon it with a brush, every pull like a marlin yanking back against a kid's toy fishing pole, but Ruby was not dissuaded. She just kept going at it from the bottom, tugging more manageable sums, working her way up section by section, Weiss wincing and hissing the whole time. The pain wasn't bad, of course— any Huntress worth their salt does worse to herself at least twice a month— but she just wanted to display that she really was having a terrible, awful, absolutely-no-good time.

Especially once the worst of her tangles were out, when Ruby could run the brush against her scalp with impunity, filtering each overlong lock through the gentle plastic tines, aligning her magnolia mane into something more human. Each pull fondly tugged at her follicles, but in a way that was horrible, and made Weiss want to shoot the monster with a big gun, and also shoot herself because it was so bad. It was so bad that she literally couldn't move. Because of how bad it was.

It was really the worst thing ever the way, when Weiss' eyes fluttered open to a slit— just enough to see the girl in the mirror— she caught Ruby lifting that waterfall of silk, strands pouring heavily between her fingers. The Vampire tracked each colorless lock, her torpor-darkened eyes sparkling white-gold under the sterile bathroom light. It robbed the gravity from her chest, that sight, and Weiss' throat worked heavily against whatever had come pounding its way up.

"S-so—" speaking felt like a crime, despite how desperately Weiss needed to break this razor silence. "Where are—" no, not 'we going', that sounds too casual, too much like she's okay with it. "W-where are you, um—" dear Christ, woman, get a hold of yourself! "What are you gonna do to me?"

Yeah! Yeah, that was normal. Probably. Right? Wait, what'd her mouth say?

Ruby snorted.

Oh, no, she said a sex thing. God dammit. "I— I mean, uh—"

"We're gonna go out and do some things, then we're gonna meet some people, then we'll get dinner."

"And then can I go back home?"

"If you want."

"I do."

There was a twinge that Ruby obviously tried not to make, right at the corner of her right eye, but she said anyways, "You can go home right now, if you want."

Weiss opened her mouth.

Ruby lifted her hair at the back. She brushed up the underside of her hair from the nape of Weiss' neck. It felt—

"N-no. No, I can…"

Stay here and, uh… observe. The Vampire. It's a new kind of Vampire, after all, she needed to take notes. And who knew what the thing would do outside of Weiss' sight? Kill people? Drink them? Go out and brush someone else's—

"I can stay."

For right now, it was her responsibility to surveil the creature she'd awakened. Then she'd have to go back and… gear up. To kill her. Obviously.

"For now."

Ruby laughed, continuing to brush and hum some happy, unmelodic tune. "Okay. You can also stay as long as you want."

Weiss glared at her through the mirror. She squirmed, the words running down her sides like cold mashed potatoes. "Quit saying things like that."

"Like what?" the girl asked smilingly, showing off her disgusting and awful and horrible Vampire-teeth.

"You know what I mean."

"Romantic things?"

The word made all of Weiss' insides shrivel up. "Weird things."

"Why? I'm not gonna hide it."

"W-well—" Ruby's brush made a long pass from front to back, one that had Weiss checking the girl's arm for her talismans. She tried again, pressing a cold tone into her voice. "Well, you should. It's inhumane. And… horrible."

Ruby only smirked as she gathered all of Weiss' hair up and pulled it back, binding it into a casual ponytail. "Of course. Now…"

She gestured over the vanity. There were too many things over it— more options than Weiss could reasonably ingest. She had to put on something, right? Or— or did she already look like garbage? Her face was… her face…

"I've got makeup. If you want it. Might have something close to your color, considering how pale I was before."

Before she drank Weiss' blood, supped of her soul, gave herself to the Huntress, to the girl who couldn't pull the trigger for the good of humanity. There it was again, the creeping distance. It touched her ears like a tide shrinking back from the shore.

"And… um… I'm sorry if this is insensitive, but—"

She was floating in the small chair. Ruby's hand pointed to her face.

"Where'd you get this scar?"

What scar? "I don't have a scar."

There wasn't a scar. "Um… yeah, you do. It— it's not bad! It's just… big."

