Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sitting in Jaune’s shack, Ruby did everything she could to hold back the glare as she stared at Blake and her sister out of the corner of her eye. She knew she was being unfair, she was being crazy, but was it so wrong? Ruby was stuck with the stupid cat while also being reminded of how they’d—she’d failed Atlas.

While Blake and Yang were ‘forced’ into a fairy tale confession provided by this stupid, messed-up place, well, maybe the existence of a forced fairy tale confession was—Ruby stopped that train of thought before it could go any further. She knew better…

Even if she had been forced into the confessional, it wouldn’t have mattered. It wasn’t some magic love potion; it just forced them to admit what they hadn’t been. Daring another glance, Ruby held back the scoff at Blake staring into Yang’s eyes.

Yeah… if she were in there with Blake, they’d still be stuck. “Ruby?” pulled out of her spiralling thoughts, Ruby looked away to see Weiss sitting down next to her.

“Uh, yeah, what’s up, Weiss?” not willing to meet Weiss’s piercing gaze and yet not willing to look over at Blake and Yang, Ruby’s eyes simply sort of drifted across the small shack. But to her dismay, the object of her prior attention seemed shared by Weiss.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Weiss’s tone was sickly sweet as she looked to Blake and Yang, but when Ruby only gave a non-commital grunt in response, the heiress looked back at her, “Blake and Yang, I mean. The fact they finally got over themselves and figured it out.”

For a moment, Ruby considered looking over at them, if only to escape Weiss's intense gaze. But in the same moment she decided not to, she still wanted to escape Weiss’s stare, so Ruby found a random patch of wall to become enamoured with.

“Yeah. It’s great.” It took everything Ruby had to keep the venom out of her response. Not that it seemed Weiss noticed, no, the other girl just side-eyed Ruby with something she couldn't name in her eyes. And once she had answered Weiss, Ruby had no willingness to say anything more.

After a few moments of the cold shoulder, Weiss hesitantly reached out a hand, “Are you ok, Ruby? You feel…” lazily cocking an eyebrow, Ruby stared expectantly at Weiss. She didn’t know what the heiress had trailed off in trying to say, but she honestly couldn’t really bring herself to care.

When her worry seemed to just slide off of Ruby, Weiss gnawed on her lip before getting to her feet, “Alright, I’ll go see if Jaune needs any help.” Turning to leave, Weiss lingered for a moment, her head tilted as if to say something more. But without saying anything more, Weiss’s mouth set in a firm line and left.

Turning her head to follow Weiss’s departure, Ruby couldn’t help but get distracted once her gaze passed over Blake and Yan snuggling again. Scowling at the sight, Ruby jumped to her feet and left the house, leaving the direction opposite to the way Weiss went.

Taking a deep breath of the strange Ever After air, Ruby tried desperately to focus on anything other than the sight that still tormented her in her mind. There was no reason for her to be so focused on Blake and Yang.

It was her responsibility to get her team out of this strange place. Blake and Yang barely had the time to waste being all lovey-dovey; Ruby had even less time to waste on that sort of thing. So she just did what she always does, shove the feelings down as deep as she could and ignore them.

Staring out at the setting sun of the Ever After, Ruby let out a deep sigh. Blake and Yang were together, and they were happy. It didn’t matter how Ruby felt about it. Swallowing the thought with another deep breath of the sickly sweet air, Ruby slipped back inside the house, her mind resolute in her commitment to continue ignoring everything. 

No matter how much it hurt.