Weiss floated on her back, feeling the warmth of the sun as a joyful contrast to the coolness of the lake beneath her. They were unlucky enough to get their second mission as third-years in late summer rather than early fall— right on the last week of true, agonizing heat before the first cold hand of autumn could sweep it all away.

But the mission was already over. The frontier Huntsman assigned to this village had already returned from his break. The day was supposed to be devoted to repacking, but their things were already packed up in the van. They just had to load up and let Yang and Blake drive them back, since Weiss and Ruby had done the drive out.

But for now, they were enjoying the lake. Ruby had insisted, and Weiss was loath to tell her no. Maybe Ruby wanted to see her in the bikini again. Maybe Ruby really did just want to put around in the water. Maybe…

"Sweet girl?"

Weiss flailed, yanked out of her thoughts by Ruby's sudden presence, but she didn't even get the chance to sink. Ruby's strong, tough hands held her up with ease. Unable to panic at drowning, Weiss realized that Ruby had used the casual 'petplay mode' moniker. She relaxed intensely.

Ruby let her go, so Weiss tread water. The 'planning something' smirk immediately tugged at the scythe-wielder's lips. "What're you doing?"

Weiss cocked her head.

"That's not how doggies swim. Doggies paddle."

Weiss cocked her head further. Ruby's smirk melted into a full grin, then a smile. She laughed and held up her hands, pawing at the air indicatively.

"Go on," Ruby urged. "Do it."

Weiss held up her hands and mimicked the movement. This did not miraculously allow her to swim. Ruby giggled, grabbing her pet beneath her arms before her face could dip under the water. She tugged Weiss over to a shallower spot, close enough to the shore that she could stand up.

"C'mere," Ruby beckoned, immediately receiving a very clingy Weiss who aggressively smooched her cheeks, her lips, and gnawed a bit at her jaw (because she was a weird freak, and Ruby loved her being a weird freak, and Weiss would genuinely murder at least 5 people for her before she started asking questions.) "Down, sweet girl," Ruby giggled, pushing Weiss away with a kiss to the forehead. "I'm gonna hold you for a doggie paddle, okay?"

Weiss made a noise.

"One hand at your chest, one… lower."

Unable to not instantly be horny, Weiss purred, "You don't have to ask my permission, you know."

Ruby's eyes slid away, just a little, in that tantalizing doubt that Weiss delighted in seeing. "I mean… it'll be really close to your scar. I'll probably touch it."

Weiss blinked hard— the scar on her abdomen, from being run through by some mad cult lady's molten spear. It was a gnarled, star-shaped thing, still pink and angry-looking after a year and a half. The flesh itself was… sensitive. Even the cool water of the lake was almost uncomfortable.

"Oh," Weiss said. "I forgot about that."

Ruby's doubt didn't ease. "I just thought this might be a good way t-to, um… touch it. I—I mean, get used to it. To me touching it. In, um… other contexts."

Weiss stared at her. Gods, she wanted to eat this girl sometimes. Out of love. And because Ruby in teeth = very very good. "Sure," Weiss said slowly. "I'll try anything for you."

Ruby's doubt melted into a smile. Weiss' heart swelled as if it wanted to force its way out of her chest and jam itself in Ruby's throat. Lovingly. In a way that choked her to death, but with Weiss' affections. And also didn't kill her, or maybe it did because without a heart Weiss would also be dead, that way they could be buried together, or their ashes could mix in the same urn or scatter on the same wind, and their spirits could keep doing their weird freaky stuff in the afterlife for eternity.

Perhaps, Weiss considered, she might be a little bit not normal.

"Plank out, face down," Ruby urged her. "I won't let you—"

Weiss did not need to hear any justification or assurance that she wouldn't drown, she was already enacting her master's command with complete faith. She laid out, face down, and Ruby's hand was instantly on her chest, holding her out of the water.

Her other hand, however, touched Weiss' side timidly. Weiss regarded her, drinking the momentary doubt that crossed her features before Ruby moved with confidence, her rough hand dragging over the skin of Weiss' waist. When her fingertips found the edge of the scar, the flesh immediately tingled. Unable to help herself, Weiss flinched.