No. She didn't have a scar. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Just look at your face. You can't not see it."

She wasn't pointing at anything. There wasn't anything there. "I can't see anything, Ruby."

Her dark brows furrowed.

"Why can I see you in the mirror?"

The brows furrowed further. She opened her mouth as if to rebuke, her white fangs impossible to miss, then clapped it shut. Instead of what she was going to say, she answered, "It's backed with aluminum, not silver."

"Are you done with my hair?"

"Yes, but—"

"Okay. Then leave me alone."

"W-Weiss—"

The Huntress growled. "Leave me alone for a damn moment! You've been on my back since I woke up here; no wonder I think you're kidnapping me."

Ruby winced. Did she say it wrong? She said it with frustration— because she was frustrated— but it wasn't supposed to be a dig Ruby couldn't rebut. She'd stuffed the girl I'm the trunk of her car, after all. And threatened to kill her. Tried, too. Multiple times.

"Sorry," Ruby said from the softest part of her chest (figuratively— heart or lungs, not tiddies). "Y-you're right. I just… last time I left you alone, um…"

An animal died beneath Weiss' face, and she scowled like she could smell it. "Just… go. For a second."

"You still need clothes."

"Then bring me some."

No— no, that was— that was the wrong way to say it, right? Wasn't Ruby trying to help? Help with what? Instilling a false sense of security? It didn't matter. She'd been cordial with people who did less for her.

"Please."

Ruby perked up a little at the addition, and the twisted knot in Weiss' insides moved somewhere more amicably than the center of her chest. "Yeah. I'll bring you something," the girl offered. "Won't be designer, but it'll be clothes. We're close to the same size."

"Okay."

Her voice came out too resigned, like she was disappointed by Ruby's acquiescence. Which she wasn't. She wanted Ruby to leave. She wanted the room to be empty. There were too many breaths clogging this space.

Thankfully, the Vampire didn't press. She left with little more than a two-second-too-long look at the Huntress.

The door closed behind her. Fully— the handle clicked and everything. It made relief crawl up warm in her chest. Something like relief, at least. Like… when you're on a rollercoaster, and the guy comes and pushes the harness-thing down, tight on your shoulders, your chest, secure, you won't fall on the loop— hear the metal click? The sound of safety.

(Trust.)

But she didn't trust Ruby. That'd be stupid.

(Being trusted?)

Weiss splashed her face with water. She wasn't thinking— or rather, she was thinking so hard the thoughts weren't catching in her brain. Water off a duck's back.

She scrubbed the water into her pores, dragged her hands down her face, willed another face to meet hers in the mirror. One less tired. One more angry. One who could do what needed to be done.

What met her instead…

Four exorcisms. Nine dewraithings. A family turned undead— dog included. Blood cultists.

A blood cult she hadn't unraveled.

Dead cultists— motivations scant. The thinnest of trails.

"There— the circle. What's it telling you?"

"I— I don't know."

"Yes, you do. Just look."

"It's barely legible."

"Isn't it just?"

The 'look a little closer' voice. Weiss did. "It's… glamoured?"

"Is it?"

"I can— wait, wait, I can…"

Things she was good at: few and far between, but recognizing a pattern was one of them. Good for unpicking glamours.

"There!"

The approving hum. The only approval she ever really wanted. "Now what?"

"You tell me. This is your assignment."

"We… try to match the blood?"

"To whom."

"One of the cultists."

"Not one of the victims?"

"No?"

"Was that a question?"

"No. No, the victims are just the blood lure. The circle's for a Binding."

"To Bind what?"

"Eh, it'd just be conjecture."

"Say it."

She shouldn't have said it. She never should've. Maybe, if she'd stood her ground— "A Vampire."

"Just one?"

"Ritual syntax is all singular. Plus, you'd have to assume at least the smallest amount of rationality— how would a group this small expect to handle more than one if they couldn't even handle us?"

"Assuming rationality? Bold."

"It's only a part of my theory. Syntax is the main thing."

Another approving hum. No better sound was there under heaven. "Good work, sister. We'll do the rest of the tracking after cleanup."

Always bitter. "I could've done better."

