"Weiss."
She heard her name. Turned. Smiled. Her person smiled back, but she didn't say anything immediately. Maybe she just wanted to look. Or wanted Weiss to look. So she could see Weiss' face. Which meant Weiss was worth seeing. Pretty. Yay. Weiss turned forward again and kept plodding on. She was a little too happy at first, too eager from it, too fast: her collar hitched on her throat, leash going taut. Ruby was always firm about exactly how much slack she gave, and that was none— unless Weiss could sit for her, which Weiss hadn't. So the leash went tight, collar gripping Weiss' throat to the point where it made itself undeniable. Ruby stopped. Weiss shuffled back a step. She sat.
Ruby hummed, "Good girl."
They kept on walking together. Ruby kept walking, at least. Weiss walked in the way pets do. She thanked the gods; the gods were named 'Ruby Rose' and 'Ruby Rose's ceaseless ingenuity and insistence that anything she could buy, she could make', and Weiss prayed to them very frequently. They graced her with comfy knee pads such that she may be a better pet for her person. If she was very good, Ruby would give her stickers to put on them. She fucking loved stickers.
"You ever think about how we were kinda groomed to be child soldiers?"
Weiss knew bait when she heard it, and what she heard wasn't her name. She twisted her neck just a bit, to feel how her neck didn't have any hair on it. Ruby had given her a braided bun that Weiss honestly doubted she could do herself— for safety's sake, Ruby had claimed. To keep her hair from getting under her hands as she walked. To keep it off the ground; clean and bright and white and perfect. It felt good to be perfect again: a perfect that was predicated entirely upon a sticker-based economy.
Ruby clicked her tongue a couple times; Weiss stopped, but didn't sit. She stayed up on hands and knees and took the opportunity to let her neck hang and roll, wringing some relief from the ache that came with walkies. Her leash slackened more as Ruby sidled up on Weiss' left, standing just out of the corner of her eye. She reached over Weiss' head with her free right hand. She palmed Weiss' right ear, and gently pulled her head against her thigh. Weiss couldn't help but nuzzle her; even if the position was a little awkward— her cheek rubbing more against the side of Ruby's knee than her thigh— it was good. Ruby slipped her fingers through Weiss' hair, scratching at her scalp with the short but uneven nails of a 'former' nail-biter. Weiss hadn't the mind to judge her. She had only the mind to enjoy her; and enjoy she did. Weiss chuffed out a small and joyous noise, preening as she rubbed her cheek twice as graciously against Ruby's leg.
Ruby sighed, a smile audible within. It was relief, Weiss knew, because she sighed just like that too. All the time. It was the sigh when she looked at Ruby and couldn't really believe she was there, that she was with her, that they were together; that Weiss Schnee, of all people, had become somebody who could be with Ruby Rose. It was when that disbelief became tangible, sitting in her chest, a heavy, murky doubt. But moreso, it was when she went to Ruby, and Ruby could see her mind in her eyes. It was when Ruby cupped the back of her neck, pulled her in, and kissed her between the brows. It was when the gentle press of her lips obliterated doubts, obliviated worry. It was when Ruby encircled her waist as well, when she pulled Weiss into her, when she kissed the crown of her head. It was when she buried her nose in Weiss' hair. It was when Weiss buried her nose in Ruby's neck. It was when they held each other in their arms and in their lungs, and they knew. It's you, Weiss always thought in those moments, It really is you.
And then: release. That was the sigh.
Then, just as abruptly as they'd stopped, they kept walking. Weiss walked perfectly. Ruby led her perfectly. Perfection could be good, and it could be measured with stickers. Stickers were miles above the previous metric: how could something so ephemeral and intangible as Jacques Schnee's approval compare to a sticker of a pink koi fish?
"Kinda messed up, huh?" Ruby said, in the same voice anyone used to talk to a pet. It was a voice that had no hurry. It had no fear or anxiety. It was easy. Unserious. If you had a problem, and you talked to your dog about it, the problem would start to feel stupid. Looking up, down the empty halls, Ruby finished, "But I guess I understand it."
Weiss looked back at her, smiling, some measure of pride rising within her chest. Ruby understood, and Weiss had helped her, somehow. It didn't matter how. Just by being there, Weiss helped. She held innate value; just by virtue of existing, she conferred a tangible benefit onto the lives of those around her. She even believed that, now, rather than repeating the therapist's words with her mouth. She was worthy.