It… it did hurt. Ruby being the one who touched her helped, but…

A couple tears pricked at Weiss' eyes, and she instantly felt pathetic. She felt like a dick. She was gonna cry just because it was a little too much, the cold lake and Ruby's rough fingers, the touch and the arousal, and her damn meds made her so friggin' sensitive about everything and she was the worst girlfriend—

Ruby took her instantly, pulling Weiss in close so the girl could latch her legs around her waist while still shrimping her body up to keep the scar untouched. But there was a tension in Ruby's arms— a reluctance that cut deeper than any physical wound, as if Ruby didn't want to touch her, as if Ruby wanted to throw her away because she'd done the wrong—

"I—" Ruby's voice hitched. "I'm sorry, t-this was a bad idea, I didn't mean to hurt—"

Weiss wrenched herself away from her girlfriend and sucked in what felt like a gallon of snot, plus what was probably a good bit of brain-eating-amoeba-infested lakewater. She sobbed wretchedly. "W-wha— n—noooo, no!" She wailed frantically, squeezing Ruby's waist with her legs. "Nono, no it's— we can— it's not you, it's— it's just a— a—" she couldn't find her words, there were too many to pick from, too many ways to describe the conflict of sensation.

"It's too much," provided the beautiful, intelligent, and very soggy Ruby. "Is it the lake?"

She understood, she always understood, she was so smart. Weiss bit her lip and nodded fervently, all the words of love and gratitude and desire cramming themselves behind Weiss' lips as an unintelligible jumble that she had to lock inside. She let out only a muffled but enthusiastic, "Mhm!"

The tension, what Weiss wrongly and stupidly thought was reluctance, faded from Ruby's arms as she sighed, her hold of her girlfriend becoming easy and comforting. Weiss groaned, still crying but no longer feeling like the world was in imminent danger. Ruby gave her a light kiss on the temple before putting both hands firmly on Weiss' ass and hiking her up securely. Weiss sobbed again, but alternated her sopping breaths with grateful kisses on Ruby's wet neck and shoulder.

Ruby walked through the shallow part of the lake until she had to physically peel Weiss' body off hers, the poor girl clutching after her partner even as Ruby lifted her up under the arms like the puppy she was. She set Weiss' pale butt on the lake's pier, then pulled herself up onto it with her mouth-watering front delts and teeth-tempting shoulders, her long hair slicked down with water, pushed back to show her face radiant in the sun, her abdominal and serratus muscles forming defined channels for every drop of water on her farmer's-tan skin. Weiss' mouth went very dry. Her fingers itched.

Alas, she was still having to suck down snot and sobs in embarrassingly equal measure. She wanted so badly to get inside Ruby, both in a sex way and in an intimate kind of body-melding way, but it was impossible to feel sexy when you looked (and probably sounded) like a waterlogged rat.

When Ruby stretched, Weiss (still kinda sobbing a little) wanted to throw herself down and worship, even if Ruby was definitely doing it on purpose. Maybe because Ruby was doing it on purpose. Or maybe because she looked like some ancient, sexy goddess of war or Huntresses or muscles.

But Weiss Schnee, waterlogged rat, stayed curled up in the fetal position where Ruby had set her. She cried into her knees. Even if she didn't feel stupid or bad anymore, it was hard to stop crying once she'd started.

Ruby knew that by now. Even if it seemed callous, Ruby knew when she just had tears and snot coming out versus when she was breaking down, and she always knew when to give Weiss the distance and time she needed to calm down on her own. With the sun warming her back, probably giving her sunburns that she'd delight in having her girlfriend rub sunburn stuff into later, Weiss' crying slowly tapered out into mere hitches of her chest and shoulders, then calmed into long in-and-out breaths. She scrubbed at her face with her palms.

Ruby squatted in front of her, a gentle smile on her face, her silver eyes twinkling like Weiss was a treasure.

Weiss waved the look away, throttling her own grin beneath a grimace. "S-shut up. I look like a—"

"A wet rat," Ruby instantly knew, because she somehow had a sense for exactly which creatures Weiss called herself in her head. Her voice was catastrophically soft. "The wettest, soggiest, snottiest, prettiest rat I've ever seen."

Weiss pushed her stupid, beautiful face away, hoping to force the precious idiot's eyes from the blush that she'd call a sunburn if confronted. "You're the worst," Weiss claimed, mashing her girlfriend's face under her palm. "Incorrigible."

Ruby smirked against her hand, voice muffled but undeniably triumphant. "Oooo, I'm Weiss," she mocked. "I use big words to hide how much I love my girlfriend."