"So could we all, Weiss. So could we all."

She turned away from the mirror. She had wanted to look at herself, maybe get a bearing on how she should do her makeup, but there was nothing to see— nothing she could stand to look at, anyway, pitifully shameful as she must've been.

Guilt was a hammer beating at her chest, blow after blow after blow, and it made her nauseous. She couldn't feel guilty— 'feeling guilty' was a tool used by those who were unrepentant, and she was deeply repentant.

But the guilt was in her all the same.

Hadn't she done enough?

Seconds sloshed by. Minutes trickled like honey. Slowly, Weiss lost the feeling of the chair beneath her. She lost the feeling of her fingertips, her toes. Her hands and feet, legs and arms. Her face. It all gradually fell away until the only things left were guilt and blue eyes— one a free and ravaging cancer, the other locked to an open pair of scissors on the countertop.

At the touch of cold, sharp metal against her fingertips, a thick and tonal dagger stabbed through the back of her head, paralyzing all movement:

'Last time I left you alone…'

Weiss' reaction was physical. She tossed the scissors, letting them clatter into the sink as she held the offending hand, hissing as if burnt. Fucking Vampire— a lingering part of the charm, or some other facet of herself the dolt didn't even know about. Perhaps some blowback of the Binding, an anti-harm reciprocity.

(That doesn't make any sense.)

The girl was a new kind of Vampire, and Weiss was a new kind of human to have Bound her. Who knows what could happen.

(You can't seriously think that.)

As if out of spite, Weiss reached into the sink and grabbed for the scissors again, wedging the finger-holes between palm and digit, index and thumb pinching the axle as her remaining fingers clutched the bare metal. The blade tugged in turn, sheer edge hungry for all the miniscule creases in her skin. She jerked the blade to her arm— too visible, Ruby could see— so what if Ruby saw? She'd already seen. She already knew.

Weiss lifted her hoodie anyways, moving the edge to her abdomen— also bad, this admittedly comfy (though vaguely sacrilegious) hoodie would be ruined. She shimmied her sweats down until her upper thighs were glaring up at her.

She glared back.

Her thighs glared harder, so Weiss menaced them with the scissors, slotting the edge against a virginal spot.

(Just like she'd threatened Ruby.)

"Hail Mary," Weiss snarled, pressing defiantly. "Full of grace—"

The door slammed open.

"SorryItookforeverbuttherewassomany—"

Ruby spilled through the threshold and fell over her own feet, faceplanting like a goddamn idiot, her garment-laden arms splaying out and spilling all their articles forth.

Weiss yanked her pants back up, but it was all the recovery she could manage before Ruby was back on her feet, moving with uncanny speed. "Ahah," the girl chuckled nervously. "Ah, uh… you didn't see that."

"Yes I did."

Ruby scratched the back of her neck, seeking respite in the thing Weiss hadn't been able to hide: the scissors, gripped like a tiny knife. "Oh, whatcha… were you just gonna cut your hair without me or something? Haha."

"I'm fine," replied her mouth on instinct, only for her brain to process the statement a little more— just enough to realize that was the wrong answer, but not enough to generate the correct one. "I mean, yes."

Her nerves were misfiring again, fingers trying to do something that required far too much dexterity— to move their hold on the scissors into something more normal for her accidental lie— and she succeeded only in closing the fucking thing on her whole-ass hand.

"Fuck!" Weiss hissed, flicking the now-bloodied scissors out of her hand and launching them into the sink. She held her wrist as if the dull-sharp pain were a flow she could shut, seething. "God… ow."

She looked at Ruby, somehow expecting her to read the room— to translate MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN as Please leave me the hell alone. She expected Ruby to be pale and bug-eyed with concern. She was too used to the gentle caretaker, even if she rebuked that mentally and physically. She thought Ruby would come rushing with first-aid.

The next moment, however, reminded her of what Ruby was.

Weiss found herself pinned within the span of a breath, completely removed from her chair as Ruby lifted her up with one arm and backed her against the vanity. Her other hand held Weiss' wrist, the one atop which was a bleeding cut on each side of a palm.