Ruby returned her smile with a small one of her own— mostly in the eyes, the softening therein; not so much the huge, gleaming floodlight of teeth she gave to others. For Weiss, she smiled from the soul, raw and unabashed and small to the eye. It was almost sad— it was sad— but sadness was only one shade on the palette of that smile; a blemish, maybe, or a brushstroke that any reproduction or forgery would flatten to the point of illegibility. Ruby was in that sadness, just as much as she was in the dusky twinkle of her eyes.
Weiss was staring. She hadn't meant to, but now that Ruby was staring, too, she was glad of it.
"Hey," Ruby said, the corners of her mouth lifting by a hair.
It felt right to permit a breach in character, just for Weiss to return, "Hey."
Ruby fought her smile, visibly, but it broke across her lips like the sun burning through the clouds. She covered it with the back of her hand and snorted.
Weiss harrumphed. "What? We were having a sweet moment."
Ruby waved her off, snorts turning to giggles. "N-no— we were— but—" she waved her leash-hand over Weiss: still on all fours, padded at the knees, in gloves and leash. Ruby snorted again. "I mean, it's funny."
Weiss scowled at her. This only made Ruby snork harder, longer.
"I'm sorry," Ruby lied, clearly not sorry in the slightest. "Sorry."
Weiss turned up her nose, faced away from Ruby, and fell onto her haunches.
Ruby made a scandalized noise. She rounded Weiss, disbelieving, but Weiss shuffled on her knees to avoid granting Ruby the grace of her visage. Ruby tried skirting around again, but Weiss kept her face upturned, shuffled away again, and avoided any glimpse of eye contact with her partner.
"Weiss!" Ruby whined. "Come on, it was funny!"
Weiss kept quiet, and kept herself facing opposite Ruby.
"Weiss…"
Weiss didn't bow. Ruby pulled the leash a bit, desperate for attention she'd happily revoked on her own. Petty or not, Ruby earned this scorn.
"Quit being a stubborn butt, it was a joke!"
Weiss remained a stubborn butt. Eventually, Ruby resigned chasing her partner in circles. She simply stood behind Weiss like she had before, presence tangible. Ruby sighed.
"Fine," she said, exasperated. "Guess… I won't be able to show you those surprises."
Weiss' resolve was sugar glass before the Crescent Rose intrigue of her partner. She shattered in less than a moment, spinning around on her knee pads, staring up at her partner in desperate appeal. She pawed at Ruby's pants, tugging the hem of her shirt. She grabbed Ruby's hand and kissed it religiously; then, she took the side of Ruby's hand into her mouth and licked her salty skin.
Ruby looked down at her and smirked, her lips like the vicious curve of her scythe. The mirth in her eyes became hot and cruel, bemused. Her hand twitched in Weiss' mouth, and the backs of her knuckles caught on Weiss' teeth as she ripped it free. Weiss fell after it, onto all fours, heavy of breath. Her abdomen was sore. Her back was sore. Her legs and arms were sore. She'd been walking awhile. Ruby had made her haggard.
She looked up at the girl who held her leash— twisted her leash, wrapping it around her knuckles, dragging Weiss up until she was on her knees again. The leash bulged over Ruby's clenched fist like a knuckle duster. There was no slack left; Ruby's white knuckles were on Weiss' neck. Ruby took her tags between thumb and forefinger. She grinned at Weiss terribly, a wolf before the fawn, and jerked the leash again. Without any slack, Weiss fell into her, face pressing against Ruby's hot abdomen. She panted, gulping air from her mouth, barely able to keep her breaths up as her partner's warmth stifled the air. Ruby had not made her haggard, no. Ruby had made her helpless.
"You really think you can be stubborn with me?"
The words carved into Weiss, a white-hot knife plunging into her chest, dragging down her stomach, melting her from the inside.
Weiss tried to crane her neck up to see Ruby's face— she needed to see her eyes, her lips, her voracious grin; it felt like ages since she'd seen this side of her partner. She needed to take every last drop of it.
Ruby obliged her, roughly. She palmed Weiss' forehead, thumb digging into temple, nails digging into scalp; she pushed without mercy. Weiss' neck strained back, throat and collar bare to Ruby, kept only from falling backwards by Ruby's grip on her leash. Ruby relinquished the latter and Weiss tipped back; Ruby followed, falling hard to her knees as Weiss' shoulder blades hit the floor. Their Auras flared out to absorb the impact.
Ruby stooped over her, still holding Weiss' head, her other arm a trembling column to the right of Weiss' face. Ruby's eyes were wide, pupils black and deep swallowing irises until only thin silver rings remained. Her lips were slightly parted, breath hot and needy, stuttering out in shaky, uneven puffs over Weiss' face.