Weiss mashed harder. Ruby giggled.

"Even though I can barely keep myself from saying it when I'm collared—"

Weiss leapt for her with intent to kill.

The road bumped beneath them, one of three sounds present in the big van they'd taken out to their mission: the road, Blake's podcast (something about history, Weiss wasn't really listening), and the sound of Yang snoring in the front seat.

Weiss looked over at her partner. Ruby was staring out the window.

Weiss' mouth screwed up. This simply wouldn't do. She wanted attention. Two hours into this ride, sitting with Ruby alone in the back, had been enough for her. She'd managed to keep it in her pants this long, and Blake was already in on her own freak shit with Yang.

She unbuckled her seat belt, moving to the middle seat where she buckled back in. This didn't make Ruby turn, which Weiss realized was probably on account of the ear buds she had in. That bastard woman. She couldn't go and do the whole pet thing and expect to be able to have a moment of peace! That was the whole point of having a pet— no peace! Ever!

Weiss pawed at her. Ruby finally turned. Weiss licked her cheek.

Now, honestly, outright licking her girlfriend wasn't something Weiss had really done before (in a non-sexual context), nor was it something she'd intended to do. Alas, here she was: leaning over, tongue on her girlfriend's cheek, and she didn't really know whether to keep going because it was salty and actually rather pleasant, or to stop.

Ruby, of course, was perfect, because she instantly raised her right arm to encircle Weiss' head in greeting, letting the girl's chin rest on her bicep while her hand scritched Weiss' scalp. She didn't even wipe off her cheek, which might've been a slight freak thing, but it was a slight freak thing that delighted her partner, who nuzzled into her neck and let out pleased little breaths at the attention.

The podcast turned up. Weiss peeled her head away just enough to side-eye their driver, but Blake's amber gaze remained firmly on the faded lane markers before them. As if to enunciate her deliberate nonchalance, Blake let out a brief whistle. Sighing, Weiss put her chin back on Ruby's incredible bicep and stuffed her nose back where it belonged.

Ruby's throat hummed. "Good girl," she whispered, incentivizing Weiss to wriggle her whole body as much into Ruby as she could, as if the frequency of her joy could squeeze her atoms in between Ruby's and fuse them together forever. Weiss closed her eyes, her hands scrabbling for any piece of warm Ruby they could grasp.

Then Ruby shifted, there was a light rustling, and the painfully familiar sound of crinkling plastic made Weiss' eyes instantly shoot open. She jerked her head away, every alarm bell ringing in her brain as her partner extracted the infamous treat bag.

'Infamous,' in that she had genuinely conditioned Weiss' brain into flooding her with dopamine as soon as she heard the sound, which had meant she would often be elated at the sound of literally anyone else doing anything audible with any kind of plastic bag. But this wasn't any kind of plastic bag. This was the bag. She looked up at her partner, silently begging, but also beseeching. What could she possibly do here to earn it?

Ruby, as if she heard her silent question, simply shook her head and beckoned Weiss to receive a whisper. She leaned towards the scythe-wielder, ear perking as Ruby's lips neared it. Ruby let a warm breath ghost over the cartilage as a reward.

"To make up for earlier," she justified. "You can have one whole cookie."

Weiss wanted to rip herself apart just to cope with the incomprehensible surge of elation, but something about it was… lacking? Wrong? She wanted nothing more than to have the treat— the whole treat— but this wasn't right. She couldn't have a cookie any time Ruby accidentally made her feel a little bad— they were together-together, and Weiss wanted to be together-together with Ruby basically forever, which meant a lot more opportunities for Ruby to accidentally make her feel a little bad, for Weiss to accidentally make Ruby feel a little bad, and she really didn't like the idea of some one-sided ritual coming out of it where Weiss would get rewarded for feeling bad. And Ruby had done enough already. She'd made up for it. Weiss understood what she wanted and they tried and it didn't work right then and there, but they'd try again later. She was a big girl. She didn't need a cookie, she didn't really need anything. The past was behind them, best not to memorialize it and run the risk of tainting the purity of their roleplay dynamic.

Weiss shook her head, pushing the bag back towards her girlfriend. She didn't need to give Ruby the whole internal justification— not now, at least, and maybe Ruby could intuit the real reason herself. For the moment, Weiss simply told her, "No thank you, I need to earn it," which didn't really explain the whole thing about it, but essentially captured the desired praxis of her reasoning.