The silver was almost entirely gone from Ruby's eyes, now reduced to a sparkling sheen atop the thin scarlet strips that remained of her irises, now little more than red rims for the wide and bottomless wells that her pupils had become. Ruby's sclera had become crude oil. Her mouth hung wide, bearing fangs that were long and sharp and hungry.

The moment after, Weiss remembered what she herself was.

Human. One of a weak and fleshy lot. A race past its prime, now forced to sequester its greatest threats into secret. A race born with neither Infernal nor Seraphic grace, little more than vertebrate snails only as good as their shells.

And yet, it was their existence which was the most hounded. Theirs which was the most populous. Theirs to which the world belonged. Humans, who by their means were so far below— humans, who by their efforts rose so far above. Humans, beneath each of whom was a throne all to their own.

A throne to reign over Malevolence.

Weiss wasn't afraid. She didn't shake, nor gasp, nor blink. She knew in her pure and human heart that, even if there were no Binding between them, there wasn't a force in the world which could make Ruby sup of her now. Beyond all reason and logic, Weiss the human was just that far above Ruby the Vampire.

"Get off me."

Ruby threw herself back, spluttering, "I— I-I— I'm sor—"

Weiss slapped her across the face, which made her shrink back like a struck dog. That was good to see. "Close your eyes."

Ruby screwed her eyes shut. Her shoulders were visibly twitching with restraint.

Weiss put her hand in front of the creature's face, palm up. A shock of delight traced her spine at the way it shivered.

"C-c—can I—"

"No teeth."

Ruby whimpered. "B—but it—"

"What."

The thing flushed red, its light latte skin darkening in a way that made Weiss' teeth ache. "It— it— l-l-look—ss— weird."

Something feral pulled Weiss' lips from her teeth. To think that a Vampire— especially one with a charm, one which obviously relied on its seductive presence to lure others into its maw— would be insecure about its own appearance. Had God's grace finally found Weiss, that she should see something so beautiful?

"I don't give a shit. Drink or starve."

The beast's hands shakily rose to take Weiss' wrists, her eyes screwed tightly shut. Though, as her mouth came closer, it stopped, and Ruby's brows rose pathetically once more, beseeching.

"I already told you yes, Ruby. Stop wasting my time."

Ruby pursed her lips and looked down, taking Weiss' hand to tuck it—

"What the fuck are you doing."

"I— I'm— I—"

"Don't hide. I want to see." For some reason, she felt the need to add, "I'm going to learn everything I can about you."

She lifted the Huntress' wrist again. She looked up again. Her lips drifted towards pale skin.

And there, Weiss saw it: her lips— her bottom lip, splitting down the middle, the pinkish-brownish flesh unzipping almost halfway to her chin. The seam unfurled slightly, forming a sort of ridge, but the girl pressed herself to Weiss too quickly for—

"No. Stop."

Ruby stopped.

With her other hand, Weiss slipped her fingers into the back of Ruby's hair and gripped, pulling down, forcing the girl to tilt her chin up and reveal her abominable visage to the Huntress. Her whole face flushed even more darkly, and her eyebrows pinched into pleading desperation. Weiss almost smiled at the sight. It was missing a certain je ne sais quoi.

"Look at me."

Ruby tried so hard not to obey. But, being the sad little creature she was, she buckled. Her lids parted again, revealing that no Vampiric shift could make those eyes any less huge, pathetic, or watery. Weiss' lips found their smile.

"Open your mouth."

Ruby did.

"Look at you."

"'lease, just—"

Weiss gripped the hair tight and yanked. "Shut up. Hold your mouth open. Don't fucking move."

Ruby whined, but honestly what the fuck else was she gonna do? The dolt had made herself useless. It was hilarious. She just stayed there, perfectly obedient, as Weiss relinquished her hair and moved her fingers to Ruby's face. She felt her own smile fall, expression solidifying, as she began to catalogue the girl. She pried her cheeks away with her fingers, forced her jaw further open, tilted Ruby's head back and around to get every angle on each fang.