Weiss looked at her and shivered. Ruby pushed her head against the floor, eyes darting down to track the bob of her throat as Weiss swallowed. Her gaze flickered back up. She lowered until the tip of her nose touched Weiss' cheek.
"You know," came Ruby's voice in shaking, husky breaths. "Sometimes, I love you so much it scares me."
Weiss tried to move her head, but Ruby did not allow it. She whimpered instead. "Only sometimes?"
Ruby kissed her on the cheek. It was gentle, and made the fingers in Weiss' hair all the more rough by contrast. "Sometimes it scares me," Ruby clarified. "But I love you all the time."
Weiss writhed, pushing up with her elbows to get some part of her body on Ruby's body. Ruby's gaze lapped of the sight: Weiss beneath her, pinned down by the head, straining her body into a desperate curve just to touch her sternum to Ruby's. Weiss' hands clawed at the floor.
"It scares me," Ruby continued, her eyes stuck on the shape of her partner, unable to tear themselves away. "Because I want to just…"
Ruby's eyes snapped to Weiss', begging for exact words that she couldn't find. Weiss could only return the gaze. Ruby kept staring, and pushed down on Weiss' head— pushed with the heel of her palm, hard, until Weiss was forced to turn and press her cheek against the clean marble tiles of her childhood home. Her body, sore and burning, fell back down with her, but her thighs rubbed together desperately for some semblance of relief. Her hips twitched.
Ruby's hand moved to better press her girlfriend's face into the floor, as if she wanted to break her apart and smear her over the tiles. "I— I just— sometimes—" Ruby sucked in a breath. Her voice, her hand; she was quaking all over. Weiss could barely see her face in her peripheral: dark, conflicted, afraid, hungry. Her fingers clutched, painful and indicative. "You— you know?"
Yes. She did know. Weiss knew perfectly. She nodded.
Ruby's brows pinched, as if Weiss' understanding was a trouble. "I don't want to hurt you."
Weiss let her hands crawl up Ruby's arm, scratching and tugging. She said, "I do."
Ruby surged upon her, hand moving from head to jaw, fingers snatching beneath the curve of Weiss' jawline to pull her face to Ruby's. She kissed Weiss with intent to bruise, to harm, to split their lips and bleed onto each others' teeth. Weiss whimpered, hands flying up to grip Ruby's shirt, clawing and pulling with desperate futility. It hurt. She was sore, and when Ruby pulled her lip between her teeth she bit hard. Weiss cried out and grasped her. Her lip was returned after a long moment of agonizing pressure, and it tasted like blood. Ruby's eyes widened.
Ruby murmured, "I'm— sorry—"
But Weiss yanked her down by the collar and smashed their lips together, moaning into Ruby's mouth. Her hips twitched up towards her partner. Ruby's hand left her face, scratching down her neck, shoulder, arm, until it fell on the apex of her pelvis. She dug her nails into the fabric concealing Weiss' needy flesh. Weiss gasped, and Ruby silenced the sound with her tongue. So rarely did she plunge that muscle past Weiss' lips on her own, it made Weiss yelp in surprise.
"Quiet," Ruby hissed into her mouth. "We're in the middle of the hall."
Weiss bucked against her, one hand snapping down to grab the dolt's wrist and jam her hand between Weiss' legs. "You started it," Weiss tried to seethe, unable to speak past the tongue nearly in her throat. Ruby's fingers pressed against her, but Weiss was only emboldened; she daringly sucked Ruby's tongue, eliciting a noise that devolved into a sudden whimper when Weiss' teeth clamped down on it. Ruby darted back in shock.
"You started it," Weiss finally said, grinning, licking the blood off her bottom lip. Her Aura knit it back together as soon as Ruby was off her. "You don't want to get caught in a hall, don't do something in the hall."
Ruby's surprise melted into a horrid grin. "So you want me to stop?"
Weiss met her eyes with challenge. "I didn't say that."
Ruby laughed darkly. Weiss mocked her laugh, and got her face pushed back into the cold marble for her troubles. She bit her lip, wishing she could taste blood again, and rocked against the fingers that finally pressed between her legs.
"Hello?"
They froze.
Weiss had not seen Klein since he took their bags upon arrival. Of course now would be the time he found her again. By the sound of his voice and the light pooling around the distant corner, he was just about to round the bend and catch them in the throes of a Huntress' desperate passion.