Ruby puzzled, staring at her with a look of complete loss, which meant Weiss would have to really explain it later. For the moment, however, she gave her beloved a kiss on the nose and nuzzled back into her neck. After a few moments, Ruby went back to giving her scritches, and Weiss spent the next few hours clutching her hands all over her girlfriend's body, enjoying the ways her breath hitched and released when she touched her legs or slipped her fingers beneath the hem of Ruby's shirt.

Eventually, the delightful ministrations of Ruby's nails on her scalp pulled Weiss into sleep.

A couple weeks passed since Ruby tried to touch her scar, and the anticipation had started to make Weiss weirdly desperate.

It didn't help that they couldn't enjoy the post-mission days off like usual, since they were coming back straight into the midterm exams and needed to hit the ground running. And, when she needed to— when her team needed her to— Ruby Rose could go on an absolute warpath. The days became structured around group study: flashcards, quizzes, practice tests, reviews, a day-in, day-out grind against the academic monolith. They were the highest-ranked team in terms of fighting, but they had barely clawed their way to third place in terms of testing. Now, in their third year, nothing less than first place would suffice.

It was domineering, but it wasn't selfish— it'd been a group vote for RWBY to leave records behind at Beacon, and they'd already branded their names across every single combat-based, scored metric at the Academy. The midterms would be their first major, non-combat hurdle. They had a month to get ready.

But Weiss was starting to wish she hadn't voted 'Aye'. Or that they'd gotten into the petplay before that vote— at least then Weiss would've known what she'd be missing out on. And, when she'd voted, she was a different person: driven by fanatical rebellion and bursting at the seams with a desire to prove herself. She would've worked herself to the bone to be more than she was.

But now Weiss was more. She achieved what she had wanted, back then. She was more than Schnee. And even better, having Schnee identity undeniably within her wasn't even so bad, now. The SDC was different under Willow— better, and only becoming better with time. She was back in touch with Winter, back in touch with Whitley, blessedly out of touch with her deadbeat inmate father. She was medicated. She had Ruby.

She had everything. She wanted for nothing. That made it really hard to not get catastrophically burnt the fuck out.

Catastrophically burnt the fuck out, Weiss sank into the tub. She breathed deep of the concoction of salts and oils and a million other things that she'd added to the cauldron, but no amount of bath bombs and salty bubbles could smooth out the jagged, nicked, unhoned edge that she had become. In just two weeks, she succumbed to the stress.

Her head felt like it was full to bursting with dust formulae, Aura calculations, literature, history, geology— she could see diagrams of Grimm anatomies behind her eyelids, the pictures of their cadaver dissection, the maps and the graphs, the charts, the flashcards— could feel the needle in her hand, the suture she'd thread into it, the pencil, the pen, the papers, the papercuts— her fingers were covered in little adhesive bandages because her meds made her shaky when she was stressed and she kept fucking dropping her papers and cutting her fingers and Ruby wouldn't even put the bandages on herself like she always did she'd just hand over the box like it was nothing and sometimes it felt like it was nothing even though Weiss knew she was just focused Ruby was really focused and she needed to be focused and Weiss needed to be focused but there was just so damn much to focus on that she couldn't get her eyes to stay in one place for more than five minutes without feeling this crushing weight of dread expectations like— what if she fucked it up for all of them? What if she brought their score down? What if she ruined it— ruined their whole team just because she was a little stressed? Blood and dust, she used to eat study sessions for breakfast and ask for seconds! She used to throw stress off like it was nothing! She used to be better, and stronger, and she didn't need any friggin' medication or weird kink bullshit to cope with herself! Academics was a breeze— it always had been a breeze— why were things so much harder! Because she was happy, now? Because she was so spoiled that it made her soft? She just needed to go back, why didn't she go back, why didn't she regress if that meant she'd be stronger and better and smarter and more, if that was what Ruby needed, if she always did what Ruby needed, if she'd do anything for Ruby just like Ruby would do anything for her, why wasn't she doing it! Why was she being selfish!

Weiss was crying. Again. Ugly-crying into her hands. Sobbing like a baby. Acting like a baby. What had she become?

The bathroom door opened. She didn't need to move her hands to know who it was.

"Weiss? Sweetheart?"