Four fangs. The top two were about an inch long, maybe three quarters of an inch. The bottom two were only slightly longer than real canines, but not much sharper— clearly a Brood not made to kill its victims, at least not via bite. And the bottom lip thing, it wasn't any kind of Brood standard Weiss knew of— rather reminiscent of vampire bats. At the touch of her index finger, she found it as supple as normal lip flesh rather than interior cheek, which meant there was some kind of magical transmutation of flesh to make the latter into the former— that, or there was a vertical line of lip-skin of the interior of Ruby's mouth when it wasn't split.

And if it was so much like a vampire bat…

"Show me your tongue."

"Aa— uah?"

Weiss grabbed her lower face and shook the girl by the jaw. "Are you fucking deaf?"

At the feeling of warm and wet on her palm, Weiss removed her hand and allowed the girl to shyly poke the pointy tip of a tongue out.

"What are you, a prude? Show. Me."

Squeezing her eyes shut out of shame—

"Do not fucking close your eyes."

Her dark brows knit tight with confusion, but she hesitantly obliged, opening her eyes again as the rest of her tongue pushed through the joint of the whole upper lip and its split companion. Ruby's tongue was long, about one and a half times human standard by Weiss' estimate, but that was the least interesting facet of it. For one, the appendage was strikingly red, as if Ruby had been drinking pints of blood spiked with red Kool-Aid. For two, it was split: not like her tongue, but instead with a deep ridge that formed a groove running from the tip without a visible end, making it look like she had two tongues pressed together to form some kind of… tongue-cleavage.

And sometime around the malformed birth of 'tongue-cleavage' in Weiss' brain, she experienced a brief lapse in judgement.

Because the next thing she knew, she was testing the depth of that cleavage with her thumb. But that wasn't really satisfactory— how could it be? The thumb just really wasn't the kind of thing to probe a tongue with. Obviously. There were definitely things with more nerves than a thumb. Like, y'know, a fellow tongue. What better way to learn than direct comparison? Or something? Right?

Right. Very clear line of reasoning. Anyone, even another Schnee, would be able to extrapolate Weiss' exact logic from the mere sight of her bending forward and mingling tongues with a jar-born Malevolence. And obviously she got a ton of important info out of it: things like, 'it's wet', and 'it's kinda warm?', and 'oh yep it's got that ridge thang', and 'wait this is my first kiss', and 'consciously, at least', and 'she tastes like mouth and it's nice?', and 'haha hahaha haha ha', and 'what the fuck am I doing', which were all extremely important.

When she pulled back, she realized she shouldn't have. Because now she was looking at Ruby. And Ruby was looking at her. And all the power that had been filling Weiss' lungs was gone. And, very suddenly, she felt like a crab without its shell.

Less than five minutes ago: "Show me your tongue. What are you, a prude? Show. Me. Don't close your fucking eyes."

Now: "Uh… haha. Ha. Uh."

Ruby blinked at her. Ruby opened her mouth. Before she could say anything that would be wrong and bad and stupid and wrong and bad, Weiss jammed her cut-up hand in it.

"D-drink," she tried to command. Thankfully, Ruby's unholy disgusting evil animal instincts kept her from noticing Weiss' voice crack, and her grooved tongue (which tasted like tongue and was warm and wet and red) began eagerly lapping at her wounds. Which was, like, super pathetic. And sad. Because Ruby was. All those things. And, uh, beneath her. Superiority. Rawr.

Weiss' brain wasn't melting at all. Not with each stroke of Ruby's tongue on her sensitive palm. Not when she made a little grunt that vibrated against her. She definitely didn't buckle against the countertop again, and Ruby didn't rush forward to catch her without even losing a drop of Weiss' blood. She didn't thrust her leg between Weiss', and Weiss wasn't a slut so she didn't, like, start humping it or anything, because that'd be loser shit.

No, she was uh… not doing any of that. Because that'd be bad, and there'd be one too many Hail Marys involved to absolve her. Like, she'd genuinely have to go confess or something, and how well that'd gone last time.

"F-fuck— Ruby—" she didn't say, especially not while her free hand was down the back of Ruby's waistband, grabbing her ass with inchastity. "The— your— charm—"

Except, it was happening, and she was doing all that, and the new look in Ruby's eyes told her she would brook no ignorance.