There was a brief flash of red, a feeling of weightlessness, and Weiss suddenly found herself deposited elsewhere. Ruby's Semblance dissipated around them, red roses vanishing into the moonlit darkness of the hall just before the orange cone of a flashlight filled the space they'd been borderline fucking in. But now they were in a minor sidelong hall, a brief tunnel into the wall with two doors: one, an electrical closet, the other janitorial. A window across the hall gave them a perfect view of the shattered moon, gleaming down to light the dark corridor in rays of cool, gentle white.
One arm held Weiss around the waist, bracing her tight against Ruby's body. Ruby's other arm was up, her hand clasping Weiss' mouth shut and pulling her head back against Ruby's trapezius. It wasn't necessary, not at all, but it made Weiss want her savagely. She pushed her rear back against Ruby's front, ground up and down against her— not for relief, but for the sheer temptation that she felt shaking through Ruby's arms and fingertips. She pressed harder. Ruby breathed behind her. Ruby's nails dug into her cheek.
Klein Sieben, the squat master butler of Manor Schnee, passed in front of them. He stopped there, black flashlight in a hammer grip. He looked left, through the moonlit window. His head turned to the right.
In another flash of brilliant sanguine red, Weiss found herself stumbling back, arrested at the first foot of her leash just before she made a noisy impact against the wall behind her. Ruby clutched tightly to the lead, suspending her partner on her heels. Weiss' eyes flitted to the door. There was a crack at the bottom.
Weiss hissed under her breath, "You are cra—"
Ruby yanked her in for another searing kiss, hand surging forth to grab Weiss around the throat and silence her tags. Weiss deliquesced into Ruby's body with a sigh.
But after only a couple seconds of blissful, lip-splitting agony, Ruby snapped her head back with a wet pop. Weiss tried to chase, but Ruby's hand kept her at bay.
"'S a—" Ruby breathlessly slurred, her lips red and swollen. "Janitor's closet. We probably—" Weiss tried to seize on her again; she made some headway, jamming her lips into Ruby's for a few bruising moments before Ruby pushed her back again. "We probably shouldn't— not here."
Weiss huffed. "Why not?"
"Aren't you the germaphobe?" Ruby retorted, grinning with those plump lips that Weiss wanted on her again. "I don't even wanna know what kind of weird infections you can get by—"
Weiss surged back into her own psyche, sense splitting the thick fog of horniness like a ship through waves. She scrambled away from the wall with an 'eep!' careful to hold her hands up lest they touch a myriad of unfamiliar cleaning chemicals and unwashed cleaning tools. Ruby couldn't stop her, and was only caught in the wake of Weiss with her hand still tight on the girl's leash. When she tugged, Weiss overcorrected with force, dragging Ruby down first and giving her all the slack to spill face-first into the disgusting, dingy wooden door of the closet. Her hand fumbled for the handle on its own and found it almost by accident. They tumbled through the threshold, red and sweaty and panting still with unsatisfied arousal. Ruby collapsed atop Weiss' back, squeezing all the air out of her in a strange, whining wheeze.
Weiss squirmed to flip herself around, words on her lips: a verbal tongue-lashing to reprimand her partner for seducing her into such a filthy situ—
Blue eyes stared down at them. Blue eyes on a white face; a white face framed by white hair. Scroll in hand, the feed of a muted video call showed a woman with dark skin, darker stripes along both arms, a pair of fluffy ears atop her bedraggled black hair, and a red gem in the center of her forehead. She was naked, reclining casually on a bed, video game controller in hand. Weiss recognized the room— not the room, no, the comforter. An ancient memory buzzed like a chainsaw in her brain: Winter's comforter: thick and puffy and patterned in grey-blue stripes, the one that had disappeared from the manor when Winter left.
Winter's comforter on a bed that was probably Winter's, in a room that was probably Winter's, displayed on a phone that was definitely Winter's, held in a hand that was undeniably, catastrophically, apocalyptically Winter's.
Winter Schnee, High General of Atlas, stared down at her sister, as well as her sister's partner. The two girls were splayed atop each other, flushed red and panting, still wild in the eyes and clearly both ravished. Weiss had a collar on her neck, with dog tags— not the military kind— and a leash that led to Ruby's hand. She had kneepads covered in cute stickers, and white gloves padded for a purpose Winter was probably discerning as her eyes processed.
"Uh, hey!" said Ruby Rose, the dolt, the idiot, the stupidest girl to ever breathe air. She reached up to wave, and jerked Weiss up by the collar. Because she was trying to wave with the leash hand. Because she was an idiot. And she even had the gall to say, "Fancy seeing you here!"
Winter looked between them. Winter looked at her screen. Winter looked at them. Winter looked at her screen.
She walked forward. Her eyes did not leave the screen again.