'Sweetheart' was how Weiss knew how bad it looked— how bad she must've looked: weeping in the tub, her knees tucked up out of the water, twitching in the fetal position. The door closed. Weiss tried to hide herself by yanking the curtain shut, but firm and familiar callouses landed on her hand and stopped it in its tracks. "G-go— away—"

"I don't think you want me to go away."

Weiss' arm hugged her legs again. She tried to breathe in the steam of the bath as if that would help, but there was too much snot in the way. "I— I'm f-fine."

"I don't think you are fine."

"Well I don't think—"

She had whipped around to say something at Ruby, something that would hurt, but Ruby looked at her like she'd already said it, and she'd already forgiven her for saying it, and nothing she said could ever make her love the girl any less. "What's wrong?"

Weiss pressed her forehead back into her knees. She sobbed. It was all she could do. Words, syllables, letters, even thoughts melted into sobs.

There was a thud, then a rustle. Weiss looked up, only to find Ruby taking a seat on the side of the bathtub. Her boots, along with everything else but her undershirt and boxers, now rested on the sinktop. "Did you wash yet?" Ruby asked, one hand probing the water.

"W-W—" Weiss sobbed.

"Did you wash?" Ruby repeated, miming a lathering motion about her head.

Weiss shook her head and kept sobbing. It was only a bath for de-stressing, as well as that'd worked out for her.

Ruby nodded. "Okay. Perfect. Do you mind if I join you?"

Weiss stared at her, still sobbing, her sobs hopefully coming out in the shape of the 'What?' in her head.

One of those lean arms, with its rough hand and all its thick, strong fingers, extended to cup Weiss' cheek— which she didn't deserve, because she probably looked like some kind of lagoon creature. "Some kind of acknowledgement, sweet girl. Nod, shake, blink thrice for yes, anything."

She must've been conditioned to that nickname like she'd been conditioned to the cookies, because hearing it instantly calmed her just enough to give Ruby an affirmative nod of the head. The girl smiled, her silver eyes radiant in the bright light of the bathroom. She stood. She took off the rest of her clothes.

Weiss didn't feel the need to be hyper aroused any time she saw a scrap of the girl's skin, but she didn't appreciate Ruby's nakedness any less. If anything, she appreciated it more. No longer did she only think about how Ruby's arms and shoulders could pick her up, or hold her down, or how they'd look spread out and restrained. She didn't just think about how it felt when those thighs shook, twitched, then slammed together to trap Weiss' head where Ruby wanted her the most.

Now, she saw Ruby for everything she was. How every muscle was trained from painstaking hours swinging that scythe, working out, refining every fiber, only to use those same sculpted arms to pick up a puppy and kiss its furry head, or carry their things when they had to do a mission, or to extend to Weiss, to stretch with fingers splayed, to clasp about her forearm and bring her to her feet, to clench around Weiss' waist, or around her chest, or around her shoulders, to lift her up and pop her back, to hold Weiss in security as Ruby dipped her low at the dance. Weiss saw her partner's taut waist, the muscles, and she instantly knew how it felt to splay her hand over them. She knew how it felt to hold her around the sides, to pull Ruby close.

She could imagine Ruby during sex, obviously. She could almost see her twisting beneath— or above— her. That wasn't hard.

But she could feel how Ruby's skin felt against her own. How her muscles tensed. How her chest rose and fell with breath and sound. Without even thinking about it, her flesh warmed with the memory.

Getting lost in the sight helped calm her some, but she was still crying. Still angry at herself for crying. For taking Ruby away from whatever she'd been doing. For wasting her time, when every second was so precious right now.

Ruby's body slid into the tub behind her, flush against her back. She reached around, legs and arms wrapping around Weiss' knees, and she squeezed. Ruby kissed her on the back of the neck. That made her feel better.

But, when Ruby said she was proud of her hard work, she felt twice as bad. She hadn't been working as hard as everyone else, and yet who among them was weeping in the bathtub? Classic Weiss: emotional and unreliable.

"Scoot forward."

Inching on her butt, Weiss obliged her partner. Ruby got up and took down the shower head, turning on the water and switching the flow to it when she did. She set the showerhead somewhere else. She sat back down behind Weiss. When she asked the girl to pass the shampoo, Weiss' arm acted on its own, passing the requested bottle without really considering why. Her brain was too busy wallowing to consider such things.