And stopping it would be the smart thing. Weiss would seriously regret it. She'd probably hate herself. She'd probably guilt a knife into absolving her flesh of its sins again. She might even try to free the world of her burden again. After all, she still had all the power. There was nothing that kept her from stopping this. As soon as she made that intent real, Ruby would be Bound to stop. And some part of her knew that, even if she failed to muster that intent, Ruby would drag herself away anyways.

But she'd never had anything before. Not a date— not with a girl, with someone she could like, like the Cocos and Pyrrhas and Yangs of the world. Just lonely nights, writhing with shame beneath her sheets, disgracing herself, biting her lips so she didn't risk making a sound. Getting caught once was enough to remind her: there was nothing she deserved.

A whole mansion, a whole legacy, and none of it reserved for her. Not even a sister. Even her own life had been taken out of her hands.

Except, she'd had Ruby in middle school. And she had Ruby now. And Ruby had her. And Ruby 'liked' her, despite how wrong that was— wrong to like your prey, but so much more wrong to like Weiss. Weiss, who looked like bone and skin and grotesquely taut muscle, who looked like a normal face on a too-muscly body, who didn't have a horrid scar squinting up a horrid eye, who had made it her brand to be a huge bitch to that girl ever since she first bumped into her and got to glare down at those huge, watery eyes, who had tried to kill her multiple times, who was cut up all over her body, who wanted something she'd probably never get no matter what she killed, who'd been put in a madhouse, slept in a padded room, treated like she'd never left it, who could never be a real Schnee because she was a girl and, just one time, had really tried to leave that fact behind.

"R-Ruby—"

She jerked her hips up, then ground them down on the Vampire's rigid thigh. She made a strangled noise.

Ruby was in her neck again, but not with her teeth. Just her lips. She was panting over Weiss' skin, and Weiss' face was buried in her soft, fluffy hair. Ruby's ear, already at the corner of Weiss' mouth to capture all the Huntress' sounds, perked up at her name. "Weiss?"

Weiss keened, twitching, rocking herself hard against Ruby's thigh, and it all felt like so much that she couldn't tell if she was close or not— or if she was ever going to be close— or if she was going to be too quick— because she— she hadn't—

"I— I don't— how—"

"What?"

"I'm— I've— I o-only— a—a-lone—"

Ruby breathed harder, pushing her thigh against Weiss. The Huntress gasped, but she didn't know how she was supposed to feel, or how it was okay to feel, so the hand that'd been groping Ruby's ass was now desperately clawing at her hip.

"Can't—"

"Do I—" Ruby breathed so much breath, so hot, and Weiss didn't know what to do with the heady feeling of Ruby's air permeating her brain. "Need to stop?"

Weiss pressed her face hard into Ruby's hair, needing to cover up her hitching gasp because she didn't know if it was a moan or a sob. "I don't— I—"

Ruby eased up with her thigh. Weiss desperately chased it, whining, despite how grateful she was to be able to think again.

"Do— do we have to— see those— people?"

Ruby sighed. "Yeah."

"T-today?"

Ruby lifted her head slightly, then dropped it back down. "I guess it's not urgent."

Weiss pressed her torso against the Vampire, feeling somehow that was a gesture of gratefulness. "T-then uh—" she panted. "Can— can we go— date?"

Now Ruby fully separated, which was worse than being cast into hell. Being able to see her huge and watery eyes, silvered once more, kinda made it a little not as bad. "Go on a date?"

Weiss made no response.

"Like… now?"

"O-once I get dressed, um… yeah."

A little suspicion entered Ruby's voice. "You know we were about to bang, right?"

"I, um… I think I figured that out. Yes."

"And you'd rather go on a date instead."

Weiss frowned. "Well now I don't—"

Ruby threw herself back, hands flapping as if she could shoo her previous statement out of the air. "Sure! Sure. Yeah. We can, uh… go on a date," she said lamely. "Any particular reason why?"

And for some reason, very stupidly, Weiss' brain told her mouth to say, "Because I can't cum without one."