Then there was hot water threading into her hair. Then fingers, tough and strong but slick and smooth, pressing into her scalp, lathering— nay, massaging the shampoo into her hair. Weiss' whole body instantly went slack, her thoughts seeping out through Ruby's fingers. She sighed, but her sigh didn't end until she'd let out a long, purring moan.

"Jeez, when was the last time you had this cut? It's so long."

Weiss' tongue moved easily in her mouth, as if lubricated with alcohol. "When I was… ten," she answered. "I got a… a…" the word was lost somewhere in the steam. It took her a long time to find it, but Ruby waited for her. "A… bowl-cut."

Ruby's hands went stiff. Weiss sniffled.

"I… I say 'got'... I mean… I did one. For myself. But I vowed… never again…"

"Do you have any pictures?"

The giddiness in Ruby's voice made her heart swell. "You'd haveta… ask…"

"Your mom?"

"Or Win…ter…" she mulled the thought over, moaning with Ruby's care. "Prolly Winter."

Ruby snorted. Weiss expected more, some continuation, until the hot water returned to wash the shampoo away.

"Can you stand up? It'll be easier if this is a shower. And you won't be sitting in Weiss-and-Ruby-stew."

Weiss grunted.

"Was that a 'nnnhm' or a 'nn-nn'?"

"Nnnhm."

Ruby kissed the back of her sodden head, then her hands moved to Weiss' shoulders, down her arms, then under them, lifting until they were both on their feet. Ruby replaced the showerhead and turned it on, dousing them both. Beacon Academy, if nothing else, had wonderful showers.

"Turn around."

Weiss turned around, opening her eyes to meet Ruby's. Wait, why'd Ruby turn her—

Ruby kissed her on the lips, then the nose, then between her soggy white eyebrows. "That was all. You can turn back around."

Weiss turned back around. She felt an idiot's grin poking at her cheeks. She sniffled.

"Good girl."

Weiss leaned back, pushing her body reverently against Ruby's, preening.

"Can you talk now?"

Weiss wiggled in a way that said 'yes, but I want to finish this.' Ruby, fluent in wiggling, understood.

"Pass me the conditioner?"

Weiss passed it. Ruby, unfortunately, was smart enough to use it on the body of her hair rather than her scalp, but it still felt nice. Being cared for felt nice, but Ruby eventually traded positions so she could quickly wash and condition her own hair. She prepared a loofah, presenting it.

Weiss recoiled from the accursed thing.

Ruby moved to hand it over, but Weiss plucked it from her hands and hung it back up. She wiggled her fingers in a 'just use your hands because the loofah is too scratchy and you won't be able to gauge how much pressure you're applying to something like my big scar as well as you could with your fingers' way. Ruby, fluent in both wiggling and waggling, understood. She soaped her fingers.

Getting soaped by Ruby's bare hands was exactly as stimulating as Weiss had expected, but that made it no less lovely. Ruby was gentle with her skin, keeping a light pressure in her fingers the entire time, taking care to avoid the scar. She even soaped her breasts as non-sexually as she could, and she only failed slightly at not arousing her partner. Then, when the time came, she looked down at the scar and up at her partner. She looked painfully serious, but the doubt was there. That tantalizing doubt.

Weiss tucked her bottom lip between her teeth. She nodded. Ruby's hand slowly dragged over her waist, towards the scar, and when her fingers met the mottled red flesh, Weiss jumped.

Ruby did not pull away. She stayed still, her body blocking the water from overstimulating the area as she touched it. She let a long moment pass for Weiss to get used to it. Weiss's fingers eventually drifted over her wrist, bidding her continue, and bit by bit Ruby encroached her touch upon the tissue, until she could press down with her palm and contact the whole area at once. Weiss stiffened, but held Ruby's wrist there when the girl instinctively tried to jerk away.

When Weiss nodded again, Ruby slowly swiped her hand over the area, covering it in body wash before she stepped aside and let it be rinsed off. Quickly washing herself, Ruby turned off the water and held Weiss' hand as she stepped out of the tub.

Weiss took the towel that her partner offered. "I'm burning out," she finally admitted, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders, only for it to be replaced with an unease in her chest.

Ruby looked at her, cocking her head. "You are?"

Weiss curdled, because yes, she— of all people— was the weak link—

"Ohthankdust," Ruby sighed out all at once, slumping hugely. "I— gods, Weiss I thought— I thought something had happened."

It felt like something had happened, and Ruby wasn't giving it the level of seriousness it deserved. She could have aloof moments— it was something of a coping mechanism for her. "N-no, no, you're not— Ruby." Weiss said, injecting all the seriousness she could into her sad, croaking voice. "I. Am. Burning. Out."

Ruby cocked her head. "Yeah. I know. That's what you said. I am too."

Weiss flinched back as if struck. "You—"

Ruby nodded. "Big time. Huge time. This super sucks."

She blinked. "So I'm…"

"Not the only one? Nope!"

'Not the weak link?' "Oh. That's good. Or— nono, wait, is that— is it good? Or is it bad? I— I know you really wanted to… to make our…"

Ruby diligently toweled herself off, then shook out her hair like a dog. "I did, but that was two years ago. I was a lot less…" her expression darkened, for the briefest of seconds, before her relieved grin came back. "Confident, back then— needed to prove myself. Y'know?"

Weiss nodded, understanding her words but not assembling their purpose as a whole. "So what're you saying?"

"That it's obviously not worth it," Ruby said.

"That's too easy!" her partner blurted, shrinking into herself as soon as the words belted out. "I— just mean, we… we can't just… give up on…"

"It's not giving up."

Weiss met her eyes again, finding silver set harder than steel.

"We have made our mark here. We've set records already." Her gaze cracked a little, slipping away with slight guilt. "Honestly, I… I should've discussed it with you, with all of us. None of us are the same from when we made that resolution." She snorted, regaining a little levity as she said, "Hell, we're all doing petplay now—"

Weiss faffed her hands into the girl's direction, earning a light giggle from Ruby as she slapped her away.

"Okay! Okay," Ruby conceded. "But… I'm sorry. I kinda thought if I rushed us into it super hard, I'd see the value in it, but… well. Literally the opposite."

"So… you don't…"

"Heck no!" Ruby announced. "This is the worst! Didn't get to do any fun stuff with our time off, have to study— I already know all this crap! If it hits me on the test and I don't know it then it's honestly just not friggin' meant to be!" She took a breath. "And do you know how much I want to do fun pet stuff with you? This absolutely sucks!"

Weiss stared at her. "So… what about Blake? And Yang?"

Ruby snorted.

"What about Blake?" Weiss restated.

The girl of Weiss' dreams double-tapped her with a pair of finger guns, smirking. "Blllayyy-yke cayun suhk. Mah. Bawls," she answered, ever the cunning linguist of the modern age. Then, mercilessly, Ruby perforated her girlfriend with a second volley from her digit-pistols. "And that's democracy, baby!"

Weiss marveled at the concept. "You're serious?"

The finger guns were holstered, i.e. Ruby put her hands back down at her sides, grinning just a little. "I mean… yeah. Of course I am. Especially if it's hurting you this bad. It's just not worth it." Her eyes went soft. A little distantly, she said, "Nothing's ever worth hurting you, Weiss."

The words, with the almost grim sincerity in Ruby's candor, made Weiss cry again. Ruby hugged her. Weiss' hands scrambled all over her partner for something to grip, to hold tight to, and ended up in her hair. Her fingers, unfortunately, discovered it to be an awful, tangled mess— easily twice as bad as Weiss' despite being a third the length, not even touching her shoulders in all its wet, scraggly jaggedness.

"Ruby," Weiss bemoaned. "Your hair is awful. Don't you brush it?"

Ruby backed away, a brief expression of hurt playing across her features until Weiss conceded to giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Nope!" she proudly answered afterwards, shaking her head like a dog again. "I just shake it out! It's called style."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Sure. You know, I'm supposed to be the—" nope. No. Not those words. "I'm going to brush you."

Fear widened Ruby's eyes and she tried to shuffle away, but Weiss just tightened her hands in that rat's nest of black tangles. Ruby mewled a little. Weiss would not be distracted by her attempts at seduction.

For the moment.

All she had to do was keep resisting while she brushed Ruby's hair. Then, when her own hair was dry, she could put on her collar and lay over Ruby's lap and let her brush her like the good pet she was. All she had to do was resist until then. She had to be a wall against lust. Impregnable.

That was all she had to do. How long would her hair take to dry anyways? Fell about to her hips… so what, four, five hours? Six? She could do that. Willingly blueball herself. For 5 hours.

Weiss Schnee was, after all, known for her stability.